{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3909/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3909","id":"gutenberg_3909","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3909","summary":null,"tags":["Authors, French -- 18th century -- Biography","Category: Biographies","Category: French Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU\n(In 12 books)\n\nPrivately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society\n\nLondon, 1903\n\n\n\nBOOK IX.\n\n\nMy impatience to inhabit the Hermitage not permitting me to wait until\nthe return of fine weather, the moment my lodging was prepared I hastened\nto take possession of it, to the great amusement of the 'Coterie\nHolbachaque', which publicly predicted I should not be able to support\nsolitude for three months, and that I should unsuccessfully return to\nParis, and live there as they did.  For my part, having for fifteen years\nbeen out of my element, finding myself upon the eve of returning to it,\nI paid no attention to their pleasantries.  Since contrary to my\ninclinations, I have again entered the world, I have incessantly\nregretted my dear Charmettes, and the agreeable life I led there.  I felt\na natural inclination to retirement and the country: it was impossible\nfor me to live happily elsewhere.  At Venice, in the train of public\naffairs, in the dignity of a kind of representation, in the pride of\nprojects of advancement; at Paris, in the vortex of the great world, in\nthe luxury of suppers, in the brilliancy of spectacles, in the rays of\nsplendor; my groves, rivulets, and solitary walks, constantly presented\nthemselves to my recollection, interrupted my thought, rendered me\nmelancholy, and made me sigh with desire.  All the labor to which I had\nsubjected myself, every project of ambition which by fits had animated my\nardor, all had for object this happy country retirement, which I now\nthought near at hand.  Without having acquired a genteel independence,\nwhich I had judged to be the only means of accomplishing my views, I\nimagined myself, in my particular situation, to be able to do without it,\nand that I could obtain the same end by a means quite opposite.  I had no\nregular income; but I possessed some talents, and had acquired a name.\nMy wants were few, and I had freed myself from all those which were most\nexpensive, and which merely depended on prejudice and opinion.  Besides\nthis, although naturally indolent, I was laborious when I chose to be so.\nand my idleness was less that of an indolent man, than that of an\nindependent one who applies to business when it pleases him.\nMy profession of a copyist of music was neither splendid nor lucrative,\nbut it was certain.  The world gave me credit for the courage I had shown\nin making choice of it.  I might depend upon having sufficient employment\nto enable me to live.  Two thousand livres which remained of the produce\nof the 'Devin du Village', and my other writings, were a sum which kept\nme from being straitened, and several works I had upon the stocks\npromised me, without extorting money from the booksellers, supplies\nsufficient to enable me to work at my ease without exhausting myself,\neven by turning to advantage the leisure of my walks.  My little family,\nconsisting of three persons, all of whom were usefully employed, was not\nexpensive to support.  Finally, from my resources, proportioned to my\nwants and desires, I might reasonably expect a happy and permanent\nexistence, in that manner of life which my inclination had induced me to\nadopt.\n\nI might have taken the interested side of the question, and, instead of\nsubjecting my pen to copying, entirely devoted it to works which, from\nthe elevation to which I had soared, and at which I found myself capable\nof continuing, might have enabled me to live in the midst of abundance,\nnay, even of opulence, had I been the least disposed to join the\nmanoeuvres of an author to the care of publishing a good book.  But I\nfelt that writing for bread would soon have extinguished my genius, and\ndestroyed my talents, which were less in my pen than in my heart, and\nsolely proceeded from an elevated and noble manner of thinking, by which\nalone they could be cherished and preserved.  Nothing vigorous or great\ncan come from a pen totally venal.  Necessity, nay, even avarice,\nperhaps, would have made me write rather rapidly than well.  If the\ndesire of success had not led me into cabals, it might have made me\nendeavor to publish fewer true and useful works than those which might be\npleasing to the multitude; and instead of a distinguished author, which I\nmight possibly become, I should have been nothing more than a scribbler.\nNo: I have always felt that the profession of letters was illustrious in\nproportion as it was less a trade.  It is too difficult to think nobly\nwhen we think for a livelihood.  To be able to dare even to speak great\ntruths, an author must be independent of success.  I gave my books to the\npublic with a certainty of having written for the general good of\nmankind, without giving myself the least concern about what was to\nfollow.  If the work was thrown aside, so much the worse for such as did\nnot choose to profit by it.  Their approbation was not necessary to\nenable me to live, my profession was sufficient to maintain me had not my\nworks had a sale, for which reason alone they all sold.\n\nIt was on the ninth of August, 1756, that I left cities, never to reside\nin them again: for I do not call a residence the few days I afterwards\nremained in Paris, London, or other cities, always on the wing, or\ncontrary to my inclinations.  Madam d'Epinay came and took us all three\nin her coach; her farmer carted away my little baggage, and I was put\ninto possession the same day.  I found my little retreat simply\nfurnished, but neatly, and with some taste.  The hand which had lent its\naid in this furnishing rendered it inestimable in my eyes, and I thought\nit charming to be the guest of my female friend in a house I had made\nchoice of, and which she had caused to be built purposely for me.\n\nAlthough the weather was cold, and the ground lightly covered with snow,\nthe earth began to vegetate: violets and primroses already made their\nappearance, the trees began to bud, and the evening of my arrival was\ndistinguished by the song of the nightingale, which was heard almost\nunder my window, in a wood adjoining the house.  After a light sleep,\nforgetting when I awoke my change of abode, I still thought myself in the\nRue Grenelle, when suddenly this warbling made me give a start, and I\nexclaimed in my transport: \"At length, all my wishes are accomplished!\"\nThe first thing I did was to abandon myself to the impression of the\nrural objects with which I was surrounded.  Instead of beginning to set\nthings in order in my new habitation, I began by doing it for my walks,\nand there was not a path, a copse, a grove, nor a corner in the environs\nof my place of residence that I did not visit the next day.  The more I\nexamined this charming retreat, the more I found it to my wishes.  This\nsolitary, rather than savage, spot transported me in idea to the end of\nthe world.  It had striking beauties which are but seldom found near\ncities, and never, if suddenly transported thither, could any person have\nimagined himself within four leagues of Paris.\n\nAfter abandoning myself for a few days to this rural delirium, I began to\narrange my papers, and regulate my occupations.  I set apart, as I had\nalways done, my mornings to copying, and my afternoons to walking,\nprovided with my little paper book and a pencil, for never having been\nable to write and think at my ease except 'sub dio', I had no inclination\nto depart from this method, and I was persuaded the forest of\nMontmorency, which was almost at my door, would in future be my closet\nand study.  I had several works begun; these I cast my eye over.  My mind\nwas indeed fertile in great projects, but in the noise of the city the\nexecution of them had gone on but slowly.  I proposed to myself to use\nmore diligence when I should be less interrupted.  I am of opinion I have\nsufficiently fulfilled this intention; and for a man frequently ill,\noften at La Chevrette, at Epinay, at Raubonne, at the castle of\nMontmorency, at other times interrupted by the indolent and curious, and\nalways employed half the day in copying, if what I produced during the\nsix years I passed at the Hermitage and at Montmorency be considered, I\nam persuaded it will appear that if, in this interval, I lost my time, it\nwas not in idleness.\n\nOf the different works I had upon the stocks, that I had longest resolved\nin my mind which was most to my taste; to which I destined a certain\nportion of my life, and which, in my opinion, was to confirm the\nreputation I had acquired, was my 'Institutions Politiques.  I had,\nfourteen years before, when at Venice, where I had an opportunity of\nremarking the defects of that government so much boasted of, conceived\nthe first idea of them.  Since that time my views had become much more\nextended by the historical study of morality.  I had perceived everything\nto be radically connected with politics, and that, upon whatever\nprinciples these were founded, a people would never be more than that\nwhich the nature of the government made them; therefore the great\nquestion of the best government possible appeared to me to be reduced to\nthis: What is the nature of a government the most proper to form the most\nvirtuous and enlightened, the wisest and best people, taking the last\nepithet in its most extensive meaning?  I thought this question was much\nif not quite of the same nature with that which follows: What government\nis that which, by its nature, always maintains itself nearest to the\nlaws, or least deviates from the laws.  Hence, what is the law?  and a\nseries of questions of similar importance.  I perceived these led to\ngreat truths, useful to the happiness of mankind, but more especially to\nthat of my country, wherein, in the journey I had just made to it, I had\nnot found notions of laws and liberty either sufficiently just or clear.\nI had thought this indirect manner of communicating these to my\nfellow-citizens would be least mortifying to their pride, and might\nobtain me forgiveness for having seen a little further than themselves.\n\nAlthough I had already labored five or six years at the work, the\nprogress I had made in it was not considerable.  Writings of this kind\nrequire meditation, leisure and tranquillity.  I had besides written the\n'Institutions Politiques', as the expression is, 'en bonne fortune', and\nhad not communicated my project to any person; not even to Diderot.\nI was afraid it would be thought too daring for the age and country in\nwhich I wrote, and that the fears of my friends would restrain me from\ncarrying it into execution.\n\n     [It was more especially the wise severity of Duclos which inspired\n     me with this fear; as for Diderot, I know not by what means all my\n     conferences with him tended to make me more satirical than my\n     natural disposition inclined me to be.  This prevented me from\n     consulting him upon an undertaking, in which I wished to introduce\n     nothing but the force of reasoning without the least appearance of\n     ill humor or partiality.  The manner of this work may be judged of\n     by that of the 'Contrat Social', which is taken from it.]\n\nI did not yet know that it would be finished in time, and in such a\nmanner as to appear before my decease.  I wished fearlessly to give to my\nsubject everything it required; fully persuaded that not being of a\nsatirical turn, and never wishing to be personal, I should in equity\nalways be judged irreprehensible.  I undoubtedly wished fully to enjoy\nthe right of thinking which I had by birth; but still respecting the\ngovernment under which I lived, without ever disobeying its laws, and\nvery attentive not to violate the rights of persons, I would not from\nfear renounce its advantages.\n\nI confess, even that, as a stranger, and living in France, I found my\nsituation very favorable in daring to speak the truth; well knowing that\ncontinuing, as I was determined to do, not to print anything in the\nkingdom without permission, I was not obliged to give to any person in it\nan account of my maxims nor of their publication elsewhere.  I should\nhave been less independent even at Geneva, where, in whatever place my\nbooks might have been printed, the magistrate had a right to criticise\ntheir contents.  This consideration had greatly contributed to make me\nyield to the solicitations of Madam d'Epinay, and abandon the project of\nfixing my residence at Geneva.  I felt, as I have remarked in my Emilius,\nthat unless an author be a man of intrigue, when he wishes to render his\nworks really useful to any country whatsoever, he must compose them in\nsome other.\n\nWhat made me find my situation still more happy, was my being persuaded\nthat the government of France would, perhaps, without looking upon me\nwith a very favorable eye, make it a point to protect me, or at least not\nto disturb my tranquillity.  It appeared to me a stroke of simple, yet\ndexterous policy, to make a merit of tolerating that which there was no\nmeans of preventing; since, had I been driven from France, which was all\ngovernment had the right to do, my work would still have been written,\nand perhaps with less reserve; whereas if I were left undisturbed, the\nauthor remained to answer for what he wrote, and a prejudice, general\nthroughout all Europe, would be destroyed by acquiring the reputation of\nobserving a proper respect for the rights of persons.\n\nThey who, by the event, shall judge I was deceived, may perhaps be\ndeceived in their turn.  In the storm which has since broken over my\nhead, my books served as a pretence, but it was against my person that\nevery shaft was directed.  My persecutors gave themselves but little\nconcern about the author, but they wished to ruin Jean Jacques; and the\ngreatest evil they found in my writings was the honor they might possibly\ndo me.  Let us not encroach upon the future.  I do not know that this\nmystery, which is still one to me, will hereafter be cleared up to my\nreaders; but had my avowed principles been of a nature to bring upon me\nthe treatment I received, I should sooner have become their victim, since\nthe work in which these principles are manifested with most courage, not\nto call it audacity, seemed to have had its effect previous to my retreat\nto the Hermitage, without I will not only say my having received the\nleast censure, but without any steps having been taken to prevent the\npublication of it in France, where it was sold as publicly as in Holland.\nThe New Eloisa afterwards appeared with the same facility, I dare add;\nwith the same applause: and, what seems incredible, the profession of\nfaith of this Eloisa at the point of death is exactly similar to that of\nthe Savoyard vicar.  Every strong idea in the Social Contract had been\nbefore published in the discourse on Inequality; and every bold opinion\nin Emilius previously found in Eloisa.  This unrestrained freedom did not\nexcite the least murmur against the first two works; therefore it was not\nthat which gave cause to it against the latter.\n\nAnother undertaking much of the same kind, but of which the project was\nmore recent, then engaged my attention: this was the extract of the works\nof the Abbe de Saint Pierre, of which, having been led away by the thread\nof my narrative, I have not hitherto been able to speak.  The idea was\nsuggested to me, after my return from Geneva, by the Abbe Malby, not\nimmediately from himself, but by the interposition of Madam Dupin, who\nhad some interest in engaging me to adopt it.  She was one of the three\nor four-pretty women of Paris, of whom the Abbe de Saint Pierre had been\nthe spoiled child, and although she had not decidedly had the preference,\nshe had at least partaken of it with Madam d'Aiguillon.  She preserved\nfor the memory of the good man a respect and an affection which did honor\nto them both; and her self-love would have been flattered by seeing the\nstill-born works of her friend brought to life by her secretary.  These\nworks contained excellent things, but so badly told that the reading of\nthem was almost insupportable; and it is astonishing the Abbe de Saint\nPierre, who looked upon his readers as schoolboys, should nevertheless\nhave spoken to them as men, by the little care he took to induce them to\ngive him a hearing.  It was for this purpose that the work was proposed\nto me as useful in itself, and very proper for a man laborious in\nmanoeuvre, but idle as an author, who finding the trouble of thinking\nvery fatiguing, preferred, in things which pleased him, throwing a light\nupon and extending the ideas of others, to producing any himself.\nBesides, not being confined to the functions of a translator, I was at\nliberty sometimes to think for myself; and I had it in my power to give\nsuch a form to my work, that many important truths would pass in it under\nthe name of the Abbe de Saint Pierre, much more safely than under mine.\nThe undertaking also was not trifling; the business was nothing less than\nto read and meditate twenty-three volumes, diffuse, confused, full of\nlong narrations and periods, repetitions, and false or little views, from\namongst which it was necessary to select some few that were good and\nuseful, and sufficiently encouraging to enable me to support the painful\nlabor.  I frequently wished to have given it up, and should have done so,\ncould I have got it off my hands with a great grace; but when I received\nthe manuscripts of the abbe, which were given to me by his nephew, the\nComte de Saint Pierre, I had, by the solicitation of St. Lambert, in some\nmeasure engaged to make use of them, which I must either have done, or\nhave given them back.  It was with the former intention I had taken the\nmanuscripts to the Hermitage, and this was the first work to which I\nproposed to dedicate my leisure hours.\n\nI had likewise in my own mind projected a third, the idea of which I owed\nto the observations I had made upon myself and I felt the more disposed\nto undertake this work, as I had reason to hope I could make it a truly\nuseful one, and perhaps, the most so of any that could be offered to the\nworld, were the execution equal to the plan I had laid down.  It has been\nremarked that most men are in the course of their lives frequently unlike\nthemselves, and seem to be transformed into others very different from\nwhat they were.  It was not to establish a thing so generally known that\nI wished to write a book; I had a newer and more important object.  This\nwas to search for the causes of these variations, and, by confining my\nobservations to those which depend on ourselves, to demonstrate in what\nmanner it might be possible to direct them, in order to render us better\nand more certain of our dispositions.  For it is undoubtedly more painful\nto an honest man to resist desires already formed, and which it is his\nduty to subdue, than to prevent, change, or modify the same desires in\ntheir source, were he capable of tracing them to it.  A man under\ntemptation resists once because he has strength of mind, he yields\nanother time because this is overcome; had it been the same as before he\nwould again have triumphed.\n\nBy examining within myself, and searching in others what could be the\ncause of these different manners of being, I discovered that, in a great\nmeasure they depended on the anterior impressions of external objects;\nand that, continually modified by our senses and organs, we, without\nknowing it, bore in our ideas, sentiments, and even actions, the effect\nof these modifications.  The striking and numerous observations I had\ncollected were beyond all manner of dispute, and by their natural\nprinciple seemed proper to furnish an exterior regimen, which varied\naccording to circumstances, might place and support the mind in the state\nmost favorable to virtue.  From how many mistakes would reason be\npreserved, how many vices would be stifled in their birth, were it\npossible to force animal economy to favor moral order, which it so\nfrequently disturbs!  Climate, seasons, sounds, colors, light, darkness,\nthe elements, ailments, noise, silence, motion, rest, all act on the\nanimal machine, and consequently on the mind: all offer a thousand means,\nalmost certain of directing in their origin the sentiments by which we\nsuffer ourselves to be governed.  Such was the fundamental idea of which\nI had already made a sketch upon paper, and whence I hoped for an effect\nthe more certain, in favor of persons well disposed, who, sincerely\nloving virtue, were afraid of their own weakness, as it appeared to me\neasy to make of it a book as agreeable to read as it was to compose.\nI have, however, applied myself but very little to this work, the title\nof which was to have been 'Morale Sensitive' ou le Materialisme du Sage.\n--[Sensitive Morality, or the Materialism of the Sage.]--Interruptions,\nthe cause of which will soon appear, prevented me from continuing it, and\nthe fate of the sketch, which is more connected with my own than it may\nappear to be, will hereafter be seen.\n\nBesides this, I had for some time meditated a system of education, of\nwhich Madam de Chenonceaux, alarmed for her son by that of her husband,\nhad desired me to consider.  The authority of friendship placed this\nobject, although less in itself to my taste, nearer to my heart than any\nother.  On which account this subject, of all those of which I have just\nspoken, is the only one I carried to its utmost extent.  The end I\nproposed to myself in treating of it should, I think, have procured the\nauthor a better fate.  But I will not here anticipate this melancholy\nsubject.  I shall have too much reason to speak of it in the course of my\nwork.\n\nThese different objects offered me subjects of meditation for my walks;\nfor, as I believed I had already observed, I am unable to reflect when I\nam not walking: the moment I stop, I think no more, and as soon as I am\nagain in motion my head resumes its workings.  I had, however, provided\nmyself with a work for the closet upon rainy days.  This was my\ndictionary of music, which my scattered, mutilated, and unshapen\nmaterials made it necessary to rewrite almost entirely.  I had with me\nsome books necessary to this purpose; I had spent two months in making\nextracts from others, I had borrowed from the king's library, whence I\nwas permitted to take several to the Hermitage.  I was thus provided with\nmaterials for composing in my apartment when the weather did not permit\nme to go out, and my copying fatigued me.  This arrangement was so\nconvenient that it made it turn to advantage as well at the Hermitage as\nat Montmorency, and afterwards even at Motiers, where I completed the\nwork whilst I was engaged in others, and constantly found a change of\noccupation to be a real relaxation.\n\nDuring a considerable time I exactly followed the distribution I had\nprescribed myself, and found it very agreeable; but as soon as the fine\nweather brought Madam d'Epinay more frequently to Epinay, or to the\nChervette, I found that attentions, in the first instance natural to me,\nbut which I had not considered in my scheme, considerably deranged my\nprojects.  I have already observed that Madam d'Epinay had many amiable\nqualities; she sincerely loved her friends; served them with zeal; and,\nnot sparing for them either time or pains, certainly deserved on their\npart every attention in return.  I had hitherto discharged this duty\nwithout considering it as one, but at length I found that I had given\nmyself a chain of which nothing but friendship prevented me from feeling\nthe weight, and this was still aggravated by my dislike to numerous\nsocieties.  Madam d' Epinay took advantage of these circumstances to make\nme a proposition seemingly agreeable to me, but which was more so to\nherself; this was to let me know when she was alone, or had but little\ncompany.  I consented, without perceiving to what a degree I engaged\nmyself.  The consequence was that I no longer visited her at my own hour\n--but at hers, and that I never was certain of being master of myself for\na day together.  This constraint considerably diminished the pleasure\nI had in going to see her.  I found the liberty she had so frequently\npromised was given me upon no other condition than that of my never\nenjoying it; and once or twice when I wished to do this there were so\nmany messages, notes, and alarms relative to my health, that I perceived\nthat I could have no excuse but being confined to my bed, for not\nimmediately running to her upon the first intimation.  It was necessary\nI should submit to this yoke, and I did it, even more voluntarily than\ncould be expected from so great an enemy to dependence: the sincere\nattachment I had to Madam D'Epinay preventing me, in a great measure,\nfrom feeling the inconvenience with which it was accompanied.  She,\non her part, filled up, well or ill, the void which the absence of her\nusual circle left in her amusements.  This for her was but a very slender\nsupplement, although preferable to absolute solitude, which she could not\nsupport.  She had the means of doing it much more at her ease after she\nbegan with literature, and at all events to write novels, letters,\ncomedies, tales, and other trash of the same kind.  But she was not so\nmuch amused in writing these as in reading them; and she never scribbled\nover two or three pages--at one sitting--without being previously assured\nof having, at least, two or three benevolent auditors at the end of so\nmuch labor.  I seldom had the honor of being one of the chosen few except\nby means of another.  When alone, I was, for the most part, considered as\na cipher in everything; and this not only in the company of Madam\nD'Epinay, but in that of M. d'Holbach, and in every place where Grimm\ngave the 'ton'.  This nullity was very convenient to me, except in a\ntete-a-tete, when I knew not what countenance to put on, not daring to\nspeak of literature, of which it was not for me to say a word; nor of\ngallantry, being too timid, and fearing, more than death, the\nridiculousness of an old gallant; besides that, I never had such an idea\nwhen in the company of Madam D'Epinay, and that it perhaps would never\nhave occurred to me, had I passed my whole life with her; not that her\nperson was in the least disagreeable to me; on the contrary, I loved her\nperhaps too much as a friend to do it as a lover.  I felt a pleasure in\nseeing and speaking to her.  Her conversation, although agreeable enough\nin a mixed company,  was uninteresting in private; mine, not more elegant\nor entertaining than her own, was no great amusement to her.  Ashamed of\nbeing long silent,  I endeavored to enliven our tete-a-tete and, although\nthis frequently fatigued me, I was never disgusted with it.  I was happy\nto show her little attentions, and gave her little fraternal kisses,\nwhich seemed not to be more sensual to herself; these were all.  She was\nvery thin, very pale, and had a bosom which resembled the back of her hand.\nThis defect alone would have been sufficient to moderate my most ardent\ndesires; my heart never could distinguish a woman in a person who had it;\nand besides other causes useless to mention, always made me forget the sex\nof this lady.\n\nHaving resolved to conform to an assiduity which was necessary,\nI immediately and voluntarily entered upon it, and for the first year at\nleast, found it less burthensome than I could have expected.  Madam\nd'Epinay, who commonly passed the summer in the country, continued there\nbut a part of this; whether she was more detained by her affairs in\nParis, or that the absence of Grimm rendered the residence of the\nChevrette less agreeable to her, I know not.  I took the advantage of\nthe intervals of her absence, or when the company with her was numerous,\nto enjoy my solitude with my good Theresa and her mother, in such a\nmanner as to taste all its charms.  Although I had for several years\npassed been frequently in the country, I seldom had enjoyed much of its\npleasures; and these excursions, always made in company with people who\nconsidered themselves as persons of consequence, and rendered insipid by\nconstraint, served to increase in me the natural desire I had for rustic\npleasures.  The want of these was the more sensible to me as I had the\nimage of them immediately before my eyes.  I was so tired of saloons,\njets d'eau, groves, parterres, and of more fatiguing persons by whom they\nwere shown; so exhausted with pamphlets, harpsichords, trios,\nunravellings of plots, stupid bon mots, insipid affections, pitiful\nstorytellers, and great suppers; that when I gave a side glance at a poor\nsimple hawthorn bush, a hedge, a barn, or a meadow; when, in passing\nthrough a hamlet, I scented a good chervil omelette, and heard at a\ndistance the burden of a rustic song of the Bisquieres; I wished all\nrouge, furbelows and amber at the d---l, and envying the dinner of the\ngood housewife, and the wine of her own vineyard, I heartily wished to\ngive a slap on the chaps to Monsieur le Chef and Monsieur le Maitre, who\nmade me dine at the hour of supper, and sup when I should have been\nasleep, but especially to Messieurs the lackeys, who devoured with their\neyes the morsel I put into my mouth, and upon pain of my dying with\nthirst, sold me the adulterated wine of their master, ten times dearer\nthan that of a better quality would have cost me at a public house.\n\nAt length I was settled in an agreeable and solitary asylum, at liberty\nto pass there the remainder of my days, in that peaceful, equal, and\nindependent life for which I felt myself born.  Before I relate the\neffects this situation, so new to me, had upon my heart, it is proper I\nshould recapitulate its secret affections, that the reader may better\nfollow in their causes the progress of these new modifications.\n\nI have always considered the day on which I was united to Theresa as that\nwhich fixed my moral existence.  An attachment was necessary for me,\nsince that which should have been sufficient to my heart had been so\ncruelly broken.  The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the\nheart of man.  Mamma was advancing into years, and dishonored herself!\nI had proofs that she could never more be happy here below; it therefore\nremained to me to seek my own happiness, having lost all hopes of\npartaking of hers.  I was sometimes irresolute, and fluctuated from one\nidea to another, and from project to project.  My journey to Venice would\nhave thrown me into public life, had the man with whom, almost against my\ninclination, I was connected there had common sense.  I was easily\ndiscouraged, especially in undertakings of length and difficulty.  The\nill success of this disgusted me with every other; and, according to my\nold maxims, considering distant objects as deceitful allurements, I\nresolved in future to provide for immediate wants, seeing nothing in life\nwhich could tempt me to make extraordinary efforts.\n\nIt was precisely at this time we became acquainted.  The mild character\nof the good Theresa seemed so fitted to my own, that I united myself to\nher with an attachment which neither time nor injuries have been able to\nimpair, and which has constantly been increased by everything by which it\nmight have been expected to be diminished.  The force of this sentiment\nwill hereafter appear when I come to speak of the wounds she has given my\nheart in the height of my misery, without my ever having, until this\nmoment, once uttered a word of complaint to any person whatever.\n\nWhen it shall be known, that after having done everything, braved\neverything, not to separate from her; that after passing with her twenty\nyears in despite of fate and men; I have in my old age made her my wife,\nwithout the least expectation or solicitation on her part, or promise or\nengagement on mine, the world will think that love bordering upon\nmadness, having from the first moment turned my head, led me by degrees\nto the last act of extravagance; and this will no longer appear doubtful\nwhen the strong and particular reasons which should forever have\nprevented me from taking such a step are made known.  What, therefore,\nwill the reader think when I shall have told him, with all the truth he\nhas ever found in me, that, from the first moment in which I saw her,\nuntil that wherein I write, I have never felt the least love for her,\nthat I never desired to possess her more than I did to possess Madam de\nWarrens, and that the physical wants which were satisfied with her person\nwere, to me, solely those of the sex, and by no means proceeding from the\nindividual?  He will think that, being of a constitution different from\nthat of other men, I was incapable of love, since this was not one of the\nsentiments which attached me to women the most dear to my heart.\nPatience, O my dear reader!  the fatal moment approaches in which you\nwill be but too much undeceived.\n\nI fall into repetitions; I know it; and these are necessary.  The first\nof my wants, the greatest, strongest and most insatiable, was wholly in\nmy heart; the want of an intimate connection, and as intimate as it could\npossibly be: for this reason especially, a woman was more necessary to me\nthan a man, a female rather than a male friend.  This singular want was\nsuch that the closest corporal union was not sufficient: two souls would\nhave been necessary to me in the same body, without which I always felt a\nvoid.  I thought I was upon the point of filling it up forever.  This\nyoung person, amiable by a thousand excellent qualities, and at that time\nby her form, without the shadow of art or coquetry, would have confined\nwithin herself my whole existence, could hers, as I had hoped it would,\nhave been totally confined to me.  I had nothing to fear from men; I am\ncertain of being the only man she ever really loved and her moderate\npassions seldom wanted another not even after I ceased in this respect to\nbe one to her.  I had no family; she had one; and this family was\ncomposed of individuals whose dispositions were so different from mine,\nthat I could never make it my own.  This was the first cause of my\nunhappiness.  What would I not have given to be the child of her mother?\nI did everything in my power to become so, but could never succeed.\nI in vain attempted to unite all our interests: this was impossible.\nShe always created herself one different from mine, contrary to it, and\nto that even of her daughter, which already was no longer separated from\nit.  She, her other children, and grand-children, became so many leeches,\nand the least evil these did to Theresa was robbing her.  The poor girl,\naccustomed to submit, even to her nieces, suffered herself to be pilfered\nand governed without saying a word; and I perceived with grief that by\nexhausting my purse, and giving her advice, I did nothing that could be\nof any real advantage to her.  I endeavored to detach her from her\nmother; but she constantly resisted such a proposal.  I could not but\nrespect her resistance, and esteemed her the more for it; but her refusal\nwas not on this account less to the prejudice of us both.  Abandoned to\nher mother and the rest of her family, she was more their companion than\nmine, and rather at their command than mistress of herself.  Their\navarice was less ruinous than their advice was pernicious to her; in\nfact, if, on account of the love she had for me, added to her good\nnatural disposition, she was not quite their slave, she was enough so to\nprevent in a great measure the effect of the good maxims I endeavored to\ninstil into her, and, notwithstanding all my efforts, to prevent our\nbeing united.\n\nThus was it, that notwithstanding a sincere and reciprocal attachment,\nin which I had lavished all the tenderness of my heart, the void in that\nheart was never completely filled.  Children, by whom this effect should\nhave been produced, were brought into the world, but these only made\nthings worse.  I trembled at the thought of intrusting them to a family\nill brought up, to be still worse educated.  The risk of the education of\nthe foundling hospital was much less.  This reason for the resolution I\ntook, much stronger than all those I stated in my letter to Madam de\nFrancueil, was, however, the only one with which I dared not make her\nacquainted; I chose rather to appear less excusable than to expose to\nreproach the family of a person I loved.  But by the conduct of her\nwretched brother, notwithstanding all that can be said in his defence,\nit will be judged whether or not I ought to have exposed my children to\nan education similar to his.\n\nNot having it in my power to taste in all its plentitude the charms of\nthat intimate connection of which I felt the want, I sought for\nsubstitutes which did not fill up the void, yet they made it less\nsensible.  Not having a friend entirely devoted to me, I wanted others,\nwhose impulse should overcome my indolence; for this reason I cultivated\nand strengthened my connection with Diderot and the Abbe de Condillac,\nformed with Grimm a new one still more intimate, till at length by the\nunfortunate discourse, of which I have related some particulars,\nI unexpectedly found myself thrown back into a literary circle which\nI thought I had quitted forever.\n\nMy first steps conducted me by a new path to another intellectual world,\nthe simple and noble economy of which I cannot contemplate without\nenthusiasm.  I reflected so much on the subject that I soon saw nothing\nbut error and folly in the doctrine of our sages, and oppression and\nmisery in our social order.  In the illusion of my foolish pride,\nI thought myself capable of destroying all imposture; and thinking that,\nto make myself listened to, it was necessary my conduct should agree with\nmy principles, I adopted the singular manner of life which I have not\nbeen permitted to continue, the example of which my pretended friends\nhave never forgiven me, which at first made me ridiculous, and would at\nlength have rendered me respectable, had it been possible for me to\npersevere.\n\nUntil then I had been good; from that moment I became virtuous, or at\nleast infatuated with virtue.  This infatuation had begun in my head, but\nafterwards passed into my heart.  The most noble pride there took root\namongst the ruins of extirpated vanity.  I affected nothing; I became\nwhat I appeared to be, and during four years at least, whilst this\neffervescence continued at its greatest height, there is nothing great\nand good that can enter the heart of man, of which I was not capable\nbetween heaven and myself.  Hence flowed my sudden eloquence; hence, in\nmy first writings, that fire really celestial, which consumed me, and\nwhence during forty years not a single spark had escaped, because it was\nnot yet lighted up.\n\nI was really transformed; my friends and acquaintance scarcely knew me.\nI was no longer that timid, and rather bashful than modest man, who\nneither dared to present himself, nor utter a word; whom a single\npleasantry disconcerted, and whose face was covered with a blush the\nmoment his eyes met those of a woman.  I became bold, haughty, intrepid,\nwith a confidence the more firm, as it was simple, and resided in my soul\nrather than in my manner.  The contempt with which my profound\nmeditations had inspired me for the manners, maxims and prejudices of the\nage in which I lived, rendered me proof against the raillery of those by\nwhom they were possessed, and I crushed their little pleasantries with a\nsentence, as I would have crushed an insect with my fingers.\n\nWhat a change!  All Paris repeated the severe and acute sarcasms of the\nsame man who, two years before, and ten years afterwards, knew not how to\nfind what he had to say, nor the word he ought to employ.  Let the\nsituation in the world the most contrary to my natural disposition be\nsought after, and this will be found.  Let one of the short moments of my\nlife in which I became another man, and ceased to be myself, be\nrecollected, this also will be found in the time of which I speak; but,\ninstead of continuing only six days, or six weeks, it lasted almost six\nyears, and would perhaps still continue, but for the particular\ncircumstances which caused it to cease, and restored me to nature, above\nwhich I had, wished to soar.\n\nThe beginning of this change took place as soon as I had quitted Paris,\nand the sight of the vices of that city no longer kept up the indignation\nwith which it had inspired me.  I no sooner had lost sight of men than I\nceased to despise them, and once removed from those who designed me evil,\nmy hatred against them no longer existed.  My heart, little fitted for\nhatred, pitied their misery, and even their wickedness.  This situation,\nmore pleasing but less sublime, soon allayed the ardent enthusiasm by\nwhich I had so long been transported; and I insensibly, almost to myself\neven, again became fearful, complaisant and timid; in a word, the same\nJean Jacques I before had been.\n\nHad this resolution gone no further than restoring me to myself, all\nwould have been well; but unfortunately it rapidly carried me away to the\nother extreme.  From that moment my mind in agitation passed the line of\nrepose, and its oscillations, continually renewed, have never permitted\nit to remain here.  I must enter into some detail of this second\nrevolution; terrible and fatal era, of a fate unparalleled amongst\nmortals.\n\nWe were but three persons in our retirement; it was therefore natural our\nintimacy should be increased by leisure and solitude.  This was the case\nbetween Theresa and myself.  We passed in conversations in the shade the\nmost charming and delightful hours, more so than any I had hitherto\nenjoyed.  She seemed to taste of this sweet intercourse more than I had\nuntil then observed her to do; she opened her heart, and communicated to\nme, relative to her mother and family, things she had had resolution\nenough to conceal for a great length of time.  Both had received from\nMadam Dupin numerous presents, made them on my account, and mostly for\nme, but which the cunning old woman, to prevent my being angry, had\nappropriated to her own use and that of her other children, without\nsuffering Theresa to have the least share, strongly forbidding her to say\na word to me of the matter: an order the poor girl had obeyed with an\nincredible exactness.\n\nBut another thing which surprised me more than this had done, was the\ndiscovery that besides the private conversations Diderot and Grimm had\nfrequently had with both to endeavor to detach them from me, in which,\nby means of the resistance of Theresa, they had not been able to succeed,\nthey had afterwards had frequent conferences with the mother, the subject\nof which was a secret to the daughter.  However, she knew little presents\nhad been made, and that there were mysterious goings backward and\nforward, the motive of which was entirely unknown to her.  When we left\nParis, Madam le Vasseur had long been in the habit of going to see Grimm\ntwice or thrice a month, and continuing with him for hours together, in\nconversation so secret that the servant was always sent out of the room.\n\nI judged this motive to be of the same nature with the project into which\nthey had attempted to make the daughter enter, by promising to procure\nher and her mother, by means of Madam d'Epinay, a salt huckster's\nlicense, or snuff-shop; in a word, by tempting her with the allurements\nof gain.  They had been told that, as I was not in a situation to do\nanything for them, I could not, on their account, do anything for myself.\nAs in all this I saw nothing but good intentions, I was not absolutely\ndispleased with them for it.  The mystery was the only thing which gave\nme pain, especially on the part of the old woman, who moreover daily\nbecame more parasitical and flattering towards me.  This, however, did\nnot prevent her from reproaching her daughter in private with telling me\neverything, and loving me too much, observing to her she was a fool and\nwould at length be made a dupe.\n\nThis woman possessed, to a supreme degree, the art of multiplying the\npresents made her, by concealing from one what she received from another,\nand from me what she received from all.  I could have pardoned her\navarice, but it was impossible I should forgive her dissimulation.  What\ncould she have to conceal from me whose happiness she knew principally\nconsisted in that of herself and her daughter?  What I had done for the\ndaughter I had done for myself, but the services I rendered the mother\nmerited on her part some acknowledgment.  She ought, at least, to have\nthought herself obliged for them to her daughter, and to have loved me\nfor the sake of her by whom I was already beloved.  I had raised her from\nthe lowest state of wretchedness; she received from my hands the means of\nsubsistence, and was indebted to me for her acquaintance with the persons\nfrom whom she found means to reap considerable benefit.  Theresa had long\nsupported her by her industry, and now maintained her with my bread.\nShe owed everything to this daughter, for whom she had done nothing, and\nher other children, to whom she had given marriage portions, and on whose\naccount she had ruined herself, far from giving her the least aid,\ndevoured her substance and mine.  I thought that in such a situation she\nought to consider me as her only friend and most sure protector, and\nthat, far from making of my own affairs a secret to me, and conspiring\nagainst me in my house, it was her duty faithfully to acquaint me with\neverything in which I was interested, when this came to her knowledge\nbefore it did to mine.  In what light, therefore, could I consider her\nfalse and mysterious conduct?  What could I think of the sentiments with\nwhich she endeavored to inspire her daughter?  What monstrous ingratitude\nwas hers, to endeavor to instil it into her from whom I expected my\ngreatest consolation?\n\nThese reflections at length alienated my affections from this woman, and\nto such a degree that I could no longer look upon her but with contempt.\nI nevertheless continued to treat with respect the mother of the friend\nof my bosom, and in everything to show her almost the reverence of a son;\nbut I must confess I could not remain long with her without pain, and\nthat I never knew how to bear restraint.\n\nThis is another short moment of my life, in which I approached near to\nhappiness without being able to attain it, and this by no fault of my\nown.  Had the mother been of a good disposition we all three should have\nbeen happy to the end of our days; the longest liver only would have been\nto be pitied.  Instead of which, the reader will see the course things\ntook, and judge whether or not it was in my power to change it.\n\nMadam le Vasseur, who perceived I had got more full possession of the\nheart of Theresa, and that she had lost ground with her, endeavored to\nregain it; and instead of striving to restore herself to my good opinion\nby the mediation of her daughter attempted to alienate her affections\nfrom me.  One of the means she employed was to call her family to her\naid.  I had begged Theresa not to invite any of her relations to the\nHermitage, and she had promised me she would not.  These were sent for in\nmy absence, without consulting her, and she was afterwards prevailed upon\nto promise not to say anything of the matter.  After the first step was\ntaken all the rest were easy.  When once we make a secret of anything to\nthe person we love, we soon make little scruple of doing it in\neverything; the moment I was at the Chevrette the Hermitage was full of\npeople who sufficiently amused themselves.  A mother has always great\npower over a daughter of a mild disposition; yet notwithstanding all the\nold woman could do, she was never able to prevail upon Theresa to enter\ninto her views, nor to persuade her to join in the league against me.\nFor her part, she resolved upon doing it forever, and seeing on one side\nher daughter and myself, who were in a situation to live, and that was\nall; on the other, Diderot, Grimm, D' Holbach and Madam d'Epinay, who\npromised great things, and gave some little ones, she could not conceive\nit was possible to be in the wrong with the wife of a farmer-general and\nbaron.  Had I been more clear sighted, I should from this moment have\nperceived I nourished a serpent in my bosom.  But my blind confidence,\nwhich nothing had yet diminished, was such that I could not imagine she\nwished to injure the person she ought to love.  Though I saw numerous\nconspiracies formed on every side, all I complain of was the tyranny of\npersons who called themselves my friends, and who, as it seemed, would\nforce me to be happy in the manner they should point out, and not in that\nI had chosen for myself.\n\nAlthough Theresa refused to join in the confederacy with her mother, she\nafterwards kept her secret.  For this her motive was commendable,\nalthough I will not determine whether she did it well or ill.  Two women,\nwho have secrets between them, love to prattle together; this attracted\nthem towards each other, and Theresa, by dividing herself, sometimes let\nme feel I was alone; for I could no longer consider as a society that\nwhich we all three formed.\n\nI now felt the neglect I had been guilty of during the first years of our\nconnection, in not taking advantage of the docility with which her love\ninspired her, to improve her talents and give her knowledge, which, by\nmore closely connecting us in our retirement would agreeably have filled\nup her time and my own, without once suffering us to perceive the length\nof a private conversation.  Not that this was ever exhausted between us,\nor that she seemed disgusted with our walks; but we had not a sufficient\nnumber of ideas common to both to make ourselves a great store, and we\ncould not incessantly talk of our future projects which were confined to\nthose of enjoying the pleasures of life.  The objects around us inspired\nme with reflections beyond the reach of her comprehension.  An attachment\nof twelve years' standing had no longer need of words: we were too well\nacquainted with each other to have any new knowledge to acquire in that\nrespect.  The resource of puns, jests, gossiping and scandal, was all\nthat remained.  In solitude especially is it, that the advantage of\nliving with a person who knows how to think is particularly felt.  I\nwanted not this resource to amuse myself with her; but she would have\nstood in need of it to have always found amusement with me.  The worst of\nall was our being obliged to hold our conversations when we could; her\nmother, who become importunate, obliged me to watch for opportunities to\ndo it.  I was under constraint in my own house: this is saying\neverything; the air of love was prejudicial to good friendship.  We had\nan intimate intercourse without living in intimacy.\n\nThe moment I thought I perceived that Theresa sometimes sought for a\npretext to elude the walks I proposed to her, I ceased to invite her to\naccompany me, without being displeased with her for not finding in them\nso much amusement as I did.  Pleasure is not a thing which depends upon\nthe will.  I was sure of her heart, and the possession of this was all I\ndesired.  As long as my pleasures were hers, I tasted of them with her;\nwhen this ceased to be the case I preferred her contentment to my own.\n\nIn this manner it was that, half deceived in my expectation, leading a\nlife after my own heart, in a residence I had chosen with a person who\nwas dear to me, I at length found myself almost alone.  What I still\nwanted prevented me from enjoying what I had.  With respect to happiness\nand enjoyment, everything or nothing, was what was necessary to me.  The\nreason of these observations will hereafter appear.  At present I return\nto the thread of my narrative.\n\nI imagined that I possessed treasures in the manuscripts given me by the\nComte de St.  Pierre.  On examination I found they were a little more\nthan the collection of the printed works of his uncle, with notes and\ncorrections by his own hand, and a few other trifling fragments which had\nnot yet been published.  I confirmed myself by these moral writings in\nthe idea I had conceived from some of his letters, shown me by Madam de\nCrequi, that he had more sense and ingenuity than at first I had\nimagined; but after a careful examination of his political works,\nI discerned nothing but superficial notions, and projects that were\nuseful but impracticable, in consequence of the idea from which the\nauthor never could depart, that men conducted themselves by their\nsagacity rather than by their passions.  The high opinion he had of the\nknowledge of the moderns had made him adopt this false principle of\nimproved reason, the basis of all the institutions he proposed, and the\nsource of his political sophisms.  This extraordinary man, an honor to\nthe age in which he lived, and to the human species, and perhaps the only\nperson, since the creation of mankind, whose sole passion was that of\nreason, wandered in all his systems from error to error, by attempting to\nmake men like himself, instead of taking them as they were, are, and will\ncontinue to be.  He labored for imaginary beings, while he thought\nhimself employed for the benefit of his contemporaries.\n\nAll these things considered, I was rather embarrassed as to the form I\nshould give to my work.  To suffer the author's visions to pass was doing\nnothing useful; fully to refute them would have been unpolite, as the\ncare of revising and publishing his manuscripts, which I had accepted,\nand even requested, had been intrusted to me; this trust had imposed on\nme the obligation of treating the author honorably.  I at length\nconcluded upon that which to me appeared the most decent, judicious, and\nuseful.  This was to give separately my own ideas and those of the\nauthor, and, for this purpose, to enter into his views, to set them in a\nnew light, to amplify, extend them, and spare nothing which might\ncontribute to present them in all their excellence.\n\nMy work therefore was to be composed of two parts absolutely distinct:\none, to explain, in the manner I have just mentioned, the different\nprojects of the author; in the other, which was not to appear until the\nfirst had had its effect, I should have given my opinion upon these\nprojects, which I confess might sometimes have exposed them to the fate\nof the sonnet of the misanthrope.  At the head of the whole was to have\nbeen the life of the author.  For this I had collected some good\nmaterials, and which I flattered myself I should not spoil in making use\nof them.  I had been a little acquainted with the Abbe de St. Pierre, in\nhis old age, and the veneration I had for his memory warranted to me,\nupon the whole, that the comte would not be dissatisfied with the manner\nin which I should have treated his relation.\n\nI made my first essay on the 'Perpetual Peace', the greatest and most\nelaborate of all the works which composed the collection; and before I\nabandoned myself to my reflections I had the courage to read everything\nthe abbe had written upon this fine subject, without once suffering\nmyself to be disgusted either by his slowness or his repetitions.  The\npublic has seen the extract, on which account I have nothing to say upon\nthe subject.  My opinion of it has not been printed, nor do I know that\nit ever will be; however, it was written at the same time the extract was\nmade.  From this I passed to the 'Polysynodie', or Plurality of Councils,\na work written under the regent to favor the administration he had\nchosen, and which caused the Abbe de Saint Pierre to be expelled from the\nacademy, on account of some remarks unfavorable to the preceding\nadministration, and with which the Duchess of Maine and the Cardinal de\nPolignac were displeased.  I completed this work as I did the former,\nwith an extract and remarks; but I stopped here without intending to\ncontinue the undertaking which I ought never to have begun.\n\nThe reflection which induced me to give it up naturally presents itself,\nand it was astonishing I had not made it sooner.\n\nMost of the writings of the Abbe de Saint Pierre were either\nobservations, or contained observations, on some parts of the government\nof France, and several of these were of so free a nature, that it was\nhappy for him he had made them with impunity.  But in the offices of all\nthe ministers of state the Abbe de St. Pierre had ever been considered as\na kind of preacher rather than a real politician, and he was suffered to\nsay what he pleased, because it appeared that nobody listened to him.\nHad I procured him readers the case would have been different.  He was a\nFrenchman, and I was not one; and by repeating his censures, although in\nhis own name, I exposed myself to be asked, rather rudely, but without\ninjustice, what it was with which I meddled.  Happily before I proceeded\nany further, I perceived the hold I was about to give the government\nagainst me, and I immediately withdrew.  I knew that, living alone in the\nmidst of men more powerful than myself, I never could by any means\nwhatever be sheltered from the injury they chose to do me.  There was but\none thing which depended upon my own efforts: this was, to observe such a\nline of conduct that whenever they chose to make me feel the weight of\nauthority they could not do it without being unjust.  The maxim which\ninduced me to decline proceeding with the works of the Abbe de Saint\nPierre, has frequently made me give up projects I had much more at heart.\nPeople who are always ready to construe adversity into a crime, would be\nmuch surprised were they to know the pains I have taken, that during my\nmisfortunes it might never with truth be said of me, Thou hast deserved\nthem.\n\nAfter having given up the manuscript, I remained some time without\ndetermining upon the work which should succeed it, and this interval of\ninactivity was destructive; by permitting me to turn my reflections on\nmyself, for want of another object to engage my attention.  I had no\nproject for the future which could amuse my imagination.  It was not even\npossible to form any, as my situation was precisely that in which all my\ndesires were united.  I had not another to conceive, and yet there was a\nvoid in my heart.  This state was the more cruel, as I saw no other that\nwas to be preferred to it.  I had fixed my most tender affections upon a\nperson who made me a return of her own.  I lived with her without\nconstraint, and, so to speak, at discretion.  Notwithstanding this, a\nsecret grief of mind never quitted me for a moment, either when she was\npresent or absent.  In possessing Theresa, I still perceived she wanted\nsomething to her happiness; and the sole idea of my not being everything\nto her had such an effect upon my mind that she was next to nothing to\nme.\n\nI had friends of both sexes, to whom I was attached by the purest\nfriendship and most perfect esteem; I depended upon a real return on\ntheir part, and a doubt of their sincerity never entered my mind; yet\nthis friendship was more tormenting than agreeable to me, by their\nobstinate perseverance and even by their affectation, in opposing my\ntaste, inclinations and manner of living; and this to such a degree, that\nthe moment I seemed to desire a thing which interested myself only, and\ndepended not upon them, they immediately joined their efforts to oblige\nme to renounce it.  This continued desire to control me in all my wishes,\nthe more unjust, as I did not so much as make myself acquainted with\ntheirs, became so cruelly oppressive, that I never received one of their\nletters without feeling a certain terror as I opened it, and which was\nbut too well justified by the contents.  I thought being treated like a\nchild by persons younger than myself, and who, of themselves, stood in\ngreat need of the advice they so prodigally bestowed on me, was too much:\n\"Love me,\" said I to them, \"as I love you, but, in every other respect,\nlet my affairs be as indifferent to you, as yours are to me: this is all\nI ask.\"  If they granted me one of these two requests, it was not the\nlatter.\n\nI had a retired residence in a charming solitude, was master of my own\nhouse, and could live in it in the manner I thought proper, without being\ncontrolled by any person.  This habitation imposed on me duties agreeable\nto discharge, but which were indispensable.  My liberty was precarious.\nIn a greater state of subjection than a person at the command of another,\nit was my duty to be so by inclination.  When I arose in the morning,\nI never could say to myself, I will employ this day as I think proper.\nAnd, moreover, besides my being subject to obey the call of Madam\nd'Epinay, I was exposed to the still more disagreeable importunities of\nthe public and chance comers.  The distance I was at from Paris did not\nprevent crowds of idlers, not knowing how to spend their time, from daily\nbreaking in upon me, and, without the least scruple, freely disposing of\nmine.  When I least expected visitors I was unmercifully assailed by\nthem, and I seldom made a plan for the agreeable employment of the day\nthat was not counteracted by the arrival of some stranger.\n\nIn short, finding no real enjoyment in the midst of the pleasures I had\nbeen most desirous to obtain, I, by sudden mental transitions, returned\nin imagination to the serene days of my youth, and sometimes exclaimed\nwith a sigh: \"Ah! this is not Les Charmettes!\"\n\nThe recollection of the different periods of my life led me to reflect\nupon that at which I was arrived, and I found I was already on the\ndecline, a prey to painful disorders, and imagined I was approaching the\nend of my days without having, tasted, in all its plentitude, scarcely\nanyone of the pleasures after which my heart had so much thirsted, or\nhaving given scope to the lively sentiments I felt it had in reserve.\nI had not favored even that intoxicating voluptuousness with which my\nmind was richly stored, and which, for want of an object, was always\ncompressed, an never exhaled but by signs.\n\nHow was it possible that, with a mind naturally expansive, I, with whom\nto live was to love, should not hitherto have found a friend entirely\ndevoted to me; a real friend: I who felt myself so capable of being such\na friend to another?  How can it be accounted for that with such warm\naffections, such combustible senses, and a heart wholly made up of love,\nI had not once, at least, felt its flame for a determinate object?\nTormented by the want of loving, without ever having been able to satisfy\nit, I perceived myself approaching the eve of old age, and hastening on\nto death without having lived.\n\nThese melancholy but affecting recollections led me to others, which,\nalthough accompanied with regret, were not wholly unsatisfactory.  I\nthought something I had not yet received was still due to me from\ndestiny.\n\nTo what end was I born with exquisite faculties?  To suffer them to\nremain unemployed?  the sentiment of conscious merit, which made me\nconsider myself as suffering injustice, was some kind of reparation, and\ncaused me to shed tears which with pleasure I suffered to flow.\n\nThese were my mediations during the finest season of the year, in the\nmonth of June, in cool shades, to the songs of the nightingale, and the\nwarbling of brooks.  Everything concurred in plunging me into that too\nseducing state of indolence for which I was born, and from which my\naustere manner, proceeding from a long effervescence, should forever have\ndelivered me.  I unfortunately remembered the dinner of the Chateau de\nToune, and my meeting with the two charming girls in the same season, in\nplaces much resembling that in which I then was.  The remembrance of\nthese circumstances, which the innocence that accompanied them rendered\nto me still more dear, brought several others of the nature to my\nrecollection.  I presently saw myself surrounded by all the objects\nwhich, in my youth, had given me emotion.  Mademoiselle Galley,\nMademoiselle de Graffenried, Mademoiselle de Breil, Madam Basile, Madam\nde Larnage, my pretty scholars, and even the bewitching Zulietta, whom my\nheart could not forget.  I found myself in the midst of a seraglio of\nhouris of my old acquaintance, for whom the most lively inclination was\nnot new to me.  My blood became inflamed, my head turned, notwithstanding\nmy hair was almost gray, and the grave citizen of Geneva, the austere\nJean Jacques, at forty-five years of age, again became the fond shepherd.\nThe intoxication, with which my mind was seized, although sudden and\nextravagant, was so strong and lasting, that, to enable me to recover\nfrom it, nothing less than the unforeseen and terrible crisis it brought\non was necessary.\n\nThis intoxication, to whatever degree it was carried, went not so far as\nto make me forget my age and situation, to flatter me that I could still\ninspire love, nor to make me attempt to communicate the devouring flame\nby which ever since my youth I had felt my heart in vain consumed.  For\nthis I did not hope; I did not even desire it.  I knew the season of love\nwas past; I knew too well in what contempt the ridiculous pretensions of\nsuperannuated gallants were held, ever to add one to the number, and I\nwas not a man to become an impudent coxcomb in the decline of life, after\nhaving been so little such during the flower of my age.  Besides, as a\nfriend to peace, I should have been apprehensive of domestic dissensions;\nand I too sincerely loved Theresa to expose her to the mortification of\nseeing me entertain for others more lively sentiments than those with\nwhich she inspired me for herself.\n\nWhat step did I take upon this occasion?  My reader will already have\nguessed it, if he has taken the trouble to pay the least attention to my\nnarrative.  The impossibility of attaining real beings threw me into the\nregions of chimera, and seeing nothing in existence worthy of my\ndelirium, I sought food for it in the ideal world, which my imagination\nquickly peopled with beings after my own heart.  This resource never came\nmore apropos, nor was it ever so fertile.  In my continual ecstasy I\nintoxicated my mind with the most delicious sentiments that ever entered\nthe heart of man.  Entirely forgetting the human species, I formed to\nmyself societies of perfect beings, whose virtues were as celestial as\ntheir beauty, tender and faithful friends, such as I never found here\nbelow.  I became so fond of soaring in the empyrean, in the midst of the\ncharming objects with which I was surrounded, that I thus passed hours\nand days without perceiving it; and, losing the remembrance of all other\nthings, I scarcely had eaten a morsel in haste before I was impatient to\nmake my escape and run to regain my groves.  When ready to depart for the\nenchanted world, I saw arrive wretched mortals who came to detain me upon\nearth, I could neither conceal nor moderate my vexation; and no longer\nmaster of myself, I gave them so uncivil a reception, that it might\njustly be termed brutal.  This tended to confirm my reputation as a\nmisanthrope, from the very cause which, could the world have read my\nheart, should have acquired me one of a nature directly opposite.\n\nIn the midst of my exultation I was pulled down like a paper kite, and\nrestored to my proper place by means of a smart attack of my disorder.\nI recurred to the only means that had before given me relief, and thus\nmade a truce with my angelic amours; for besides that it seldom happens\nthat a man is amorous when he suffers, my imagination, which is animated\nin the country and beneath the shade of trees, languishes and becomes\nextinguished in a chamber, and under the joists of a ceiling.  I\nfrequently regretted that there existed no dryads; it would certainly\nhave been amongst these that I should have fixed my attachment.\n\nOther domestic broils came at the same time to increase my chagrin.\nMadam le Vasseur, while making me the finest compliments in the world,\nalienated from me her daughter as much as she possibly could.  I received\nletters from my late neighborhood, informing me that the good old lady\nhad secretly contracted several debts in the name of Theresa, to whom\nthese became known, but of which she had never mentioned to me a word.\nThe debts to be paid hurt me much less than the secret that had been made\nof them.  How could she, for whom I had never had a secret, have one from\nme?  Is it possible to dissimulate with persons whom we love?  The\n'Coterie Holbachique', who found I never made a journey to Paris, began\nseriously to be afraid I was happy and satisfied in the country, and\nmadman enough to reside there.\n\nHence the cabals by which attempts were made to recall me indirectly to\nthe city.  Diderot, who did not immediately wish to show himself, began\nby detaching from me De Leyre, whom I had brought acquainted with him,\nand who received and transmitted to me the impressions Diderot chose to\ngive without suspecting to what end they were directed.\n\nEverything seemed to concur in withdrawing me from my charming and mad\nreverie.  I was not recovered from the late attack I had when I received\nthe copy of the poem on the destruction of Lisbon, which I imagined to be\nsent by the author.  This made it necessary I should write to him and\nspeak of his composition.  I did so, and my letter was a long time\nafterwards printed without my consent, as I shall hereafter have occasion\nto remark.\n\nStruck by seeing this poor man overwhelmed, if I may so speak, with\nprosperity and honor, bitterly exclaiming against the miseries of this\nlife, and finding everything to be wrong, I formed the mad project of\nmaking him turn his attention to himself, and of proving to him that\neverything was right.  Voltaire, while he appeared to believe in God,\nnever really believed in anything but the devil; since his pretended\ndeity is a malicious being, who, according to him, had no pleasure but in\nevil.  The glaring absurdity of this doctrine is particularly disgusting\nfrom a man enjoying the greatest prosperity; who, from the bosom of\nhappiness, endeavors, by the frightful and cruel image of all the\ncalamities from which he is exempt, to reduce his fellow creatures to\ndespair.  I, who had a better right than he to calculate and weigh all\nthe evils of human life, impartially examine them, and proved to him that\nof all possible evils there was not one to be attributed to Providence,\nand which had not its source rather in the abusive use man made of his\nfaculties than in nature.  I treated him, in this letter, with the\ngreatest respect and delicacy possible.  Yet, knowing his self-love to be\nextremely irritable, I did not send the letter immediately to himself,\nbut to Doctor Tronchin, his physician and friend, with full power either\nto give it him or destroy it.  Voltaire informed me in a few lines that\nbeing ill, having likewise the care of a sick person, he postponed his\nanswer until some future day, and said not a word on the subject.\nTronchin, when he sent me the letter, inclosed in it another, in which he\nexpressed but very little esteem for the person from whom he received it.\n\nI have never published, nor even shown, either of these two letters, not\nliking to make a parade of such little triumphs; but the originals are in\nmy collections.  Since that time Voltaire has published the answer he\npromised me, but which I never received.  This is the novel of 'Candide',\nof which I cannot speak because I have not read it.\n\nAll these interruptions ought to have cured me of my fantastic amours,\nand they were perhaps the means offered me by Heaven to prevent their\ndestructive consequences; but my evil genius prevailed, and I had\nscarcely begun to go out before my heart, my head, and my feet returned\nto the same paths.  I say the same in certain respects; for my ideas,\nrather less exalted, remained this time upon earth, but yet were busied\nin making so exquisite a choice of all that was to be found there amiable\nof every kind, that it was not much less chimerical than the imaginary\nworld I had abandoned.\n\nI figured to myself love and friendship, the two idols of my heart, under\nthe most ravishing images.  I amused myself in adorning them with all the\ncharms of the sex I had always adored.  I imagined two female friends\nrather than two of my own sex, because, although the example be more\nrare, it is also more amiable.  I endowed them with different characters,\nbut analogous to their connection, with two faces, not perfectly\nbeautiful, but according to my taste, and animated with benevolence and\nsensibility.  I made one brown and the other fair, one lively and the\nother languishing, one wise and the other weak, but of so amiable a\nweakness that it seemed to add a charm to virtue.  I gave to one of the\ntwo a lover, of whom the other was the tender friend, and even something\nmore, but I did not admit either rivalry, quarrels, or jealousy: because\nevery painful sentiment is painful for me to imagine, and I was unwilling\nto tarnish this delightful picture by anything which was degrading to\nnature.  Smitten with my two charming models, I drew my own portrait in\nthe lover and the friend, as much as it was possible to do it; but I made\nhim young and amiable, giving him, at the same time, the virtues and the\ndefects which I felt in myself.\n\nThat I might place my characters in a residence proper for them, I\nsuccessively passed in review the most beautiful places I had seen in my\ntravels.  But I found no grove sufficiently delightful, no landscape that\npleased me.  The valleys of Thessaly would have satisfied me had I but\nonce had a sight of them; but my imagination, fatigued with invention,\nwished for some real place which might serve it as a point to rest upon,\nand create in me an illusion with respect to the real existence of the\ninhabitants I intended to place there.  I thought a good while upon the\nBoromean Islands, the delightful prospect of which had transported me,\nbut I found in them too much art and ornament for my lovers.  I however\nwanted a lake, and I concluded by making choice of that about which my\nheart has never ceased to wander.  I fixed myself upon that part of the\nbanks of this lake where my wishes have long since placed my residence in\nthe imaginary happiness to which fate has confined me.  The native place\nof my poor mamma had still for me a charm.  The contrast of the\nsituations, the richness and variety of the sites, the magnificence, the\nmajesty of the whole, which ravishes the senses, affects, the heart, and\nelevates the mind, determined me to give it the preference, and I placed\nmy young pupils at Vervey.  This is what I imagined at the first sketch;\nthe rest was not added until afterwards.\n\nI for a long time confined myself to this vague plan, because it was\nsufficient to fill my imagination with agreeable objects, and my heart\nwith sentiments in which it delighted.  These fictions, by frequently\npresenting themselves, at length gained a consistence, and took in my\nmind a determined form.  I then had an inclination to express upon paper\nsome of the situations fancy presented to me, and, recollecting\neverything I had felt during my youth, thus, in some measure, gave an\nobject to that desire of loving, which I had never been able to satisfy,\nand by which I felt myself consumed.\n\nI first wrote a few incoherent letters, and when I afterwards wished to\ngive them connection, I frequently found a difficulty in doing it.  What\nis scarcely credible, although most strictly true, is my having written\nthe first two parts almost wholly in this manner, without having any plan\nformed, and not foreseeing I should one day be tempted to make it a\nregular work.  For this reason the two parts afterwards formed of\nmaterials not prepared for the place in which they are disposed, are full\nof unmeaning expressions not found in the others.\n\nIn the midst of my reveries I had a visit from Madam d'Houdetot, the\nfirst she had ever made me, but which unfortunately was not the last, as\nwill hereafter appear.  The Comtesse d'Houdetot was the daughter of the\nlate M. de Bellegarde, a farmer-general, sister to M. d'Epinay, and\nMessieurs de Lalive and De la Briche, both of whom have since been\nintroductors to ambassadors.  I have spoken of the acquaintance I made\nwith her before she was married: since that event I had not seen her,\nexcept at the fetes at La Chevrette, with Madam d'Epinay, her\nsister-in-law.  Having frequently passed several days with her, both at\nLa Chevrette and Epinay, I always thought her amiable, and that she seemed\nto be my well-wisher.  She was fond of walking with me; we were both good\nwalkers, and the conversation between us was inexhaustible.  However, I\nnever went to see her in Paris, although she had several times requested\nand solicited me to do it.  Her connections with M. de St. Lambert, with\nwhom I began to be intimate, rendered her more interesting to me, and it\nwas to bring me some account of that friend who was, I believe, then at\nMahon, that she came to see me at the Hermitage.\n\nThis visit had something of the appearance of the beginning of a romance.\nShe lost her way.  Her coachman, quitting the road, which turned to the\nright, attempted to cross straight over from the mill of Clairvaux to the\nHermitage: her carriage stuck in a quagmire in the bottom of the valley,\nand she got out and walked the rest of the road.  Her delicate shoes were\nsoon worn through; she sunk into the dirt, her servants had the greatest\ndifficulty in extricating her, and she at length arrived at the Hermitage\nin boots, making the place resound with her laughter, in which I most\nheartily joined.  She had to change everything.  Theresa provided her\nwith what was necessary, and I prevailed upon her to forget her dignity\nand partake of a rustic collation, with which she seemed highly\nsatisfied.  It was late, and her stay was short; but the interview was so\nmirthful that it pleased her, and she seemed disposed to return.  She did\nnot however put this project into execution until the next year: but,\nalas!  the delay was not favorable to me in anything.\n\nI passed the autumn in an employment no person would suspect me of\nundertaking: this was guarding the fruit of M. d'Epinay.  The Hermitage\nwas the reservoir of the waters of the park of the Chevrette; there was a\ngarden walled round and planted with espaliers and other trees, which\nproduced M. d'Epinay more fruit than his kitchen-garden at the Chevrette,\nalthough three-fourths of it were stolen from him.  That I might not be a\nguest entirely useless, I took upon myself the direction of the garden\nand the inspection of the conduct of the gardener.  Everything went on\nwell until the fruit season, but as this became ripe, I observed that it\ndisappeared without knowing in what manner it was disposed of.  The\ngardener assured me it was the dormice which eat it all.  I destroyed a\ngreat number of these animals, notwithstanding which the fruit still\ndiminished.  I watched the gardener's motions so narrowly, that I found\nhe was the great dormouse.  He lodged at Montmorency, whence he came in\nthe night with his wife and children to take away the fruit he had\nconcealed in the daytime, and which he sold in the market at Paris as\npublicly as if he had brought it from a garden of his own.  The wretch\nwhom I loaded with kindness, whose children were clothed by Theresa, and\nwhose father, who was a beggar, I almost supported, robbed us with as\nmuch ease as effrontery, not one of the three being sufficiently vigilant\nto prevent him: and one night he emptied my cellar.\n\nWhilst he seemed to address himself to me only, I suffered everything,\nbut being desirous of giving an account of the fruit, I was obliged to\ndeclare by whom a great part of it had been stolen.  Madam d'Epinay\ndesired me to pay and discharge him, and look out for another; I did so.\nAs this rascal rambled about the Hermitage in the night, armed with a\nthick club staff with an iron ferrule, and accompanied by other villains\nlike himself, to relieve the governesses from their fears, I made his\nsuccessor sleep in the house with us; and this not being sufficient to\nremove their apprehensions, I sent to ask M. d'Epinay for a musket, which\nI kept in the chamber of the gardener, with a charge not to make use of\nit except an attempt was made to break open the door or scale the walls\nof the garden, and to fire nothing but powder, meaning only to frighten\nthe thieves.  This was certainly the least precaution a man indisposed\ncould take for the common safety of himself and family, having to pass\nthe winter in the midst of a wood, with two timid women.  I also procured\na little dog to serve as a sentinel.  De Leyre coming to see me about\nthis time, I related to him my situation, and we laughed together at my\nmilitary apparatus.  At his return to Paris he wished to amuse Diderot\nwith the story, and by this means the 'Coterie d'Holbachique' learned\nthat I was seriously resolved to pass the winter at the Hermitage.  This\nperseverance, of which they had not imagined me to be capable,\ndisconcerted them, and, until they could think of some other means of\nmaking my residence disagreeable to me, they sent back, by means of\nDiderot, the same De Leyre, who, though at first he had thought my\nprecautions quite natural, now pretended to discover that they were\ninconsistent with my principles, and styled them more than ridiculous in\nhis letters, in which he overwhelmed me with pleasantries sufficiently\nbitter and satirical to offend me had I been the least disposed to take\noffence.  But at that time being full of tender and affectionate\nsentiments, and not susceptible of any other, I perceived in his biting\nsarcasms nothing more than a jest, and believed him only jocose when\nothers would have thought him mad.\n\nBy my care and vigilance I guarded the garden so well, that, although\nthere had been but little fruit that year the produce was triple that of\nthe preceding years; it is true, I spared no pains to preserve it, and I\nwent so far as to escort what I sent to the Chevrette and to Epinay, and\nto carry baskets of it myself.  The aunt and I carried one of these,\nwhich was so heavy that we were obliged to rest at every dozen steps, and\nwhich we arrived with it we were quite wet with perspiration.\n\nAs soon as the bad season began to confine me to the house, I wished to\nreturn to my indolent amusements, but this I found impossible.  I had\neverywhere two charming female friends before my eyes, their friend,\neverything by which they were surrounded, the country they inhabited, and\nthe objects created or embellished for them by my imagination.  I was no\nlonger myself for a moment, my delirium never left me.  After many\nuseless efforts to banish all fictions from my mind, they at length\nseduced me, and my future endeavors were confined to giving them order\nand coherence, for the purpose of converting them into a species of\nnovel.\n\nWhat embarrassed me most was, that I had contradicted myself so openly\nand fully.  After the severe principles I had just so publicly asserted,\nafter the austere maxims I had so loudly preached, and my violent\ninvectives against books, which breathed nothing but effeminacy and love,\ncould anything be less expected or more extraordinary, than to see me,\nwith my own hand, write my name in the list of authors of those books I\nhad so severely censured?  I felt this incoherence in all its extent.  I\nreproached myself with it, I blushed at it and was vexed; but all this\ncould not bring me back to reason.  Completely overcome, I was at all\nrisks obliged to submit, and to resolve to brave the What will the world\nsay of it?  Except only deliberating afterwards whether or not I should\nshow my work, for I did not yet suppose I should ever determine to\npublish it.\n\nThis resolution taken, I entirely abandoned myself to my reveries, and,\nby frequently resolving these in my mind, formed with them the kind of\nplan of which the execution has been seen.  This was certainly the\ngreatest advantage that could be drawn from my follies; the love of good\nwhich has never once been effaced from my heart, turned them towards\nuseful objects, the moral of which might have produced its good effects.\nMy voluptuous descriptions would have lost all their graces, had they\nbeen devoid of the coloring of innocence.\n\nA weak girl is an object of pity, whom love may render interesting, and\nwho frequently is not therefore the less amiable; but who can see without\nindignation the manners of the age; and what is more disgusting than the\npride of an unchaste wife, who, openly treading under foot every duty,\npretends that her husband ought to be grateful for her unwillingness to\nsuffer herself to be taken in the fact?  Perfect beings are not in\nnature, and their examples are not near enough to us.  But whoever says\nthat the description of a young person born with good dispositions, and a\nheart equally tender and virtuous, who suffers herself, when a girl, to\nbe overcome by love, and when a woman, has resolution enough to conquer\nin her turn, is upon the whole scandalous and useless, is a liar and a\nhypocrite; hearken not to him.\n\nBesides this object of morality and conjugal chastity which is radically\nconnected with all social order, I had in view one more secret in behalf\nof concord and public peace, a greater, and perhaps more important object\nin itself, at least for the moment for which it was created.  The storm\nbrought on by the 'Encyclopedie', far from being appeased, was at the\ntime at its height.  Two parties exasperated against each other to the\nlast degree of fury soon resembled enraged wolves, set on for their\nmutual destruction, rather than Christians and philosophers, who had a\nreciprocal wish to enlighten and convince each other, and lead their\nbrethren to the way of truth.  Perhaps nothing more was wanting to each\nparty than a few turbulent chiefs, who possessed a little power, to make\nthis quarrel terminate in a civil war; and God only knows what a civil\nwar of religion founded on each side upon the most cruel intolerance\nwould have produced.  Naturally an enemy to all spirit of party, I had\nfreely spoken severe truths to each, of which they had not listened.\nI thought of another expedient, which, in my simplicity, appeared to me\nadmirable: this was to abate their reciprocal hatred by destroying their\nprejudices, and showing to each party the virtue and merit which in the\nother was worthy of public esteem and respect.  This project, little\nremarkable for its wisdom, which supported sincerity in mankind, and\nwhereby I fell into the error with which I reproached the Abbe de Saint\nPierre, had the success that was to be expected from it: It drew together\nand united the parties for no other purpose than that of crushing the\nauthor.  Until experience made me discover my folly, I gave my attention\nto it with a zeal worthy of the motive by which I was inspired; and I\nimagined the two characters of Wolmar and Julia in an ecstasy, which made\nme hope to render them both amiable, and, what is still more, by means of\neach other.\n\nSatisfied with having made a rough sketch of my plan, I returned to the\nsituations in detail, which I had marked out; and from the arrangement I\ngave them resulted the first two parts of the Eloisa, which I finished\nduring the winter with inexpressible pleasure, procuring gilt-paper to\nreceive a fair copy of them, azure and silver powder to dry the writing,\nand blue narrow ribbon to tack my sheets together; in a word, I thought\nnothing sufficiently elegant and delicate for my two charming girls,\nof whom, like another Pygmalion, I became madly enamoured.  Every\nevening, by the fireside, I read the two parts to the governesses.  The\ndaughter, without saying a word, was like myself moved to tenderness,\nand we mingled our sighs; her mother, finding there were no compliments,\nunderstood nothing of the matter, remained unmoved, and at the intervals\nwhen I was silent always repeated: \"Sir, that is very fine.\"\n\nMadam d'Epinay, uneasy at my being alone, in winter, in a solitary house,\nin the midst of woods, often sent to inquire after my health.  I never\nhad such real proofs of her friendship for me, to which mine never more\nfully answered.  It would be wrong in me were not I, among these proofs,\nto make special mention of her portrait, which she sent me, at the same\ntime requesting instructions from me in what manner she might have mine,\npainted by La Tour, and which had been shown at the exhibition.  I ought\nequally to speak of another proof of her attention to me, which, although\nit be laughable, is a feature in the history of my character, on account\nof the impression received from it.  One day when it froze to an extreme\ndegree, in opening a packet she had sent me of several things I had\ndesired her to purchase for me, I found a little under-petticoat of\nEnglish flannel, which she told me she had worn, and desired I would make\nof it an under-waistcoat.\n\nThis care, more than friendly, appeared to me so tender, and as if she\nhad stripped herself to clothe me, that in my emotion I repeatedly\nkissed, shedding tears at the same time, both the note and the petticoat.\nTheresa thought me mad.  It is singular that of all the marks of\nfriendship Madam d'Epinay ever showed me this touched me the most, and\nthat ever since our rupture I have never recollected it without being\nvery sensibly affected.  I for a long time preserved her little note, and\nit would still have been in my possession had not it shared the fate of\nmy other notes received at the same period.\n\nAlthough my disorder then gave me but little respite in winter, and a\npart of the interval was employed in seeking relief from pain, this was\nstill upon the whole the season which since my residence in France I had\npassed with most pleasure and tranquillity.  During four or five months,\nwhilst the bad weather sheltered me from the interruptions of importunate\nvisits, I tasted to a greater degree than I had ever yet or have since\ndone, of that equal simple and independent life, the enjoyment of which\nstill made it more desirable to me; without any other company than the\ntwo governesses in reality, and the two female cousins in idea.  It was\nthen especially that I daily congratulated myself upon the resolution I\nhad had the good sense to take, unmindful of the clamors of my friends,\nwho were vexed at seeing me delivered from their tyranny; and when I\nheard of the attempt of a madman, when De Leyre and Madam d'Epinay spoke\nto me in letters of the trouble and agitation which reigned in Paris, how\nthankful was I to Heaven for having placed me at a distance from all such\nspectacles of horror and guilt.  These would have been continued and\nincreased the bilious humor which the sight of public disorders had given\nme; whilst seeing nothing around me in my retirement but gay and pleasing\nobjects, my heart was wholly abandoned to sentiments which were amiable.\n\nI remark here with pleasure the course of the last peaceful moments that\nwere left me.  The spring succeeding to this winter, which had been so\ncalm, developed the germ of the misfortunes I have yet to describe; in\nthe tissue of which, alike interval, wherein I had leisure to respite,\nwill not be found.\n\nI think however, I recollect, that during this interval of peace, and in\nthe bosom of my solitude, I was not quite undisturbed by the Holbachiens.\nDiderot stirred me up some strife, and I am much deceived if it was not\nin the course of this winter that the 'Fils Naturel'--[Natural Son]--of\nwhich I shall soon have occasion to speak, made its appearance.\nIndependently of the causes which left me but few papers relative to that\nperiod, those even which I have been able to preserve are not very exact\nwith respect to dates.  Diderot never dated his letters--Madam d'Epinay\nand Madam d' Houdetot seldom dated theirs except the day of the week, and\nDe Leyre mostly confined himself to the same rules.  When I was desirous\nof putting these letters in order I was obliged to supply what was\nwanting by guessing at dates, so uncertain that I cannot depend upon\nthem.  Unable therefore to fix with certainty the beginning of these\nquarrels, I prefer relating in one subsequent article everything I can\nrecollect concerning them.\n\nThe return of spring had increased my amorous delirium, and in my\nmelancholy, occasioned by the excess of my transports, I had composed for\nthe last parts of Eloisa several letters, wherein evident marks of the\nrapture in which I wrote them are found.  Amongst others I may quote\nthose from the Elysium, and the excursion upon the lake, which, if my\nmemory does not deceive me, are at the end of the fourth part.  Whoever,\nin reading these letters, does not feel his heart soften and melt into\nthe tenderness by which they were dictated, ought to lay down the book:\nnature has refused him the means of judging of sentiment.\n\nPrecisely at the same time I received a second unforeseen visit from\nMadam d'Houdetot, in the absence of her husband, who was captain of the\nGendarmarie, and of her lover, who was also in the service.  She had come\nto Eaubonne, in the middle of the Valley of Montmorency, where she had\ntaken a pretty house, from thence she made a new excursion to the\nHermitage.  She came on horseback, and dressed in men's clothes.\nAlthough I am not very fond of this kind of masquerade, I was struck with\nthe romantic appearance she made, and, for once, it was with love.  As\nthis was the first and only time in all my life, the consequence of which\nwill forever render it terrible to my remembrance, I must take the\npermission to enter into some particulars on the subject.\n\nThe Countess d'Houdetot was nearly thirty years of age, and not handsome;\nher face was marked with the smallpox, her complexion coarse, she was\nshort-sighted, and her eyes were rather round; but she had fine long\nblack hair, which hung down in natural curls below her waist; her figure\nwas agreeable, and she was at once both awkward and graceful in her\nmotions; her wit was natural and pleasing; to this gayety, heedlessness\nand ingenuousness were perfectly suited: she abounded in charming\nsallies, after which she so little sought, that they sometimes escaped\nher lips in spite of herself.  She possessed several agreeable talents,\nplayed the harpsichord, danced well, and wrote pleasing poetry.  Her\ncharacter was angelic--this was founded upon a sweetness of mind, and\nexcept prudence and fortitude, contained in it every virtue.  She was\nbesides so much to be depended upon in all intercourse, so faithful in\nsociety, even her enemies were not under the necessity of concealing from\nher their secrets.  I mean by her enemies the men, or rather the women,\nby whom she was not beloved; for as to herself she had not a heart\ncapable of hatred, and I am of opinion this conformity with mine greatly\ncontributed towards inspiring me with a passion for her.  In confidence\nof the most intimate friendship, I never heard her speak ill of persons\nwho were absent, nor even of her sister-in-law.  She could neither\nconceal her thoughts from anyone, nor disguise any of her sentiments, and\nI am persuaded she spoke of her lover to her husband, as she spoke of him\nto her friends and acquaintances, and to everybody without distinction of\npersons.  What proved, beyond all manner of doubt, the purity and\nsincerity of her nature was, that subject to very extraordinary absences\nof mind, and the most laughable inconsiderateness, she was often guilty\nof some very imprudent ones with respect to herself, but never in the\nleast offensive to any person whatsoever.\n\nShe had been married very young and against her inclinations to the Comte\nd'Houdetot, a man of fashion, and a good officer; but a man who loved\nplay and chicane, who was not very amiable, and whom she never loved.\nShe found in M. de Saint Lambert all the merit of her husband, with more\nageeeable qualities of mind, joined with virtue and talents.  If anything\nin the manners of the age can be pardoned, it is an attachment which\nduration renders more pure, to which its effects do honor, and which\nbecomes cemented by reciprocal esteem.  It was a little from inclination,\nas I am disposed to think, but much more to please Saint Lambert, that\nshe came to see me.  He had requested her to do it, and there was reason\nto believe the friendship which began to be established between us would\nrender this society agreeable to all three.  She knew I was acquainted\nwith their connection, and as she could speak to me without restraint, it\nwas natural she should find my conversation agreeable.  She came; I saw\nher; I was intoxicated with love without an object; this intoxication\nfascinated my eyes; the object fixed itself upon her.  I saw my Julia in\nMadam d'Houdetot, and I soon saw nothing but Madam d'Houdetot, but with\nall the perfections with which I had just adorned the idol of my heart.\nTo complete my delirium she spoke to me of Saint Lambert with a fondness\nof a passionate lover.  Contagious force of love! while listening to her,\nand finding myself near her, I was seized with a delicious trembling,\nwhich I had never before experienced when near to any person whatsoever.\nShe spoke, and I felt myself affected; I thought I was nothing more than\ninterested in her sentiments, when I perceived I possessed those which\nwere similar; I drank freely of the poisoned cup, of which I yet tasted\nnothing more than the sweetness.  Finally, imperceptibly to us both, she\ninspired me for herself with all she expressed for her lover.  Alas! it\nwas very late in life, and cruel was it to consume with a passion not\nless violent than unfortunate for a woman whose heart was already in the\npossession of another.\n\nNotwithstanding the extraordinary emotions I had felt when near to her,\nI did not at first perceive what had happened to me; it was not until\nafter her departure that, wishing to think of Julia, I was struck with\nsurprise at being unable to think of anything but Madam d' Houdetot.\nThen was it my eyes were opened: I felt my misfortune, and lamented what\nhad happened, but I did not foresee the consequences.\n\nI hesitated a long time on the manner in which I should conduct myself\ntowards her, as if real love left behind it sufficient reason to\ndeliberate and act accordingly.  I had not yet determined upon this when\nshe unexpectedly returned and found me unprovided.  It was this time,\nperfectly acquainted with my situation, shame, the companion of evil,\nrendered me dumb, and made me tremble in her presence; I neither dared to\nopen my mouth or raise my eyes; I was in an inexpressible confusion which\nit was impossible she should not perceive.  I resolved to confess to her\nmy troubled state of mind, and left her to guess the cause whence it\nproceeded: this was telling her in terms sufficiently clear.\n\nHad I been young and amiable, and Madam d' Houdetot, afterwards weak,\nI should here blame her conduct; but this was not the case, and I am\nobliged to applaud and admire it.  The resolution she took was equally\nprudent and generous.  She could not suddenly break with me without\ngiving her reasons for it to Saint Lambert, who himself had desired her\nto come and see me; this would have exposed two friends to a rupture,\nand perhaps a public one, which she wished to avoid.  She had for me\nesteem and good wishes; she pitied my folly without encouraging it,\nand endeavored to restore me to reason.  She was glad to preserve to her\nlover and herself a friend for whom she had some respect; and she spoke\nof nothing with more pleasure than the intimate and agreeable society we\nmight form between us three the moment I should become reasonable.\nShe did not always confine herself to these friendly exhortations, and,\nin case of need, did not spare me more severe reproaches, which I had\nrichly deserved.\n\nI spared myself still less: the moment I was alone I began to recover;\nI was more calm after my declaration--love, known to the person by whom\nit is inspired, becomes more supportable.\n\nThe forcible manner in which I approached myself with mine, ought to have\ncured me of it had the thing been possible.  What powerful motives did I\nnot call to my mind to stifle it?  My morals, sentiments and principles;\nthe shame, the treachery and crime, of abusing what was confided to\nfriendship, and the ridiculousness of burning, at my age, with the most\nextravagant passion for an object whose heart was preengaged, and who\ncould neither make me a return, nor least hope; moreover with a passion\nwhich, far from having anything to gain by constancy, daily became less\nsufferable.\n\nWe would imagine that the last consideration which ought to have added\nweight to all the others, was that whereby I eluded them!  What scruple,\nthought I, ought I to make of a folly prejudicial to nobody but myself?\nAm I then a young man of whom Madam d'Houdetot ought to be afraid?  Would\nnot it be said by my presumptive remorse that, by my gallantry, manner\nand dress, I was going to seduce her?  Poor Jean Jacques, love on at thy\nease, in all safety of conscience, and be not afraid that thy sighs will\nbe prejudicial to Saint Lambert.\n\nIt has been seen that I never was a coxcomb, not even in my youth.  The\nmanner of thinking, of which I have spoken, was according to my turn of\nmind, it flattered my passions; this, was sufficient to induce me to\nabandon myself to it without reserve, and to laugh even at the\nimpertinent scruple I thought I had made from vanity, rather than from\nreason.  This is a great lesson for virtuous minds, which vice never\nattacks openly; it finds means to surprise them by masking itself with\nsophisms, and not unfrequently with a virtue.\n\nGuilty without remorse, I soon became so without measure; and I entreat\nit may be observed in what manner my passion followed my nature, at\nlength to plunge me into an abyss.  In the first place, it assumed the\nair of humility to encourage me; and to render me intrepid it carried\nthis humility even to mistrust.  Madam d'Houdetot incessantly putting in\nmind of my duty, without once for a single moment flattering my folly,\ntreated me with the greatest mildness, and remained with me upon the\nfooting of the most tender friendship.  This friendship would, I protest,\nhave satisfied my wishes, had I thought it sincere; but finding it too\nstrong to be real, I took it into my head that love, so ill-suited to my\nage and appearance, had rendered me contemptible in the eyes of Madam\nd'Houdetot; that this young mad creature only wished to divert herself\nwith me and my superannuated passion; that she had communicated this to\nSaint Lambert; and that the indignation caused by my breach of\nfriendship, having made her lover enter into her views, they were agreed\nto turn my head and then to laugh at me.  This folly, which at twenty-six\nyears of age, had made me guilty of some extravagant behavior to Madam de\nLarnage, whom I did not know, would have been pardonable in me at\nforty-five with Madam d' Houdetot had not I known that she and her lover\nwere persons of too much uprightness to indulge themselves in such a\nbarbarous amusement.\n\nMadam d' Houdetot continued her visits, which I delayed not to return.\nShe, as well as myself, was fond of walking, and we took long walks in an\nenchanting country.  Satisfied with loving and daring to say I loved, I\nshould have been in the most agreeable situation had not my extravagance\nspoiled all the charm of it.  She, at first, could not comprehend the\nfoolish pettishness with which I received her attentions; but my heart,\nincapable of concealing what passed in it, did not long leave her\nignorant of my suspicions; she endeavored to laugh at them, but this\nexpedient did not succeed; transports of rage would have been the\nconsequence, and she changed her tone.  Her compassionate gentleness was\ninvincible; she made me reproaches, which penetrated my heart; she\nexpressed an inquietude at my unjust fears, of which I took advantage.\nI required proofs of her being in earnest.  She perceived there was no\nother means of relieving me from my apprehensions.  I became pressing:\nthe step was delicate.  It is astonishing, and perhaps without example,\nthat a woman having suffered herself to be brought to hesitate should\nhave got herself off so well.  She refused me nothing the most tender\nfriendship could grant; yet she granted me nothing that rendered her\nunfaithful, and I had the mortification to see that the disorder into\nwhich the most trifling favors had thrown all my senses had not the least\neffect upon hers.\n\nI have somewhere said, that nothing should be granted to the senses, when\nwe wished to refuse them anything.  To prove how false this maxim was\nrelative to Madam d' Houdetot, and how far she was right to depend upon\nher own strength of mind, it would be necessary to enter into the detail\nof our long and frequent conversations, and follow them, in all their\nliveliness during the four months we passed together in an intimacy\nalmost without example between two friends of different sexes who contain\nthemselves within the bounds which we never exceeded.  Ah! if I had lived\nso long without feeling the power of real love, my heart and senses\nabundantly paid the arrears.  What, therefore, are the transports we feel\nwith the object of our affections by whom we are beloved, since the\npassions of which my idol did not partake inspired such as I felt?\n\nBut I am wrong in saying Madam Houdetot did not partake of the passion of\nlove; that which I felt was in some measure confined to myself; yet love\nwas equal on both sides, but not reciprocal.  We were both intoxicated\nwith the passion, she for her lover, and I for herself; our sighs and\ndelicious tears were mingled together.  Tender confidants of the secrets\nof each other, there was so great a similarity in our sentiments that it\nwas impossible they should not find some common point of union.  In the\nmidst of this delicious intoxication, she never forgot herself for a\nmoment, and I solemnly protest that, if ever, led away by my senses,\nI have attempted to render her unfaithful, I was never really desirous\nof succeeding.  The vehemence itself of my passion restrained it within\nbounds.  The duty of self-denial had elevated my mind.  The lustre of\nevery virture adorned in my eyes the idol of my heart; to have soiled\ntheir divine image would have been to destroy it.  I might have committed\nthe crime; it has been a hundred times committed in my heart; but to\ndishonor my Sophia!  Ah! was this ever possible?  No! I have told her a\nhundred times it was not.  Had I had it in my power to satisfy my\ndesires, had she consented to commit herself to my discretion, I should,\nexcept in a few moments of delirium, have refused to be happy at the\nprice of her honor.  I loved her too well to wish to possess her.\n\nThe distance from the Hermitage to Raubonne is almost a league; in my\nfrequent excursions to it I have sometimes slept there.  One evening\nafter having supped tete-a-tete we went to walk in the garden by a fine\nmoonlight.  At the bottom of the garden a considerable copse, through\nwhich we passed on our way to a pretty grove ornamented with a cascade,\nof which I had given her the idea, and she had procured it to be executed\naccordingly.\n\nEternal remembrance of innocence and enjoyment!  It was in this grove\nthat, seated by her side upon a seat of turf under an acacia in full\nbloom, I found for the emotions of my heart a language worthy of them.\nIt was the first and only time of my life; but I was sublime: if\neverything amiable and seducing with which the most tender and ardent\nlove can inspire the heart of man can be so called.  What intoxicating\ntears did I shed upon her knees! how many did I make her to shed\ninvoluntarily!  At length in an involuntary transport she exclaimed:\n\"No, never was a man so amiable, nor ever was there one who loved like\nyou!  But your friend Saint Lambert hears us, and my heart is incapable\nof loving twice.\"  I exhausted myself with sighs; I embraced her--what an\nembrace!  But this was all.  She had lived alone for the last six months,\nthat is absent from her husband and lover; I had seen her almost every\nday during three months, and love seldom failed to make a third.  We had\nsupped tete-a-tete, we were alone, in the grove by moonlight, and after\ntwo hours of the most lively and tender conversation, she left this grove\nat midnight, and the arms of her lover, as morally and physically pure as\nshe had entered it.  Reader, weigh all these circumstances; I will add\nnothing more.\n\nDo not, however, imagine that in this situation my passions left me as\nundisturbed as I was with Theresa and mamma.  I have already observed\nI was this time inspired not only with love, but with love and all its\nenergy and fury.  I will not describe either the agitations, tremblings,\npalpitations, convulsionary emotions, nor faintings of the heart,\nI continually experienced; these may be judged of by the effect her image\nalone made upon me.  I have observed the distance from the Hermitage to\nEaubonne was considerable; I went by the hills of Andilly, which are\ndelightful; I mused, as I walked, on her whom I was going to see, the\ncharming reception she would give me, and upon the kiss which awaited me\nat my arrival.  This single kiss, this pernicious embrace, even before\nI received it, inflamed my blood to such a degree as to affect my head,\nmy eyes were dazzled, my knees trembled, and were unable to support me;\nI was obliged to stop and sit down; my whole frame was in inconceivable\ndisorder, and I was upon the point of fainting.  Knowing the danger,\nI endeavored at setting out to divert my attention from the object,\nand think of something else.  I had not proceeded twenty steps before the\nsame recollection, and all that was the consequence of it, assailed me in\nsuch a manner that it was impossible to avoid them, and in spite of all\nmy efforts I do not believe I ever made this little excursion alone with\nimpunity.  I arrived at Eaubonne, weak, exhausted, and scarcely able to\nsupport myself.  The moment I saw her everything was repaired; all I felt\nin her presence was the importunity of an inexhaustible and useless\nardor.  Upon the road to Raubonne there was a pleasant terrace called\nMont Olympe, at which we sometimes met.  I arrived first, it was proper I\nshould wait for her; but how dear this waiting cost me!  To divert my\nattention, I endeavored to write with my pencil billets, which I could\nhave written with the purest drops of my blood; I never could finish one\nwhich was eligible.  When she found a note in the niche upon which we had\nagreed, all she learned from the contents was the deplorable state in\nwhich I was when I wrote it.  This state and its continuation, during\nthree months of irritation and self-denial, so exhausted me, that I was\nseveral years before I recovered from it, and at the end of these it left\nme an ailment which I shall carry with me, or which will carry me to the\ngrave.  Such was the sole enjoyment of a man of the most combustible\nconstitution, but who was, at the same time, perhaps, one of the most\ntimid mortals nature ever produced.  Such were the last happy days I can\nreckon upon earth; at the end of these began the long train of evils, in\nwhich there will be found but little interruption.\n\nIt has been seen that, during the whole course of my life, my heart, as\ntransparent as crystal, has never been capable of concealing for the\nspace of a moment any sentiment in the least lively which had taken\nrefuge in it.  It will therefore be judged whether or not it was possible\nfor me long to conceal my affection for Madam d'Houdetot.  Our intimacy\nstruck the eyes of everybody, we did not make of it either a secret or a\nmystery.  It was not of a nature to require any such precaution, and as\nMadam d'Houdetot had for me the most tender friendship with which she did\nnot reproach herself, and I for her an esteem with the justice of which\nnobody was better acquainted than myself; she frank, absent, heedless; I\ntrue, awkward, haughty, impatient and choleric; We exposed ourselves more\nin deceitful security than we should have done had we been culpable.  We\nboth went to the Chevrette; we sometimes met there by appointment.  We\nlived there according to our accustomed manner; walking together every\nday talking of our amours, our duties, our friend, and our innocent\nprojects; all this in the park opposite the apartment of Madam d'Epinay,\nunder her windows, whence incessantly examining us, and thinking herself\nbraved, she by her eyes filled her heart with rage and indignation.\n\nWomen have the art of concealing their anger, especially when it is\ngreat.  Madam d'Epinay, violent but deliberate, possessed this art to an\neminent degree.  She feigned not to see or suspect anything, and at the\nsame time that she doubled towards me her cares, attention, and\nallurements, she affected to load her sister-in-law with incivilities\nand marks of disdain, which she seemingly wished to communicate to me.\nIt will easily be imagined she did not succeed; but I was on the rack.\nTorn by opposite passions, at the same time that I was sensible of her\ncaresses, I could scarcely contain my anger when I saw her wanting in\ngood manners to Madam d'Houdetot.  The angelic sweetness of this lady\nmade her endure everything without complaint, or even without being\noffended.\n\nShe was, in fact, so absent, and always so little attentive to these\nthings, that half the time she did not perceive them.\n\nI was so taken up with my passion, that, seeing nothing but Sophia\n(one of the names of Madam d'Houdetot),I did not perceive that I was\nbecome the laughing-stock of the whole house, and all those who came to\nit.  The Baron d'Holbach, who never, as I heard of, had been at the\nChevrette, was one of the latter.  Had I at that time been as mistrustful\nas I am since become, I should strongly have suspected Madam d'Epinay to\nhave contrived this journey to give the baron the amusing spectacle of an\namorous citizen.  But I was then so stupid that I saw not that even which\nwas glaring to everybody.  My stupidity did not, however, prevent me from\nfinding in the baron a more jovial and satisfied appearance than\nordinary.  Instead of looking upon me with his usual moroseness, he said\nto me a hundred jocose things without my knowing what he meant.  Surprise\nwas painted in my countenance, but I answered not a word: Madam d'Epinay\nshook her sides with laughing; I knew not what possessed them.\nAs nothing yet passed the bounds of pleasantry, the best thing I could\nhad done, had I been in the secret, would have been to have humored the\njoke.  It is true I perceived amid the rallying gayety of the baron,\nthat his eyes sparkled with a malicious joy, which could have given me\npain had I then remarked it to the degree it has since occurred to my\nrecollection.\n\nOne day when I went to see Madam d'Houdetot, at Eaubonne, after her\nreturn from one of her journeys to Paris, I found her melancholy, and\nobserved that she had been weeping.  I was obliged to put a restraint on\nmyself, because Madam de Blainville, sister to her husband, was present;\nbut the moment I found an opportunity, I expressed to her my uneasiness.\n\"Ah,\" said she, with a sigh, \"I am much afraid your follies will cost me\nthe repose of the rest of my days.  St. Lambert has been informed of what\nhas passed, and ill informed of it.  He does me justice, but he is vexed;\nand what is still worse, he conceals from me a part of his vexation.\nFortunately I have not concealed from him anything relative to our\nconnection which was formed under his auspices.  My letters, like my\nheart, were full of yourself; I made him acquainted with everything,\nexcept your extravagant passion, of which I hoped to cure you; and which\nhe imputes to me as a crime.  Somebody has done us ill offices.  I have\nbeen injured, but what does this signify?  Either let us entirely break\nwith each other, or do you be what you ought to be.  I will not in future\nhave anything to conceal from my lover.\"\n\nThis was the first moment in which I was sensible of the shame of feeling\nmyself humbled by the sentiment of my fault, in presence of a young woman\nof whose just reproaches I approved, and to whom I ought to have been a\nmentor.  The indignation I felt against myself would, perhaps, have been\nsufficient to overcome my weakness, had not the tender passion inspired\nme by the victim of it, again softened my heart.  Alas! was this a moment\nto harden it when it was overflowed by the tears which penetrated it in\nevery part?  This tenderness was soon changed into rage against the vile\ninformers, who had seen nothing but the evil of a criminal but\ninvoluntary sentiment, without believing or even imagining the sincere\nuprightness of heart by which it was counteracted.  We did not remain\nlong in doubt about the hand by which the blow was directed.\n\nWe both knew that Madam d'Epinay corresponded with St. Lambert.  This was\nnot the first storm she had raised up against Madam d'Houdetot, from whom\nshe had made a thousand efforts to detach her lover, the success of some\nof which made the consequences to be dreaded.  Besides, Grimm, who, I\nthink, had accompanied M. de Castries to the army, was in Westphalia, as\nwell as Saint Lambert; they sometimes visited.  Grimm had made some\nattempts on Madam d'Houdetot, which had not succeeded, and being\nextremely piqued, suddenly discontinued his visits to her.  Let it be\njudged with what calmness, modest as he is known to be, he supposed she\npreferred to him a man older than himself, and of whom, since he had\nfrequented the great, he had never spoken but as a person whom he\npatronized.\n\nMy suspicions of Madam d'Epinay were changed into a certainty the moment\nI heard what had passed in my own house.  When I was at the Chevrette,\nTheresa frequently came there, either to bring me letters or to pay me\nthat attention which my ill state of health rendered necessary.  Madam\nd'Epinay had asked her if Madam d'Houdetot and I did not write to each\nother.  Upon her answering in the affirmative, Madam d'Epinay pressed her\nto give her the letters of Madam d'Houdetot, assuring her that she would\nreseal them in such a manner as it should never be known.  Theresa,\nwithout showing how much she was shocked at the proposition, and without\neven putting me upon my guard, did nothing more than seal the letters she\nbrought me more carefully; a lucky precaution, for Madam d'Epinay had her\nwatched when she arrived, and, waiting for her in the passage, several\ntimes carried her audaciousness as far as to examine her tucker.  She did\nmore even than this: having one day invited herself with M. de Margency\nto dinner at the Hermitage, for the first time since I resided there,\nshe seized the moment I was walking with Margency to go into my closet\nwith the mother and daughter, and to press them to show her the letters\nof Madam d'Houdetot.  Had the mother known where the letters were, they\nwould have been given to her; fortunately, the daughter was the only\nperson who was in the secret, and denied my having preserved any one of\nthem.  A virtuous, faithful and generous falsehood; whilst truth would\nhave been a perfidy.  Madam d' Epinay, perceiving Theresa was not to be\nseduced, endeavored to irritate her by jealousy, reproaching her with her\neasy temper and blindness.  \"How is it possible,\" said she to her, \"you\ncannot perceive there is a criminal intercourse between them?  If besides\nwhat strikes your eyes you stand in need of other proofs, lend your\nassistance to obtain that which may furnish them; you say he tears the\nletters from Madam d'Houdetot as soon as he has read them.  Well,\ncarefully gather up the pieces and give them to me; I will take upon\nmyself to put them together.\"\n\nSuch were the lessons my friend gave to the partner of my bed.\n\nTheresa had the discretion to conceal from me, for a considerable time,\nall these attempts; but perceiving how much I was perplexed, she thought\nherself obliged to inform me of everything, to the end that knowing with\nwhom I had to do, I might take my measures accordingly.  My rage and\nindignation are not to be described.  Instead of dissembling with Madam\nd'Epinay, according to her own example, and making use of counterplots,\nI abandoned myself without reserve to the natural impetuosity of my\ntemper; and with my accustomed inconsiderateness came to an open rupture.\nMy imprudence will be judged of by the following letters, which\nsufficiently show the manner of proceeding of both parties on this\noccasion:\n\nNOTE FROM MADAM D'EPINAY.\n\"Why, my dear friend, do I not see you?  You make me uneasy.  You have so\noften promised me to do nothing but go and come between this place and\nthe Hermitage!  In this I have left you at liberty; and you have suffered\na week to pass without coming.  Had not I been told you were well I\nshould have imagined the contrary.  I expected you either the day before\nyesterday, or yesterday, but found myself disappointed.  My God, what is\nthe matter with you?  You have no business, nor can you have any\nuneasiness; for had this been the case, I flatter myself you would have\ncome and communicated it to me.  You are, therefore, ill!  Relieve me,\nI beseech you, speedily from my fears.  Adieu, my dear friend: let this\nadieu produce me a good-morning from you.\"\n\nANSWER.\n\"I cannot yet say anything to you.  I wait to be better informed, and\nthis I shall be sooner or later.  In the meantime be persuaded that\ninnocence will find a defender sufficiently powerful to cause some\nrepentance in the slanderers, be they who they may.\"\n\nSECOND NOTE FROM THE SAME.\n\"Do you know that your letter frightens me?  What does it mean?  I have\nread it twenty times.  In truth I do not understand what it means.  All I\ncan perceive is, that you are uneasy and tormented, and that you wait\nuntil you are no longer so before you speak to me upon the subject.\nIs this, my dear friend, what we agreed upon?  What then is become of\nthat friendship and confidence, and by what means have I lost them?\nIs it with me or for me that you are angry?  However this may be, come to\nme this evening I conjure you; remember you promised me no longer than a\nweek ago to let nothing remain upon your mind, but immediately to\ncommunicate to me whatever might make it uneasy.  My dear friend, I live\nin that confidence--There--I have just read your letter again; I do not\nunderstand the contents better, but they make me tremble.  You seem to be\ncruelly agitated.  I could wish to calm your mind, but as I am ignorant\nof the cause whence your uneasiness arises, I know not what to say,\nexcept that I am as wretched as yourself, and shall remain so until we\nmeet. If you are not here this evening at six o'clock, I set off to\nmorrow for the Hermitage, let the weather be how it will, and in whatever\nstate of health I may be; for I can no longer support the inquietude I\nnow feel.  Good day, my dear friend, at all risks I take the liberty to\ntell you, without knowing whether or not you are in need of such advice,\nto endeavor to stop the progress uneasiness makes in solitude.  A fly be\ncomes a monster.  I have frequently experienced it.\"\n\nANSWER.\n\"I can neither come to see you nor receive your visit so long as my\npresent inquietude continues.  The confidence of which you speak no\nlonger exists, and it will be easy for you to recover it.  I see nothing\nmore in your present anxiety than the desire of drawing from the\nconfessions of others some advantage agreeable to your views; and my\nheart, so ready to pour its overflowings into another which opens itself\nto receive them, is shut against trick and cunning.  I distinguish your\nordinary address in the difficulty you find in understanding my note.\nDo you think me dupe enough to believe you have not comprehended what it\nmeant?  No: but I shall know how to overcome your subtleties by my\nfrankness.  I will explain myself more clearly, that you may understand\nme still less.\n\n\"Two lovers closely united and worthy of each other's love are dear to\nme; I expect you will not know who I mean unless I name them.  I presume\nattempts have been made to disunite them, and that I have been made use\nof to inspire one of the two with jealousy.  The choice was not\njudicious, but it appeared convenient to the purposes of malice, and of\nthis malice it is you whom I suspect to be guilty.  I hope this becomes\nmore clear.\n\n\"Thus the woman whom I most esteem would, with my knowledge, have been\nloaded with the infamy of dividing her heart and person between two\nlovers, and I with that of being one of these wretches.  If I knew that,\nfor a single moment in your life, you ever had thought this, either of\nher or myself, I should hate you until my last hour.  But it is with\nhaving said, and not with having thought it, that I charge you.  In this\ncase, I cannot comprehend which of the three you wished to injure; but,\nif you love peace of mind, tremble lest you should have succeeded.\nI have not concealed either from you or her all the ill I think of\ncertain connections, but I wish these to end by a means as virtuous as\ntheir cause, and that an illegitimate love may be changed into an eternal\nfriendship.  Should I, who never do ill to any person, be the innocent\nmeans of doing it to my friends?  No, I should never forgive you; I\nshould become your irreconcilable enemy.  Your secrets are all I should\nrespect; for I will never be a man without honor.\n\n\"I do not apprehend my present perplexity will continue a long time.  I\nshall soon know whether or not I am deceived; I shall then perhaps have\ngreat injuries to repair, which I will do with as much cheerfulness as\nthat with which the most agreeable act of my life has been accompanied.\nBut do you know in what manner I will make amends for my faults during\nthe short space of time I have to remain near to you?  By doing what\nnobody but myself would do; by telling you freely what the world thinks\nof you, and the breaches you have to repair in your reputation.\nNotwithstanding all the pretended friends by whom you are surrounded, the\nmoment you see me depart you may bid adieu to truth, you will no longer\nfind any person who will tell it to you.\"\n\n\nTHIRD LETTER FROM THE SAME.\n\n\"I did not understand your letter of this morning; this I told you\nbecause it was the case.  I understand that of this evening; do not\nimagine I shall ever return an answer to it; I am too anxious to forget\nwhat it contains; and although you excite my pity, I am not proof against\nthe bitterness with which it has filled my mind.  I!  descend to trick\nand cunning with you!  I!  accused of the blackest of all infamies!\nAdieu, I regret your having the adieu.  I know not what I say adieu:\nI shall be very anxious to forgive you.  You will come when you please;\nyou will be better received than your suspicions deserve.  All I have to\ndesire of you is not to trouble yourself about my reputation.  The\nopinion of the world concerning me is of but little importance in my\nesteem.  My conduct is good, and this is sufficient for me.  Besides, I\nam ignorant of what has happened to the two persons who are dear to me as\nthey are to you.\"\n\n\nThis last letter extricated me from a terrible embarrassment, and threw\nme into another of almost the same magnitude.  Although these letters and\nanswers were sent and returned the same day with an extreme rapidity, the\ninterval had been sufficient to place another between my rage and\ntransport, and to give me time to reflect on the enormity of my\nimprudence.  Madam d'Houdetot had not recommended to me anything so much\nas to remain quiet, to leave her the care of extricating herself, and to\navoid, especially at that moment, all noise and rupture; and I, by the\nmost open and atrocious insults, took the properest means of carrying\nrage to its greatest height in the heart of a woman who was already but\ntoo well disposed to it.  I now could naturally expect nothing from her\nbut an answer so haughty, disdainful, and expressive of contempt, that I\ncould not, without the utmost meanness, do otherwise than immediately\nquit her house.  Happily she, more adroit than I was furious, avoided,\nby the manner of her answer, reducing me to that extremity.  But it was\nnecessary either to quit or immediately go and see her; the alternative\nwas inevitable; I resolved on the latter, though I foresaw how much I\nmust be embarrassed in the explanation.  For how was I to get through it\nwithout exposing either Madam d'Houdetot or Theresa? and woe to her whom\nI should have named!  There was nothing that the vengeance of an\nimplacable and an intriguing woman did not make me fear for the person\nwho should be the object of it.  It was to prevent this misfortune that\nin my letter I had spoken of nothing but suspicions, that I might not be\nunder the necessity of producing my proofs.  This, it is true, rendered\nmy transports less excusable; no simple suspicions being sufficient to\nauthorize me to treat a woman, and especially a friend, in the manner I\nhad treated Madam d'Epinay.  But here begins the noble task I worthily\nfulfilled of expiating my faults and secret weaknesses by charging myself\nwith such of the former as I was incapable of committing, and which I\nnever did commit.\n\nI had not to bear the attack I had expected, and fear was the greatest\nevil I received from it.  At my approach, Madam d' Epinay threw her arms\nabout my neck, bursting into tears.  This unexpected reception, and by an\nold friend, extremely affected me; I also shed many tears.  I said to her\na few words which had not much meaning; she uttered others with still\nless, and everything ended here.  Supper was served; we sat down to\ntable, where, in expectation of the explanation I imagined to be deferred\nuntil supper was over, I made a very poor figure; for I am so overpowered\nby the most trifling inquietude of mind that I cannot conceal it from\npersons the least clear-sighted.  My embarrassed appearance must have\ngiven her courage, yet she did not risk anything upon that foundation.\nThere was no more explanation after than before supper: none took place\non the next day, and our little tete-a-tete conversations consisted of\nindifferent things, or some complimentary words on my part, by which,\nwhile I informed her I could not say more relative to my suspicions,\nI asserted, with the greatest truth, that, if they were ill-founded,\nmy whole life should be employed in repairing the injustice.  She did not\nshow the least curiosity to know precisely what they were, nor for what\nreason I had formed them, and all our peacemaking consisted, on her part\nas well as on mine, in the embrace at our first meeting.  Since Madam\nd'Epinay was the only person offended, at least in form, I thought it was\nnot for me to strive to bring about an eclaircissement for which she\nherself did not seem anxious, and I returned as I had come; continuing,\nbesides, to live with her upon the same footing as before, I soon almost\nentirely forgot the quarrel, and foolishly believed she had done the\nsame, because she seemed not to remember what had passed.\n\nThis, it will soon appear, was not the only vexation caused me by\nweakness; but I had others not less disagreeable which I had not brought\nupon myself.  The only cause of these was a desire of forcing me from my\nsolitude,\n\n     [That is to take from it the old woman who was wanted in the\n     conspiracy.  It is astonishing that, during this long quarrel,\n     my stupid confidence presented me from comprehending that it was\n     not me but her whom they wanted in Paris.]\n\nby means of tormenting me.  These originated from Diderot and the\nd'Holbachiens.  Since I had resided at the Hermitage, Diderot incessantly\nharrassed me, either himself or by means of De Leyre, and I soon\nperceived from the pleasantries of the latter upon my ramblings in the\ngroves, with what pleasure he had travestied the hermit into the gallant\nshepherd.  But this was not the question in my quarrels with Diderot; the\ncause of these were more serious.  After the publication of Fils Naturel\nhe had sent me a copy of it, which I had read with the interest and\nattention I ever bestowed on the works of a friend.  In reading the kind\nof poem annexed to it, I was surprised and rather grieved to find in it,\namongst several things, disobliging but supportable against men in\nsolitude, this bitter and severe sentence without the least softening:\n'Il n'y a que le mechant qui fail feul.'--[The wicked only is alone.]\n--This sentence is equivocal, and seems to present a double meaning; the\none true, the other false, since it is impossible that a man who is\ndetermined to remain alone can do the least harm to anybody, and\nconsequently he cannot be wicked.  The sentence in itself therefore\nrequired an interpretation; the more so from an author who, when he sent\nit to the press, had a friend retired from the world.  It appeared to me\nshocking and uncivil, either to have forgotten that solitary friend, or,\nin remembering him, not to have made from the general maxim the honorable\nand just exception which he owed, not only to his friend, but to so many\nrespectable sages, who, in all ages, have sought for peace and\ntranquillity in retirement, and of whom, for the first time since the\ncreation of the world, a writer took it into his head indiscriminately to\nmake so many villains.\n\nI had a great affection and the most sincere esteem for Diderot, and\nfully depended upon his having the same sentiments for me.  But tired\nwith his indefatigable obstinacy in continually opposing my inclinations,\ntaste, and manner of living, and everything which related to no person\nbut myself; shocked at seeing a man younger than I was wish, at all\nevents, to govern me like a child; disgusted with his facility in\npromising, and his negligence in performing; weary of so many\nappointments given by himself, and capriciously broken, while new ones\nwere again given only to be again broken; displeased at uselessly waiting\nfor him three or four times a month on the days he had assigned, and in\ndining alone at night after having gone to Saint Denis to meet him, and\nwaited the whole day for his coming; my heart was already full of these\nmultiplied injuries.  This last appeared to me still more serious, and\ngave me infinite pain.  I wrote to complain of it, but in so mild and\ntender a manner that I moistened my paper with my tears, and my letter\nwas sufficiently affecting to have drawn others from himself.  It would\nbe impossible to guess his answer on this subject: it was literally as\nfollows: \"I am glad my work has pleased and affected you.  You are not of\nmy opinion relative to hermits.  Say as much good of them as you please,\nyou will be the only one in the world of whom I shall think well: even on\nthis there would be much to say were it possible to speak to you without\ngiving you offence.  A woman eighty years of age!  etc.  A phrase of a\nletter from the son of Madam d'Epinay which, if I know you well, must\nhave given you much pain, has been mentioned to me.\"\n\nThe last two expressions of this letter want explanation.\n\nSoon after I went to reside at the Hermitage, Madam le Vasseur seemed\ndissatisfied with her situation, and to think the habitation too retired.\nHaving heard she had expressed her dislike to the place, I offered to\nsend her back to Paris, if that were more agreeable to her; to pay her\nlodging, and to have the same care taken of her as if she remained with\nme.  She rejected my offer, assured me she was very well satisfied with\nthe Hermitage, and that the country air was of service to her.  This was\nevident, for, if I may so speak, she seemed to become young again, and\nenjoyed better health than at Paris.  Her daughter told me her mother\nwould, on the whole, had been very sorry to quit the Hermitage, which was\nreally a very delightful abode, being fond of the little amusements of\nthe garden and the care of the fruit of which she had the handling, but\nthat she had said, what she had been desired to say, to induce me to\nreturn to Paris.\n\nFailing in this attempt they endeavored to obtain by a scruple the effect\nwhich complaisance had not produced, and construed into a crime my\nkeeping the old woman at a distance from the succors of which, at her\nage, she might be in need.  They did not recollect that she, and many\nother old people, whose lives were prolonged by the air of the country,\nmight obtain these succors at Montmorency, near to which I lived; as if\nthere were no old people, except in Paris, and that it was impossible for\nthem to live in any other place.  Madam le Vasseur who eat a great deal,\nand with extreme voracity, was subject to overflowings of bile and to\nstrong diarrhoeas, which lasted several days, and served her instead of\nclysters.  At Paris she neither did nor took anything for them, but left\nnature to itself.  She observed the same rule at the Hermitage, knowing\nit was the best thing she could do.  No matter, since there were not in\nthe country either physicians or apothecaries, keeping her there must, no\ndoubt, be with the desire of putting an end to her existence, although\nshe was in perfect health.  Diderot should have determined at what age,\nunder pain of being punished for homicide, it is no longer permitted to\nlet old people remain out of Paris.\n\nThis was one of the atrocious accusations from which he did not except me\nin his remark; that none but the wicked were alone: and the meaning of\nhis pathetic exclamation with the et cetera, which he had benignantly\nadded: A woman of eighty years of age, etc.\n\nI thought the best answer that could be given to this reproach would be\nfrom Madam le Vasseur herself.  I desired her to write freely and\nnaturally her sentiments to Madam d'Epinay.  To relieve her from all\nconstraint I would not see her letter.  I showed her that which I am\ngoing to transcribe.  I wrote it to Madam d'Epinay upon the subject of an\nanswer I wish to return to a letter still more severe from Diderot, and\nwhich she had prevented me from sending.\n\n                                                  Thursday.\n\n\"My good friend.  Madam le Vasseur is to write to you: I have desired her\nto tell you sincerely what she thinks.  To remove from her all\nconstraint, I have intimated to her that I will not see what she writes,\nand I beg of you not to communicate to me any part of the contents of her\nletter.\n\n\"I will not send my letter because you do not choose I should; but,\nfeeling myself grievously offended, it would be baseness and falsehood,\nof either of which it is impossible for me to be guilty, to acknowledge\nmyself in the wrong.  Holy writ commands him to whom a blow is given, to\nturn the other cheek, but not to ask pardon.  Do you remember the man in\ncomedy who exclaims, while he is giving another blows with his staff,\n'This is the part of a philosopher!'\n\n\"Do not flatter yourself that he will be prevented from coming by the bad\nweather we now have.  His rage will give him the time and strength which\nfriendship refuses him, and it will be the first time in his life he ever\ncame upon the day he had appointed.\n\n\"He will neglect nothing to come and repeat to me verbally the injuries\nwith which he loads me in his letters; I will endure them all with\npatience--he will return to Paris to be ill again; and, according to\ncustom, I shall be a very hateful man.  What is to be done?  Endure it\nall.\n\n\"But do not you admire the wisdom of the man who would absolutely come to\nSaint Denis in a hackney-coach to dine there, bring me home in a\nhackney-coach, and whose finances, eight days afterwards, obliges him to\ncome to the Hermitage on foot?  It is not possible, to speak his own\nlanguage, that this should be the style of sincerity.  But were this the\ncase, strange changes of fortune must have happened in the course of a\nweek.\n\n\"I join in your affliction for the illness of madam, your mother, but you\nwill perceive your grief is not equal to mine.  We suffer less by seeing\nthe persons we love ill than when they are unjust and cruel.\n\n\"Adieu, my good friend, I shall never again mention to you this unhappy\naffair.  You speak of going to Paris with an unconcern, which, at any\nother time, would give me pleasure.\"\n\nI wrote to Diderot, telling him what I had done, relative to Madam le\nVasseur, upon the proposal of Madam d'Epinay herself; and Madam le\nVasseur having, as it may be imagined, chosen to remain at the Hermitage,\nwhere she enjoyed a good state of health, always had company, and lived\nvery agreeably, Diderot, not knowing what else to attribute to me as a\ncrime, construed my precaution into one, and discovered another in Madam\nle Vasseur continuing to reside at the Hermitage, although this was by\nher own choice; and though her going to Paris had depended, and still\ndepended upon herself, where she would continue to receive the same\nsuccors from me as I gave her in my house.\n\nThis is the explanation of the first reproach in the letter of Diderot.\nThat of the second is in the letter which follows: \"The learned man (a\nname given in a joke by Grimm to the son of Madam d'Epinay) must have\ninformed you there were upon the rampart twenty poor persons who were\ndying with cold and hunger, and waiting for the farthing you customarily\ngave them.  This is a specimen of our little babbling.....And if you\nunderstand the rest it will amuse you perhap.\"\n\nMy answer to this terrible argument, of which Diderot seemed so proud,\nwas in the following words:\n\n\"I think I answered the learned man; that is, the farmer-general, that I\ndid not pity the poor whom he had seen upon the rampart, waiting for my\nfarthing; that he had probably amply made it up to them; that I appointed\nhim my substitute, that the poor of Paris would have no reason to\ncomplain of the change; and that I should not easily find so good a one\nfor the poor of Montmorency, who were in much greater need of assistance.\nHere is a good and respectable old man, who, after having worked hard all\nhis lifetime, no longer being able to continue his labors, is in his old\ndays dying with hunger.  My conscience is more satisfied with the two\nsous I give him every Monday, than with the hundred farthings I should\nhave distributed amongst all the beggars on the rampart.  You are\npleasant men, you philosophers, while you consider the inhabitants of the\ncities as the only persons whom you ought to befriend.  It is in the\ncountry men learn how to love and serve humanity; all they learn in\ncities is to despise it.\"\n\nSuch were the singular scruples on which a man of sense had the folly to\nattribute to me as a crime my retiring from Paris, and pretended to prove\nto me by my own example, that it was not possible to live out of the\ncapital without becoming a bad man.  I cannot at present conceive how I\ncould be guilty of the folly of answering him, and of suffering myself to\nbe angry instead of laughing in his fare.  However, the decisions of\nMadam d'Epinay and the clamors of the 'Cote in Holbachique' had so far\noperated in her favor, that I was generally thought to be in the wrong;\nand the D'Houdetot herself, very partial to Diderot, insisted upon my\ngoing to see him at Paris, and making all the advances towards an\naccommodation which, full and sincere as it was on my part, was not of\nlong duration.  The victorious argument by which she subdued my heart\nwas, that at that moment Diderot was in distress.  Besides the storm\nexcited against the 'Encyclopedie', he had then another violent one to\nmake head against, relative to his piece, which, notwithstanding the\nshort history he had printed at the head of it, he was accused of having\nentirely taken from Goldoni.  Diderot, more wounded by criticisms than\nVoltaire, was overwhelmed by them.  Madam de Grasigny had been malicious\nenough to spread a report that I had broken with him on this account.\nI thought it would be just and generous publicly to prove the contrary,\nand I went to pass two days, not only with him, but at his lodgings.\nThis, since I had taken up my abode at the Hermitage, was my second\njourney to Paris.  I had made the first to run to poor Gauffecourt, who\nhad had a stroke of apoplexy, from which he has never perfectly\nrecovered: I did not quit the side of his pillow until he was so far\nrestored as to have no further need of my assistance.\n\nDiderot received me well.  How many wrongs are effaced by the embraces of\na friend!  after these, what resentment can remain in the heart?  We came\nto but little explanation.  This is needless for reciprocal invectives.\nThe only thing necessary is to know how to forget them.  There had been\nno underhand proceedings, none at least that had come to my knowledge:\nthe case was not the same with Madam d' Epinay.  He showed me the plan of\nthe 'Pere de Famille'.  \"This,\" said I to him, \"is the best defence to\nthe 'Fils Naturel'.  Be silent, give your attention to this piece, and\nthen throw it at the head of your enemies as the only answer you think\nproper to make them.\"  He did so, and was satisfied with what he had\ndone.\n\nI had six months before sent him the first two parts of my 'Eloisa' to\nhave his opinion upon them.  He had not yet read the work over.  We read\na part of it together.  He found this 'feuillet', that was his term, by\nwhich he meant loaded with words and redundancies.  I myself had already\nperceived it; but it was the babbling of the fever: I have never been\nable to correct it.  The last parts are not the same.  The fourth\nespecially, and the sixth, are master-pieces of diction.\n\nThe day after my arrival, he would absolutely take me to sup with M.\nd'Holbach.  We were far from agreeing on this point; for I wished even to\nget rid of the bargain for the manuscript on chemistry, for which I was\nenraged to be obliged to that man.  Diderot carried all before him.  He\nswore D'Holbach loved me with all his heart, said I must forgive him his\nmanner, which was the same to everybody, and more disagreeable to his\nfriends than to others.  He observed to me that, refusing the produce of\nthis manuscript, after having accepted it two years before, was an\naffront to the donor which he had not deserved, and that my refusal might\nbe interpreted into a secret reproach, for having waited so long to\nconclude the bargain.  \"I see,\" added he, \"D'Holbach every day, and know\nbetter than you do the nature of his disposition.  Had you reason to be\ndissatisfied with him, do you think your friend capable of advising you\nto do a mean thing?\"  In short, with my accustomed weakness, I suffered\nmyself to be prevailed upon, and we went to sup with the baron, who\nreceived me as he usually had done.  But his wife received me coldly and\nalmost uncivilly.  I saw nothing in her which resembled the amiable\nCaroline, who, when a maid, expressed for me so many good wishes.  I\nthought I had already perceived that since Grimm had frequented the house\nof D'Aine, I had not met there so friendly a reception.\n\nWhilst I was at Paris, Saint Lambert arrived there from the army.  As I\nwas not acquainted with his arrival, I did not see him until after my\nreturn to the country, first at the Chevrette, and afterwards at the\nHermitage; to which he came with Madam d'Houdetot, and invited himself to\ndinner with me.  It may be judged whether or not I received him with\npleasure!  But I felt one still greater at seeing the good understanding\nbetween my guests.  Satisfied with not having disturbed their happiness,\nI myself was happy in being a witness to it, and I can safely assert\nthat, during the whole of my mad passion, and especially at the moment of\nwhich I speak, had it been in my power to take from him Madam d'Houdetot\nI would not have done it, nor should I have so much as been tempted to\nundertake it.  I found her so amiable in her passion for Saint Lambert,\nthat I could scarcely imagine she would have been as much so had she\nloved me instead of him; and without wishing to disturb their union, all\nI really desired of her was to permit herself to be loved.  Finally,\nhowever violent my passion may have been for this lady, I found it as\nagreeable to be the confidant, as the object of her amours, and I never\nfor a moment considered her lover as a rival, but always as my friend.\nIt will be said this was not love: be it so, but it was something more.\n\nAs for Saint Lambert, he behaved like an honest and judicious man: as I\nwas the only person culpable, so was I the only one who was punished;\nthis, however, was with the greatest indulgence.  He treated me severely,\nbut in a friendly manner, and I perceived I had lost something in his\nesteem, but not the least part of his friendship.  For this I consoled\nmyself, knowing it would be much more easy to me to recover the one than\nthe other, and that he had too much sense to confound an involuntary\nweakness and a passion with a vice of character.  If even I were in fault\nin all that had passed, I was but very little so.  Had I first sought\nafter his mistress?  Had not he himself sent her to me?  Did not she come\nin search of me?  Could I avoid receiving her?  What could I do?  They\nthemselves had done the evil, and I was the person on whom it fell.  In\nmy situation they would have done as much as I did, and perhaps more;\nfor, however estimable and faithful Madam d'Houdetot might be, she was\nstill a woman; her lover was absent; opportunities were frequent;\ntemptations strong; and it would have been very difficult for her always\nto have defended herself with the same success against a more\nenterprising man.  We certainly had done a great deal in our situation,\nin placing boundaries beyond which we never permitted ourselves to pass.\n\nAlthough at the bottom of my heart I found evidence sufficiently\nhonorable in my favor, so many appearances were against me, that the\ninvincible shame always predominant in me, gave me in his presence the\nappearance of guilt, and of this he took advantage for the purpose of\nhumbling me: a single circumstance will describe this reciprocal\nsituation.  I read to him, after dinner, the letter I had written the\npreceding year to Voltaire, and of which Saint Lambert had heard speak.\nWhilst I was reading he fell asleep, and I, lately so haughty, at present\nso foolish, dared not stop, and continued to read whilst he continued to\nsnore.  Such were my indignities and such his revenge; but his generosity\nnever permitted him to exercise them; except between ourselves.\n\nAfter his return to the army, I found Madam d'Houdetot greatly changed in\nher manner with me.  At this I was as much surprised as if it had not\nbeen what I ought to have expected; it affected me more than it ought to\nhave done, and did me considerable harm.  It seemed that everything from\nwhich I expected a cure, still plunged deeper into my heart the dart,\nwhich I at length broke in rather than draw out.\n\nI was quite determined to conquer myself, and leave no means untried to\nchange my foolish passion into a pure and lasting friendship.  For this\npurpose I had formed the finest projects in the world; for the execution\nof which the concurrence of Madam d' Houdetot was necessary.  When I\nwished to speak to her I found her absent and embarrassed; I perceived I\nwas no longer agreeable to her, and that something had passed which she\nwould not communicate to me, and which I have never yet known.  This\nchange, and the impossibility of knowing the reason of it, grieved me to\nthe heart.\n\nShe asked me for her letters; these I returned her with a fidelity of\nwhich she did me the insult to doubt for a moment.\n\nThis doubt was another wound given to my heart, with which she must have\nbeen so well acquainted.  She did me justice, but not immediately: I\nunderstood that an examination of the packet I had sent her, made her\nperceive her error; I saw she reproached herself with it, by which I was\na gainer of something.  She could not take back her letters without\nreturning me mine.  She told me she had burnt them: of this I dared to\ndoubt in my turn, and I confess I doubt of it at this moment.  No, such\nletters as mine to her were, are never thrown into the fire.  Those of\nEloisa have been found ardent.\n\nHeavens!  what would have been said of these!  No, No, she who can\ninspire a like passion, will never have the courage to burn the proofs of\nit.  But I am not afraid of her having made a bad use of them: of this I\ndo not think her capable; and besides I had taken proper measures to\nprevent it.  The foolish, but strong apprehension of raillery, had made\nme begin this correspondence in a manner to secure my letters from all\ncommunication.  I carried the familiarity I permitted myself with her in\nmy intoxication so far as to speak to her in the singular number: but\nwhat theeing and thouing!  she certainly could not be offended with it.\nYet she several times complained, but this was always useless: her\ncomplaints had no other effect than that of awakening my fears, and I\nbesides could not suffer myself to lose ground.  If these letters be not\nyet destroyed, and should they ever be made public, the world will see in\nwhat manner I have loved.\n\nThe grief caused me by the coldness of Madam d'Houdetot, and the\ncertainty of not having merited it, made me take the singular resolution\nto complain of it to Saint Lambert himself.  While waiting the effect of\nthe letter I wrote to him, I sought dissipations to which I ought sooner\nto have had recourse.  Fetes were given at the Chevrette for which I\ncomposed music.  The pleasure of honoring myself in the eyes of Madam\nd'Houdetot by a talent she loved, warmed my imagination, and another\nobject still contributed to give it animation, this was the desire the\nauthor of the 'Devin du Villaqe' had of showing he understood music; for\nI had perceived some persons had, for a considerable time past,\nendeavored to render this doubtful, at least with respect to composition.\nMy beginning at Paris, the ordeal through which I had several times\npassed there, both at the house of M. Dupin and that of M. de la\nPopliniere; the quantity of music I had composed during fourteen years in\nthe midst of the most celebrated masters and before their eyes:--finally,\nthe opera of the 'Muses Gallantes', and that even of the 'Devin'; a motet\nI had composed for Mademoiselle Fel, and which she had sung at the\nspiritual concert; the frequent conferences I had had upon this fine art\nwith the first composers, all seemed to prevent or dissipate a doubt of\nsuch a nature.  This however existed even at the Chevrette, and in the\nmind of M. d'Epinay himself.  Without appearing to observe it, I\nundertook to compose him a motet for the dedication of the chapel of the\nChevrette, and I begged him to make choice of the words.  He directed de\nLinant, the tutor to his son, to furnish me with these.  De Linant gave\nme words proper to the subject, and in a week after I had received them\nthe motet was finished.  This time, spite was my Apollo, and never did\nbetter music come from my hand.  The words began with: 'Ecce sedes hic\ntonantis'.  (I have since learned these were by Santeuil, and that M. de\nLinant had without scruple appropriated them to himself.) The grandeur of\nthe opening is suitable to the words, and the rest of the motet is so\nelegantly harmonious that everyone was struck with it.  I had composed it\nfor a great orchestra.  D'Epinay procured the best performers.  Madam\nBruna, an Italian singer, sung the motet, and was well accompanied.  The\ncomposition succeeded so well that it was afterwards performed at the\nspiritual concert, where, in spite of secret cabals, and notwithstanding\nit was badly executed, it was twice generally applauded.  I gave for the\nbirthday of M. d'Epinay the idea of a kind of piece half dramatic and\nhalf pantomimical, of which I also composed the music.  Grimm, on his\narrival, heard speak of my musical success.  An hour afterwards not a\nword more was said on the subject; but there no longer remained a doubt,\nnot at least that I know of, of my knowledge of composition.\n\nGrimm was scarcely arrived at the Chevrette, where I already did not much\namuse myself, before he made it insupportable to me by airs I never\nbefore saw in any person, and of which I had no idea.  The evening before\nhe came, I was dislodged from the chamber of favor, contiguous to that of\nMadam d'Epinay; it was prepared for Grimm, and instead of it, I was put\ninto another further off.  \"In this manner,\" said I, laughingly, to Madam\nd'Epinay, \"new-comers displace those which are established.\"  She seemed\nembarrassed.  I was better acquainted the same evening with the reason\nfor the change, in learning that between her chamber and that I had\nquitted there was a private door which she had thought needless to show\nme.  Her intercourse with Grimm was not a secret either in her own house\nor to the public, not even to her husband; yet, far from confessing it to\nme, the confidant of secrets more important to her, and which was sure\nwould be faithfully kept, she constantly denied it in the strongest\nmanner.  I comprehended this reserve proceeded from Grimm, who, though\nintrusted with all my secrets, did not choose I should be with any of\nhis.\n\nHowever prejudiced I was in favor of this man by former sentiments, which\nwere not extinguished, and by the real merit he had, all was not proof\nagainst the cares he took to destroy it.  He received me like the Comte\nde Tuffiere; he scarcely deigned to return my salute; he never once spoke\nto me, and prevented my speaking to him by not making me any answer; he\neverywhere passed first, and took the first place without ever paying me\nthe least attention.  All this would have been supportable had he not\naccompanied it with a shocking affectation, which may be judged of by one\nexample taken from a hundred.  One evening Madam d'Epinay, finding\nherself a little indisposed, ordered something for her supper to be\ncarried into her chamber, and went up stairs to sup by the side of the\nfire.  She asked me to go with her, which I did.  Grimm came afterwards.\nThe little table was already placed, and there were but two covers.\nSupper was served; Madam d' Epinay took her place on one side of the\nfire, Grimm took an armed chair, seated himself at the other, drew the\nlittle table between them, opened his napkin, and prepared himself for\neating without speaking to me a single word.\n\nMadam d' Epinay blushed at his behavior, and, to induce him to repair his\nrudeness, offered me her place.  He said nothing, nor did he ever look at\nme.  Not being able to approach the fire, I walked about the chamber\nuntil a cover was brought.  Indisposed as I was, older than himself,\nlonger acquainted in the house than he had been, the person who had\nintroduced him there, and to whom as a favorite of the lady he ought to\nhave done the honors of it, he suffered me to sup at the end of the\ntable, at a distance from the fire, without showing me the least\ncivility.  His whole behavior to me corresponded with this example of it.\nHe did not treat me precisely as his inferior, but he looked upon me as a\ncipher.  I could scarcely recognize the same Grimm, who, to the house of\nthe Prince de Saxe-Gotha, thought himself honored when I cast my eyes\nupon him.  I had still more difficulty in reconciling this profound\nsilence and insulting haughtiness with the tender friendship he possessed\nfor me to those whom he knew to be real friends.  It is true the only\nproofs he gave of it was pitying my wretched fortune, of which I did not\ncomplain; compassionating my sad fate, with which I was satisfied; and\nlamenting to see me obstinately refuse the benevolent services he said,\nhe wished to render me.  Thus was it he artfully made the world admire\nhis affectionate generosity, blame my ungrateful misanthropy, and\ninsensibly accustomed people to imagine there was nothing more between a\nprotector like him and a wretch like myself, than a connection founded\nupon benefactions on one part and obligations on the other, without once\nthinking of a friendship between equals.  For my part, I have vainly\nsought to discover in what I was under an obligation to this new\nprotector.  I had lent him money, he had never lent me any; I had\nattended him in his illness, he scarcely came to see me in mine; I had\ngiven him all my friends, he never had given me any of his; I had said\neverything I could in his favor, and if ever he has spoken of me it has\nbeen less publicly and in another manner.  He has never either rendered\nor offered me the least service of any kind.  How, therefore, was he my\nMecaenas?  In what manner was I protected by him?  This was\nincomprehensible to me, and still remains so.\n\nIt is true, he was more or less arrogant with everybody, but I was the\nonly person with whom he was brutally so.  I remember Saint Lambert once\nready to throw a plate at his head, upon his, in some measure, giving him\nthe lie at table by vulgarly saying, \"That is not true.\"  With his\nnaturally imperious manner he had the self-sufficiency of an upstart,\nand became ridiculous by being extravagantly impertinent.  An intercourse\nwith the great had so far intoxicated him that he gave himself airs which\nnone but the contemptible part of them ever assume.  He never called his\nlackey but by \"Eh!\" as if amongst the number of his servants my lord had\nnot known which was in waiting.  When he sent him to buy anything,\nhe threw the money upon the ground instead of putting it into his hand.\nIn short, entirely forgetting he was a man, he treated him with such\nshocking contempt, and so cruel a disdain in everything, that the poor\nlad, a very good creature, whom Madam d'Epinay had recommended, quitted\nhis service without any other complaint than that of the impossibility of\nenduring such treatment.  This was the la Fleur of this new presuming\nupstart.\n\nAs these things were nothing more than ridiculous, but quite opposite to\nmy character, they contributed to render him suspicious to me.  I could\neasily imagine that a man whose head was so much deranged could not have\na heart well placed.  He piqued himself upon nothing so much as upon\nsentiments.  How could this agree with defects which are peculiar to\nlittle minds?  How can the continued overflowings of a susceptible heart\nsuffer it to be incessantly employed in so many little cares relative to\nthe person?  He who feels his heart inflamed with this celestial fire\nstrives to diffuse it, and wishes to show what he internally is.  He\nwould wish to place his heart in his countenance, and thinks not of other\npaint for his cheeks.\n\nI remember the summary of his morality which Madam d'Epinay had mentioned\nto me and adopted.  This consisted in one single article; that the sole\nduty of man is to follow all the inclinations of his heart.  This\nmorality, when I heard it mentioned, gave me great matter of reflection,\nalthough I at first considered it solely as a play of wit.  But I soon\nperceived it was a principle really the rule of his conduct, and of which\nI afterwards had, at my own expense, but too many convincing proofs.\nIt is the interior doctrine Diderot has so frequently intimated to me,\nbut which I never heard him explain.\n\nI remember having several years before been frequently told that Grimm\nwas false, that he had nothing more than the appearance of sentiment,\nand particularly that he did not love me.  I recollected several little\nanecdotes which I had heard of him by M. de Francueil and Madam de\nChenonceaux, neither of whom esteemed him, and to whom he must have been\nknown, as Madam de Chenonceaux was daughter to Madam de Rochechouart,\nthe intimate friend of the late Comte de Friese, and that M. de\nFrancueil, at that time very intimate with the Viscount de Polignac,\nhad lived a good deal at the Palais Royal precisely when Grimm began to\nintroduce himself there.  All Paris heard of his despair after the death\nof the Comte de Friese.  It was necessary to support the reputation he\nhad acquired after the rigors of Mademoiselle Fel, and of which I, more\nthan any other person, should have seen the imposture, had I been less\nblind.  He was obliged to be dragged to the Hotel de Castries where he\nworthily played his part, abandoned to the most mortal affliction.\nThere, he every morning went into the garden to weep at his ease, holding\nbefore his eyes his handkerchief moistened with tears, as long as he was\nin sight of the hotel, but at the turning of a certain alley, people, of\nwhom he little thought, saw him instantly put his handkerchief in his\npocket and take out of it a book.  This observation, which was repeatedly\nmade, soon became public in Paris, and was almost as soon forgotten.\nI myself had forgotten it; a circumstance in which I was concerned\nbrought it to my recollection.  I was at the point of death in my bed,\nin the Rue de Grenelle, Grimm was in the country; he came one morning,\nquite out of breath, to see me, saying, he had arrived in town that very\ninstant; and a moment afterwards I learned he had arrived the evening\nbefore, and had been seen at the theatre.\n\nI heard many things of the same kind; but an observation, which I was\nsurprised not to have made sooner, struck me more than anything else.\nI had given to Grimm all my friends without exception, they were become\nhis.  I was so inseparable from him, that I should have had some\ndifficulty in continuing to visit at a house where he was not received.\nMadam de Crequi was the only person who refused to admit him into her\ncompany, and whom for that reason I have seldom since seen.  Grimm on his\npart made himself other friends, as well by his own means, as by those of\nthe Comte de Friese.  Of all these not one of them ever became my friend:\nhe never said a word to induce me even to become acquainted with them,\nand not one of those I sometimes met at his apartments ever showed me the\nleast good will; the Comte de Friese, in whose house he lived, and with\nwhom it consequently would have been agreeable to me to form some\nconnection, not excepted, nor the Comte de Schomberg, his relation, with\nwhom Grimm was still more intimate.\n\nAdd to this, my own friends, whom I made his, and who were all tenderly\nattached to me before this acquaintance, were no longer so the moment it\nwas made.  He never gave me one of his.  I gave him all mine, and these\nhe has taken from me.  If these be the effects of friendship, what are\nthose of enmity?\n\nDiderot himself told me several times at the beginning that Grimm in whom\nI had so much confidence, was not my friend.  He changed his language the\nmoment he was no longer so himself.\n\nThe manner in which I had disposed of my children wanted not the\nconcurrence of any person.  Yet I informed some of my friends of it,\nsolely to make it known to them, and that I might not in their eyes\nappear better than I was.  These friends were three in number: Diderot,\nGrimm, and Madam d'Epinay.  Duclos, the most worthy of my confidence, was\nthe only real friend whom I did not inform of it.  He nevertheless knew\nwhat I had done.  By whom?  This I know not.  It is not very probable the\nperfidy came from Madam d'Epinay, who knew that by following her example,\nhad I been capable of doing it, I had in my power the means of a cruel\nrevenge.  It remains therefore between Grimm and Diderot, then so much\nunited, especially against me, and it is probable this crime was common\nto them both.  I would lay a wager that Duclos, to whom I never told my\nsecret, and who consequently was at liberty to make what use he pleased\nof his information, is the only person who has not spoken of it again.\n\nGrimm and Diderot, in their project to take from me the governesses, had\nused the greatest efforts to make Duclos enter into their views; but this\nhe refused to do with disdain.  It was not until sometime afterwards that\nI learned from him what had passed between them on the subject; but I\nlearned at the time from Theresa enough to perceive there was some secret\ndesign, and that they wished to dispose of me, if not against my own\nconsent, at least without my knowledge, or had an intention of making\nthese two persons serve as instruments of some project they had in view.\nThis was far from upright conduct.  The opposition of Duclos is a\nconvincing proof of it.  They who think proper may believe it to be\nfriendship.\n\nThis pretended friendship was as fatal to me at home as it was abroad.\nThe long and frequent conversations with Madam le Vasseur, for, several\nyears past, had made a sensible change in this woman's behavior to me,\nand the change was far from being in my favor.  What was the subject of\nthese singular conversations?  Why such a profound mystery?  Was the\nconversation of that old woman agreeable enough to take her into favor,\nand of sufficient importance to make of it so great a secret?  During the\ntwo or three years these colloquies had, from time to time, been\ncontinued, they had appeared to me ridiculous; but when I thought of them\nagain, they began to astonish me.  This astonishment would have been\ncarried to inquietude had I then known what the old creature was\npreparing for me.\n\nNotwithstanding the pretended zeal for my welfare of which Grimm made\nsuch a public boast, difficult to reconcile with the airs he gave himself\nwhen we were together, I heard nothing of him from any quarter the least\nto my advantage, and his feigned commiseration tended less to do me\nservice than to render me contemptible.  He deprived me as much as he\npossibly could of the resource I found in the employment I had chosen,\nby decrying me as a bad copyist.  I confess he spoke the truth; but in\nthis case it was not for him to do it.  He proved himself in earnest by\nemploying another copyist, and prevailing upon everybody he could, by\nwhom I was engaged, to do the same.  His intention might have been\nsupposed to be that of reducing me to a dependence upon him and his\ncredit for a subsistence, and to cut off the latter until I was brought\nto that degree of distress.\n\nAll things considered, my reason imposed silence upon my former\nprejudice, which still pleaded in his favor.  I judged his character to\nbe at least suspicious, and with respect to his friendship I positively\ndecided it to be false.  I then resolved to see him no more, and informed\nMadam d'Epinay of the resolution I had taken, supporting, it with several\nunanswerable facts, but which I have now forgotten.\n\nShe strongly combated my resolution without knowing how to reply to the\nreasons on which it was founded.  She had not concerted with him; but the\nnext day, instead of explaining herself verbally, she, with great\naddress, gave me a letter they had drawn up together, and by which,\nwithout entering into a detail of facts, she justified him by his\nconcentrated character, attributed to me as a crime my having suspected\nhim of perfidy towards his friend, and exhorted me to come to an\naccommodation with him.  This letter staggered me.  In a conversation we\nafterwards had together, and in which I found her better prepared than\nshe had been the first time, I suffered myself to be quite prevailed\nupon, and was inclined to believe I might have judged erroneously.  In\nthis case I thought I really had done a friend a very serious injury,\nwhich it was my duty to repair.  In short, as I had already done several\ntimes with Diderot, and the Baron d'Holbach, half from inclination, and\nhalf from weakness, I made all the advances I had a right to require;\nI went to M. Grimm, like another George Dandin, to make him my apologies\nfor the offence he had given me; still in the false persuasion, which, in\nthe course of my life has made me guilty of a thousand meannesses to my\npretended friends, that there is no hatred which may not be disarmed by\nmildness and proper behavior; whereas, on the contrary, the hatred of the\nwicked becomes still more envenomed by the impossibility of finding\nanything to found it upon, and the sentiment of their own injustice is\nanother cause of offence against the person who is the object of it.\nI have, without going further than my own history, a strong proof of this\nmaxim in Grimm, and in Tronchin; both became my implacable enemies from\ninclination, pleasure and fancy, without having been able to charge me\nwith having done either of them the most trifling injury,\n\n     [I did not give the surname of Jongleur only to the latter until a\n     long time after his enmity had been declared, and the persecutions\n     he brought upon me at Geneva and elsewhere.  I soon suppressed the\n     name the moment I perceived I was entirely his victim.  Mean\n     vengeance is unworthy of my heart, and hatred never takes the least\n     root in it.]\n\nand whose rage, like that of tigers, becomes daily more fierce by the\nfacility of satiating it.\n\nI expected that Grimm, confused by my condescension and advances, would\nreceive me with open arms, and the most tender friendship.  He received\nme as a Roman Emperor would have done, and with a haughtiness I never saw\nin any person but himself.  I was by no means prepared for such a\nreception.  When, in the embarrassment of the part I had to act, and\nwhich was so unworthy of me, I had, in a few words and with a timid air,\nfulfilled the object which had brought me to him; before he received me\ninto favor, he pronounced, with a deal of majesty, an harangue he had\nprepared, and which contained a long enumeration of his rare virtues,\nand especially those connected with friendship.  He laid great stress\nupon a thing which at first struck me a great deal: this was his having\nalways preserved the same friends.  Whilst he was yet speaking, I said to\nmyself, it would be cruel for me to be the only exception to this rule.\nHe returned to the subject so frequently, and with such emphasis, that I\nthought, if in this he followed nothing but the sentiments of his heart,\nhe would be less struck with the maxim, and that he made of it an art\nuseful to his views by procuring the means of accomplishing them.  Until\nthen I had been in the same situation; I had preserved all my first\nfriends, those even from my tenderest infancy, without having lost one of\nthem except by death, and yet I had never before made the reflection: it\nwas not a maxim I had prescribed myself.  Since, therefore, the advantage\nwas common to both, why did he boast of it in preference, if he had not\npreviously intended to deprive me of the merit?  He afterwards endeavored\nto humble me by proofs of the preference our common friends gave to me.\nWith this I was as well acquainted as himself; the question was, by what\nmeans he had obtained it? whether it was by merit or address? by exalting\nhimself, or endeavoring to abase me?  At last, when he had placed between\nus all the distance that he could add to the value of the favor he was\nabout to confer, he granted me the kiss of peace, in a slight embrace\nwhich resembled the accolade which the king gives to newmade knights.\nI was stupefied with surprise: I knew not what to say; not a word could\nI utter.  The whole scene had the appearance of the reprimand a preceptor\ngives to his pupil while he graciously spares inflicting the rod.\nI never think of it without perceiving to what degree judgments, founded\nupon appearances to which the vulgar give so much weight, are deceitful,\nand how frequently audaciousness and pride are found in the guilty, and\nshame and embarrassment in the innocent.\n\nWe were reconciled: this was a relief to my heart, which every kind of\nquarrel fills with anguish.  It will naturally be supposed that a like\nreconciliation changed nothing in his manners; all it effected was to\ndeprive me of the right of complaining of them.  For this reason I took a\nresolution to endure everything, and for the future to say not a word.\n\nSo many successive vexations overwhelmed me to such a degree as to leave\nme but little power over my mind.  Receiving no answer from Saint\nLambert, neglected by Madam d'Houdetot, and no longer daring to open my\nheart to any person, I began to be afraid that by making friendship my\nidol, I should sacrifice my whole life to chimeras.  After putting all\nthose with whom I had been acquainted to the test, there remained but two\nwho had preserved my esteem, and in whom my heart could confide: Duclos,\nof whom since my retreat to the Hermitage I had lost sight, and Saint\nLambert.  I thought the only means of repairing the wrongs I had done the\nlatter, was to open myself to him without reserve, and I resolved to\nconfess to him everything by which his mistress should not be exposed.\nI have no doubt but this was another snare of my passions to keep me\nnearer to her person; but I should certainly have had no reserve with her\nlover, entirely submitting to his direction, and carrying sincerity as\nfar as it was possible to do it.  I was upon the point of writing to him\na second letter, to which I was certain he would have returned an answer,\nwhen I learned the melancholy cause of his silence relative to the first.\nHe had been unable to support until the end the fatigues of the campaign.\nMadam d'Epinay informed me he had had an attack of the palsy, and Madam\nd'Houdetot, ill from affliction, wrote me two or three days after from\nParis, that he was going to Aix-la-Chapelle to take the benefit of the\nwaters.  I will not say this melancholy circumstance afflicted me as it\ndid her; but I am of opinion my grief of heart was as painful as her\ntears.  The pain of knowing him to be in such a state, increased by the\nfear least inquietude should have contributed to occasion it, affected me\nmore than anything that had yet happened, and I felt most cruelly a want\nof fortitude, which in my estimation was necessary to enable me to\nsupport so many misfortunes.  Happily this generous friend did not long\nleave me so overwhelmed with affliction; he did not forget me,\nnotwithstanding his attack; and I soon learned from himself that I had\nill judged his sentiments, and been too much alarmed for his situation.\nIt is now time I should come to the grand revolution of my destiny, to\nthe catastrophe which has divided my life in two parts so different from\neach other, and, from a very trifling cause, produced such terrible\neffects.\n\nOne day, little thinking of what was to happen, Madam d'Epinay sent for\nme to the Chevrette.  The moment I saw her I perceived in her eyes and\nwhole countenance an appearance of uneasiness, which struck me the more,\nas this was not customary, nobody knowing better than she did how to\ngovern her features and her movements.  \"My friend,\" said she to me,\n\"I am immediately going to set off for Geneva; my breast is in a bad\nstate, and my health so deranged that I must go and consult Tronchin.\"\nI was the more astonished at this resolution so suddenly taken, and at\nthe beginning of the bad season of the year, as thirty-six hours before\nshe had not, when I left her, so much as thought of it.  I asked her who\nshe would take with her.  She said her son and M. de Linant; and\nafterwards carelessly added, \"And you, dear, will not you go also?\"  As I\ndid not think she spoke seriously, knowing that at the season of the year\nI was scarcely in a situation to go to my chamber, I joked upon the\nutility of the company, of one sick person to another.  She herself had\nnot seemed to make the proposition seriously, and here the matter\ndropped.  The rest of our conversation ran upon the necessary\npreparations for her journey, about which she immediately gave orders,\nbeing determined to set off within a fortnight.  She lost nothing by my\nrefusal, having prevailed upon her husband to accompany her.\n\nA few days afterwards I received from Diderot the note I am going to\ntranscribe.  This note, simply doubled up, so that the contents were\neasily read, was addressed to me at Madam d'Epinay's, and sent to M. de\nLinant, tutor to the son, and confidant to the mother.\n\n\nNOTE FROM DIDEROT.\n\n\"I am naturally disposed to love you, and am born to give you trouble.  I\nam informed Madam d'Epinay is going to Geneva, and do not hear you are to\naccompany her.  My friend, you are satisfied with Madam d'Epinay, you\nmust go, with her; if dissatisfied you ought still less to hesitate.  Do\nyou find the weight of the obligations you are under to her uneasy to\nyou?  This is an opportunity of discharging a part of them, and relieving\nyour mind.  Do you ever expect another opportunity like the present one,\nof giving her proofs of your gratitude?  She is going to a country where\nshe will be quite a stranger.  She is ill, and will stand in need of\namusement and dissipation.  The winter season too!  Consider, my friend.\nYour ill state of health may be a much greater objection than I think it\nis; but are you now more indisposed than you were a month ago, or than\nyou will be at the beginning of spring?  Will you three months hence be\nin a situation to perform the journey more at your ease than at present?\nFor my part I cannot but observe to you that were I unable to bear the\nshaking of the carriage I would take my staff and follow her.  Have you\nno fears lest your conduct should be misinterpreted?  You will be\nsuspected of ingratitude or of a secret motive.  I well know, that let\nyou do as you will you will have in your favor the testimony of your\nconscience, but will this alone be sufficient, and is it permitted to\nneglect to a certain degree that which is necessary to acquire the\napprobation of others?  What I now write, my good friend, is to acquit\nmyself of what I think I owe to us both.  Should my letter displease you,\nthrow it into the fire and let it be forgotten.  I salute, love and\nembrace you.\"\n\nAlthough trembling and almost blind with rage whilst I read this epistle,\nI remarked the address with which Diderot affected a milder and more\npolite language than he had done in his former ones, wherein he never\nwent further than \"My dear,\" without ever deigning to add the name of\nfriend.  I easily discovered the secondhand means by which the letter was\nconveyed to me; the subscription, manner and form awkwardly betrayed the\nmanoeuvre; for we commonly wrote to each other by post, or the messenger\nof Montmorency, and this was the first and only time he sent me his\nletter by any other conveyance.\n\nAs soon as the first transports of my indignation permitted me to write,\nI, with great precipitation, wrote him the following answer, which I\nimmediately carried from the Hermitage, where I then was, to Chevrette,\nto show it to Madam d' Epinay; to whom, in my blind rage, I read the\ncontents, as well as the letter from Diderot.\n\n\"You cannot, my dear friend, either know the magnitude of the obligations\nI am under to Madam d'Epinay, to what a degree I am bound by them,\nwhether or not she is desirous of my accompanying her, that this is\npossible, or the reasons I may have for my noncompliance.  I have no\nobjection to discuss all these points with you; but you will in the\nmeantime confess that prescribing to me so positively what I ought to do,\nwithout first enabling yourself to judge of the matter, is, my dear\nphilosopher, acting very inconsiderately.  What is still worse, I\nperceive the opinion you give comes not from yourself.  Besides my being\nbut little disposed to suffer myself to be led by the nose under your\nname by any third or fourth person, I observe in this secondary advice\ncertain underhand dealing, which ill agrees with your candor, and from\nwhich you will on your account, as well as mine, do well in future to\nabstain.\n\n\"You are afraid my conduct should be misinterpreted; but I defy a heart\nlike yours to think ill of mine.  Others would perhaps speak better of me\nif I resembled them more.  God preserve me from gaining their\napprobation!  Let the vile and wicked watch over my conduct and\nmisinterpret my actions, Rousseau is not a man to be afraid of them, nor\nis Diderot to be prevailed upon to hearken to what they say.\n\n\"If I am displeased with your letter, you wish me to throw it into the\nfire, and pay no attention to the contents.  Do you imagine that anything\ncoming from you can be forgotten in such a manner?  You hold, my dear\nfriend, my tears as cheap in the pain you give me, as you do my life and\nhealth, in the cares you exhort me to take.  Could you but break yourself\nof this, your friendship would be more pleasing to me, and I should be\nless to be pitied.\"\n\nOn entering the chamber of Madam d'Epinay I found Grimm with her, with\nwhich I was highly delighted.  I read to them, in a loud and clear voice,\nthe two letters, with an intrepidity of which I should not have thought\nmyself capable, and concluded with a few observations not in the least\nderogatory to it.  At this unexpected audacity in a man generally timid,\nthey were struck dumb with surprise; I perceived that arrogant man look\ndown upon the ground, not daring to meet my eyes, which sparkled with\nindignation; but in the bottom of his heart he from that instant resolved\nupon my destruction, and, with Madam d' Epinay, I am certain concerted\nmeasures to that effect before they separated.\n\nIt was much about this time that I at length received, by Madam\nd'Houdetot, the answer from Saint Lambert, dated from Wolfenbuttle, a few\ndays after the accident had happened to him, to my letter which had been\nlong delayed upon the road.  This answer gave me the consolation of which\nI then stood so much in need; it was full of assurance of esteem and\nfriendship, and these gave me strength and courage to deserve them.  From\nthat moment I did my duty, but had Saint Lambert been less reasonable,\ngenerous and honest, I was inevitably lost.\n\nThe season became bad, and people began to quit the country.  Madam\nd'Houdetot informed me of the day on which she intended to come and bid\nadieu to the valley, and gave me a rendezvous at Laubonne.  This happened\nto be the same day on which Madam d'Epinay left the Chevrette to go to\nParis for the purpose of completing preparations for her journey.\nFortunately she set off in the morning, and I had still time to go and\ndine with her sister-in-law.  I had the letter from Saint Lambert in my\npocket, and read it over several times as I walked along, This letter\nserved me as a shield against my weakness.  I made and kept to the\nresolution of seeing nothing in Madam d'Houdetot but my friend and the\nmistress of Saint Lambert; and I passed with her a tete-a-fete of four\nhours in a most delicious calm, infinitely preferable, even with respect\nto enjoyment, to the paroxysms of a burning fever, which, always, until\nthat moment, I had had when in her presence.  As she too well knew my\nheart not to be changed, she was sensible of the efforts I made to\nconquer myself, and esteemed me the more for them, and I had the pleasure\nof perceiving that her friendship for me was not extinguished.  She\nannounced to me the approaching return of Saint Lambert, who, although\nwell enough recovered from his attack, was unable to bear the fatigues of\nwar, and was quitting the service to come and live in peace with her.\nWe formed the charming project of an intimate connection between us\nthree, and had reason to hope it would be lasting, since it was founded\non every sentiment by which honest and susceptible hearts could be\nunited; and we had moreover amongst us all the knowledge and talents\nnecessary to be sufficient to ourselves without the aid of any foreign\nsupplement.  Alas!  in abandoning myself to the hope of so agreeable a\nlife I little suspected that which awaited me.\n\nWe afterwards spoke of my situation with Madam d'Epinay.  I showed her\nthe letter from Diderot, with my answer to it; I related to her\neverything that had passed upon the subject, and declared to her my\nresolution of quitting the Hermitage.\n\nThis she vehemently opposed, and by reasons all powerful over my heart.\nShe expressed to me how much she could have wished I had been of the\nparty to Geneva, foreseeing she should inevitably be considered as having\ncaused the refusal, which the letter of Diderot seemed previously to\nannounce.  However, as she was acquainted with my reasons, she did not\ninsist upon this point, but conjured me to avoid coming to an open\nrupture let it cost me what mortification it would, and to palliate my\nrefusal by reasons sufficiently plausible to put away all unjust\nsuspicions of her having been the cause of it.  I told her the task she\nimposed on me was not easy; but that, resolved to expiate my faults at\nthe expense of my reputation, I would give the preference to hers in\neverything that honor permitted me to suffer.  It will soon be seen\nwhether or not I fulfilled this engagement.\n\nMy passion was so far from having lost any part of its force that I never\nin my life loved my Sophia so ardently and tenderly as on that day, but\nsuch was the impression made upon me by the letter of Saint Lambert, the\nsentiment of my duty and the horror in which I held perfidy, that during\nthe whole time of the interview my senses left me in peace, and I was not\nso much as tempted to kiss her hand.  At parting she embraced me before\nher servants.  This embrace, so different from those I had sometimes\nstolen from her under the foliage, proved I was become master of myself;\nand I am certain that had my mind, undisturbed, had time to acquire more\nfirmness, three months would have cured me radically.\n\nHere ends my personal connections with Madam d'Houdetot; connections of\nwhich each has been able to judge by appearance according to the\ndisposition of his own heart, but in which the passion inspired me by\nthat amiable woman, the most lively passion, perhaps, man ever felt, will\nbe honorable in our own eyes by the rare and painful sacrifice we both\nmade to duty, honor, love, and friendship.  We each had too high an\nopinion of the other easily to suffer ourselves to do anything derogatory\nto our dignity.  We must have been unworthy of all esteem had we not set\na proper value upon one like this, and the energy of my sentiments which\nhave rendered us culpable, was that which prevented us from becoming so.\n\nThus after a long friendship for one of these women, and the strongest\naffection for the other, I bade them both adieu the same day, to one\nnever to see her more, to the other to see her again twice, upon\noccasions of which I shall hereafter speak.\n\nAfter their departure, I found myself much embarrassed to fulfill so many\npressing and contradictory duties, the consequences of my imprudence; had\nI been in my natural situation, after the proposition and refusal of the\njourney to Geneva, I had only to remain quiet, and everything was as it\nshould be.  But I had foolishly made of it an affair which could not\nremain in the state it was, and an explanation was absolutely necessary,\nunless I quitted the Hermitage, which I had just promised Madam\nd'Houdetot not to do, at least for the present.  Moreover she had\nrequired me to make known the reasons for my refusal to my pretended\nfriends, that it might not be imputed to her.  Yet I could not state the\ntrue reason without doing an outrage to Madam d'Epinay, who certainly had\na right to my gratitude for what she had done for me.  Everything well\nconsidered, I found myself reduced to the severe but indispensable\nnecessity of failing in respect, either to Madam d'Upinay, Madam\nd'Houdetot or to myself; and it was the last I resolved to make my\nvictim.  This I did without hesitation, openly and fully, and with so\nmuch generosity as to make the act worthy of expiating the faults which\nhad reduced me to such an extremity.  This sacrifice, taken advantage of\nby my enemies, and which they, perhaps, did not expect, has ruined my\nreputation, and by their assiduity, deprived me of the esteem of the\npublic; but it has restored to me my own, and given me consolation in my\nmisfortune.  This, as it will hereafter appear, is not the last time I\nmade such a sacrifice, nor that advantages were taken of it to do me an\ninjury.\n\nGrimm was the only person who appeared to have taken no part in the\naffair, and it was to him I determined to address myself.  I wrote him a\nlong letter, in which I set forth the ridiculousness of considering it as\nmy duty to accompany Madam d' Epinay to Geneva, the inutility of the\nmeasure, and the embarrassment even it would have caused her, besides the\ninconvenience to myself.  I could not resist the temptation of letting\nhim perceive in this letter how fully I was informed in what manner\nthings were arranged, and that to me it appeared singular I should be\nexpected to undertake the journey whilst he himself dispensed with it,\nand that his name was never mentioned.  This letter, wherein, on account\nof my not being able clearly to state my reasons, I was often obliged to\nwander from the text, would have rendered me culpable in the eyes of the\npublic, but it was a model of reservedness and discretion for the people\nwho, like Grimm, were fully acquainted with the things I forbore to\nmention, and which justified my conduct.  I did not even hesitate to\nraise another prejudice against myself in attributing the advice of\nDiderot, to my other friends.  This I did to insinuate that Madam\nd'Houdetot had been in the same opinion as she really was, and in not\nmentioning that, upon the reasons I gave her, she thought differently,\nI could not better remove the suspicion of her having connived at my\nproceedings than appearing dissatisfied with her behavior.\n\nThis letter was concluded by an act of confidence which would have had an\neffect upon any other man; for, in desiring Grimm to weigh my reasons and\nafterwards to give me his opinion, I informed him that, let this be what\nit would, I should act accordingly, and such was my intention had he even\nthought I ought to set off; for M. d'Epinay having appointed himself the\nconductor of his wife, my going with them would then have had a different\nappearance; whereas it was I who, in the first place, was asked to take\nupon me that employment, and he was out of the question until after my\nrefusal.\n\nThe answer from Grimm was slow incoming; it was singular enough, on which\naccount I will here transcribe it.\n\n\"The departure of Madam d'Epinay is postponed; her son is ill, and it is\nnecessary to wait until his health is re-established.  I will consider\nthe contents of your letter.  Remain quiet at your Hermitage.  I will\nsend you my opinion as soon as this shall be necessary.  As she will\ncertainly not set off for some days, there is no immediate occasion for\nit.  In the meantime you may, if you think proper, make her your offers,\nalthough this to me seems a matter of indifference.  For, knowing your\nsituation as well as you do yourself, I doubt not of her returning to\nyour offer such an answer as she ought to do; and all the advantage\nwhich, in my opinion, can result from this, will be your having it in\nyour power to say to those by whom you may be importuned, that your not\nbeing of the travelling party was not for want of having made your offers\nto that effect.  Moreover, I do not see why you will absolutely have it\nthat the philosopher is the speaking-trumpet of all the world, nor\nbecause he is of opinion you ought to go, why you should imagine all your\nfriends think as he does?  If you write to Madam d'Epinay, her answer\nwill be yours to all your friends, since you have it so much at heart to\ngive them all an answer.  Adieu.  I embrace Madam le Vasseur and the\nCriminal.\"\n\n     [M. le Vasseur, whose wife governed him rather rudely, called her\n     the Lieutenant Criminal.  Grimm in a joke gave the same name to the\n     daughter, and by way of abridgment was pleased to retrench the first\n     word.]\n\nStruck with astonishment at reading this letter I vainly endeavored to\nfind out what it meant.  How!  instead of answering me with simplicity,\nhe took time to consider of what I had written, as if the time he had\nalready taken was not sufficient!  He intimates even the state of\nsuspense in which he wishes to keep me, as if a profound problem was to\nbe resolved, or that it was of importance to his views to deprive me of\nevery means of comprehending his intentions until the moment he should\nthink proper to make them known.  What therefore did he mean by these\nprecautions, delays, and mysteries?  Was this manner of acting consistent\nwith honor and uprightness?  I vainly sought for some favorable\ninterpretation of his conduct; it was impossible to find one.  Whatever\nhis design might be, were this inimical to me, his situation facilitated\nthe execution of it without its being possible for me in mine to oppose\nthe least obstacle.  In favor in the house of a great prince, having an\nextensive acquaintance, and giving the tone to common circles of which he\nwas the oracle, he had it in his power, with his usual address, to\ndispose everything in his favor; and I, alone in my Hermitage, far\nremoved from all society, without the benefit of advice, and having no\ncommunication with the world, had nothing to do but to remain in peace.\nAll I did was to write to Madam d'Epinay upon the illness of her son, as\npolite a letter as could be written, but in which I did not fall into the\nsnare of offering to accompany her to Geneva.\n\nAfter waiting for a long time in the most cruel uncertainty, into which\nthat barbarous man had plunged me, I learned, at the expiration of eight\nor ten days, that Madam d'Epinay was setoff, and received from him a\nsecond letter.  It contained not more than seven or eight lines which I\ndid not entirely read.  It was a rupture, but in such terms as the most\ninfernal hatred only can dictate, and these became unmeaning by the\nexcessive degree of acrimony with which he wished to charge them.  He\nforbade me his presence as he would have forbidden me his states.  All\nthat was wanting to his letter to make it laughable, was to be read over\nwith coolness.  Without taking a copy of it, or reading the whole of the\ncontents, I returned it him immediately, accompanied by the following\nnote:\n\n\"I refused to admit the force of the just reasons I had of suspicion: I\nnow, when it is too late, am become sufficiently acquainted with your\ncharacter.\n\n\"This then is the letter upon which you took time to meditate: I return\nit to you, it is not for me.  You may show mine to the whole world and\nhate me openly; this on your part will be a falsehood the less.\"\n\nMy telling he might show my preceding letter related to an article in his\nby which his profound address throughout the whole affair will be judged\nof.\n\nI have observed that my letter might inculpate me in the eyes of persons\nunacquainted with the particulars of what had passed.  This he was\ndelighted to discover; but how was he to take advantage of it without\nexposing himself?  By showing the letter he ran the risk of being\nreproached with abusing the confidence of his friend.\n\nTo relieve himself from this embarrassment he resolved to break with me\nin the most violent manner possible, and to set forth in his letter the\nfavor he did me in not showing mine.  He was certain that in my\nindignation and anger I should refuse his feigned discretion, and permit\nhim to show my letter to everybody; this was what he wished for, and\neverything turned out as he expected it would.  He sent my letter all\nover Paris, with his own commentaries upon it, which, however, were not\nso successful as he had expected them to be.  It was not judged that the\npermission he had extorted to make my letter public exempted him from the\nblame of having so lightly taken me at my word to do me an injury.\nPeople continually asked what personal complaints he had against me to\nauthorize so violent a hatred.  Finally, it was thought that if even my\nbehavior had been such as to authorize him to break with me, friendship,\nalthough extinguished, had rights which he ought to have respected.  But\nunfortunately the inhabitants of Paris are frivolous; remarks of the\nmoment are soon forgotten; the absent and unfortunate are neglected; the\nman who prospers secures favor by his presence; the intriguing and\nmalicious support each other, renew their vile efforts, and the effects\nof these, incessantly succeeding each other, efface everything by which\nthey were preceded.\n\nThus, after having so long deceived me, this man threw aside his mask;\nconvinced that, in the state to which he had brought things, he no longer\nstood in need of it.  Relieved from the fear of being unjust towards the\nwretch, I left him to his reflections, and thought no more of him.  A\nweek afterwards I received an answer from Madam d'Epinay, dated from\nGeneva.  I understood from the manner of her letter, in which for the\nfirst time in her life, she put on airs of state with me, that both\ndepending but little upon the success of their measures, and considering\nme a man inevitably lost, their intentions were to give themselves the\npleasure of completing my destruction.\n\nIn fact, my situation was deplorable.  I perceived all my friends\nwithdrew themselves from me without knowing how or for why.  Diderot, who\nboasted of the continuation of his attachment, and who, for three months\npast, had promised me a visit, did not come.  The winter began to make\nits appearance, and brought with it my habitual disorders.  My\nconstitution, although vigorous, had been unequal to the combat of so\nmany opposite passions.  I was so exhausted that I had neither strength\nnor courage sufficient to resist the most trifling indisposition.  Had my\nengagements; and the continued remonstrances of Diderot and Madam de\nHoudetot then permitted me to quit the Hermitage, I knew not where to go,\nnor in what manner to drag myself along.  I remained stupid and\nimmovable.  The idea alone of a step to take, a letter to write, or a\nword to say, made me tremble.  I could not however do otherwise than\nreply to the letter of Madam d'Epinay without acknowledging myself to be\nworthy of the treatment with which she and her friend overwhelmed me.  I\ndetermined upon notifying to her my sentiments and resolutions, not\ndoubting a moment that from humanity, generosity, propriety, and the good\nmanner of thinking, I imagined I had observed in her, notwithstanding her\nbad one, she would immediately subscribe to them.  My letter was as\nfollows:\n\n                                        HERMITAGE 23d NOV., 1757.\n\n\"Were it possible to die of grief I should not now be alive.\n\n\"But I have at length determined to triumph over everything.  Friendship,\nmadam, is extinguished between us, but that which no longer exists still\nhas its rights, and I respect them.\n\n\"I have not forgotten your goodness to me, and you may, on my part, expect\nas much gratitude as it is possible to have towards a person I no longer\ncan love.  All further explanation would be useless.  I have in my favor\nmy own conscience, and I return you your letter.\n\n\"I wished to quit the Hermitage, and I ought to have done it.  My friends\npretend I must stay there until spring; and since my friends desire it I\nwill remain there until that season if you will consent to my stay.\"\n\nAfter writing and despatching this letter all I thought of was remaining\nquiet at the Hermitage and taking care of my health; of endeavoring to\nrecover my strength, and taking measures to remove in the spring without\nnoise or making the rupture public.  But these were not the intentions\neither of Grimm or Madam d'Epinay, as it will presently appear.\n\nA few days afterwards, I had the pleasure of receiving from Diderot the\nvisit he had so frequently promised, and in which he had as constantly\nfailed.  He could not have come more opportunely; he was my oldest\nfriend: almost the only one who remained to me; the pleasure I felt in\nseeing him, as things were circumstanced, may easily be imagined.  My\nheart was full, and I disclosed it to him.  I explained to him several\nfacts which either had not come to his knowledge, or had been disguised\nor suppressed.  I informed him, as far as I could do it with propriety,\nof all that had passed.  I did not affect to conceal from him that with\nwhich he was but too well acquainted, that a passion equally unreasonable\nand unfortunate, had been the cause of my destruction; but I never\nacknowledged that Madam d'Houdetot had been made acquainted with it, or\nat least that I had declared it to her.  I mentioned to him the unworthy\nmanoeuvres of Madam d' Epinay to intercept the innocent letters her\nsister-in-law wrote to me.  I was determined he should hear the\nparticulars from the mouth of the persons whom she had attempted to\nseduce.  Theresa related them with great precision; but what was my\nastonishment when the mother came to speak, and I heard her declare and\nmaintain that nothing of this had come to her knowledge?  These were her\nwords from which she would never depart.  Not four days before she\nherself had recited to me all the particulars Theresa had just stated,\nand in presence of my friend she contradicted me to my face.  This, to\nme, was decisive, and I then clearly saw my imprudence in having so long\na time kept such a woman near me.  I made no use of invective; I scarcely\ndeigned to speak to her a few words of contempt.  I felt what I owed to\nthe daughter, whose steadfast uprightness was a perfect contrast to the\nbase monoeuvres of the mother.  But from the instant my resolution was\ntaken relative to the old woman, and I waited for nothing but the moment\nto put it into execution.\n\nThis presented itself sooner than I expected.  On the 10th of December I\nreceived from Madam d'Epinay the following answer to my preceding letter:\n\n                                   GENEVA, 1st December, 1757.\n\n\"After having for several years given you every possible mark of\nfriendship all I can now do is to pity you.  You are very unhappy.  I\nwish your conscience may be as calm as mine.  This may be necessary to\nthe repose of your whole life.\n\n\"Since you are determined to quit the Hermitage, and are persuaded that\nyou ought to do it, I am astonished your friends have prevailed upon you\nto stay there.  For my part I never consult mine upon my duty, and I have\nnothing further to say to you upon your own.\"\n\nSuch an unforeseen dismission, and so fully pronounced, left me not a\nmoment to hesitate.  It was necessary to quit immediately, let the\nweather and my health be in what state they might, although I were to\nsleep in the woods and upon the snow, with which the ground was then\ncovered, and in defiance of everything Madam d'Houdetot might say; for I\nwas willing to do everything to please her except render myself infamous.\n\nI never had been so embarrassed in my whole life as I then was; but my\nresolution was taken.  I swore, let what would happen, not to sleep at\nthe Hermitage on the night of that day week.  I began to prepare for\nsending away my effects, resolving to leave them in the open field rather\nthan not give up the key in the course of the week: for I was determined\neverything should be done before a letter could be written to Geneva, and\nan answer to it received.  I never felt myself so inspired with courage:\nI had recovered all my strength.  Honor and indignation, upon which Madam\nd'Epinay had not calculated, contributed to restore me to vigor.  Fortune\naided my audacity.  M. Mathas, fiscal procurer, heard of my\nembarrasament.  He sent to offer me a little house he had in his garden\nof Mont Louis, at Montmorency.  I accepted it with eagerness and\ngratitude.  The bargain was soon concluded: I immediately sent to\npurchase a little furniture to add to that we already had.  My effects\nI had carted away with a deal of trouble, and a great expense:\nnotwithstanding the ice and snow my removal was completed in a couple of\ndays, and on the fifteenth of December I gave up the keys of the\nHermitage, after having paid the wages of the gardener, not being able to\npay my rent.\n\nWith respect to Madam le Vasseur, I told her we must part; her daughter\nattempted to make me renounce my resolution, but I was inflexible.\nI sent her off, to Paris in a carriage of the messenger with all the\nfurniture and effects she and her daughter had in common.  I gave her\nsome money, and engaged to pay her lodging with her children, or\nelsewhere to provide for her subsistence as much as it should be possible\nfor me to do it, and never to let her want bread as long as I should have\nit myself.\n\nFinally the day after my arrival at Mont Louis, I wrote to Madam d'Epinay\nthe following letter:\n\n                                   MONTMORENCY, 17th December 1757.\n\n\"Nothing, madam, is so natural and necessary as to leave your house the\nmoment you no longer approve of my remaining there.  Upon you refusing\nyour consent to my passing the rest of the winter at the Hermitage I\nquitted it on the fifteenth of December.  My destiny was to enter it in\nspite of myself and to leave it the same.  I thank you for the residence\nyou prevailed upon me to make there, and I would thank you still more had\nI paid for it less dear.  You are right in believing me unhappy; nobody\nupon earth knows better than yourself to what a degree I must be so.  If\nbeing deceived in the choice of our friends be a misfortune, it is\nanother not less cruel to recover from so pleasing an error.\"\n\nSuch is the faithful narrative of my residence at the Hermitage, and of\nthe reasons which obliged me to leave it.  I could not break off the\nrecital, it was necessary to continue it with the greatest exactness;\nthis epoch of my life having had upon the rest of it an influence which\nwill extend to my latest remembrance.","title":"The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau \u2014 Volume 09","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":37623}