The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, entire
by
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Part 12 out of 13
would make me consider her constancy as a sacrifice, and instead of
feeling the pleasure I had in dividing with her my last morsel of bread,
she would see nothing but her own merit in following me wherever I was
driven by fate.
I must say everything; I have never concealed the vices either of my poor
mamma or myself; I cannot be more favorable to Theresa, and whatever
pleasure I may have in doing honor to a person who is dear to me, I will
not disguise the truth, although it may discover in her an error, if an
involuntary change of the affections of the heart be one. I had long
perceived hers to grow cooler towards me, and that she was no longer for
me what she had been in our younger days. Of this I was the more
sensible, as for her I was what I had always been. I fell into the same
inconvenience as that of which I had felt the effect with mamma, and this
effect was the same now I was with Theresa. Let us not seek for
perfection, which nature never produces; it would be the same thing with
any other woman. The manner in which I had disposed of my children,
however reasonable it had appeared to me, had not always left my heart at
ease. While writing my 'Treatise on Education', I felt I had neglected
duties with which it was not possible to dispense. Remorse at length
became so strong that it almost forced from me a public confession of my
fault at the beginning of my 'Emilius', and the passage is so clear, that
it is astonishing any person should, after reading it, have had the
courage to reproach me with my error. My situation was however still the
same, or something worse, by the animosity of my enemies, who sought to
find me in a fault. I feared a relapse, and unwilling to run the risk,
I preferred abstinence to exposing Theresa to a similar mortification.
I had besides remarked that a connection with women was prejudicial to my
health; this double reason made me form resolutions to which I had but
sometimes badly kept, but for the last three or four years I had more
constantly adhered to them. It was in this interval I had remarked
Theresa's coolness; she had the same attachment to me from duty, but not
the least from love. Our intercourse naturally became less agreeable,
and I imagined that, certain of the continuation of my cares wherever she
might be, she would choose to stay at Paris rather than to wander with
me. Yet she had given such signs of grief at our parting, had required
of me such positive promises that we should meet again, and, since my
departure, had expressed to the Prince de Conti and M. de Luxembourg so
strong a desire of it, that, far from having the courage to speak to her
of separation, I scarcely had enough to think of it myself; and after
having felt in my heart how impossible it was for me to do without her,.
all I thought of afterwards was to recall her to me as soon as possible.
I wrote to her to this effect, and she came. It was scarcely two months
since I had quitted her; but it was our first separation after a union of
so many years. We had both of us felt it most cruelly. What emotion in
our first embrace! O how delightful are the tears of tenderness and joy!
How does my heart drink them up! Why have I not had reason to shed them
more frequently?
On my arrival at Motiers I had written to Lord Keith, marshal of Scotland
and governor of Neuchatel, informing him of my retreat into the states of
his Prussian majesty, and requesting of him his protection. He answered
me with his well-known generosity, and in the manner I had expected from
him. He invited me to his house. I went with M. Martinet, lord of the
manor of Val de Travers, who was in great favor with his excellency.
The venerable appearance of this illustrious and virtuous Scotchman,
powerfully affected my heart, and from that instant began between him and
me the strong attachment, which on my part still remains the same, and
would be so on his, had not the traitors, who have deprived me of all the
consolation of life, taken advantage of my absence to deceive his old age
and depreciate me in his esteem.
George Keith, hereditary marshal of Scotland, and brother to the famous
General Keith, who lived gloriously and died in the bed of honor, had
quitted his country at a very early age, and was proscribed on account of
his attachment to the house of Stuart. With that house, however, he soon
became disgusted with the unjust and tyrannical spirit he remarked in the
ruling character of the Stuart family. He lived a long time in Spain,
the climate of which pleased him exceedingly, and at length attached
himself, as his brother had done, to the service of the King of Prussia,
who knew men and gave them the reception they merited. His majesty
received a great return for this reception, in the services rendered him
by Marshal Keith, and by what was infinitely more precious, the sincere
friendship of his lordship. The great mind of this worthy man, haughty
and republican, could stoop to no other yoke than that of friendship, but
to this it was so obedient, that with very different maxims he saw
nothing but Frederic the moment he became attached to him. The king
charged the marshal with affairs of importance, sent him to Paris, to
Spain, and at length, seeing he was already advanced in years, let him
retire with the government of Neuchatel, and the delightful employment of
passing there the remainder of his life in rendering the inhabitants
happy.
The people of Neuchatel, whose manners are trivial, know not how to
distinguish solid merit, and suppose wit to consist in long discourses.
When they saw a sedate man of simple manners appear amongst them, they
mistook his simplicity for haughtiness, his candor for rusticity, his
laconism for stupidity, and rejected his benevolent cares, because,
wishing to be useful, and not being a sycophant, he knew not how to
flatter people he did not esteem. In the ridiculous affair of the
minister Petitpierre, who was displaced by his colleagues, for having
been unwilling they should be eternally damned, my lord, opposing the
usurpations of the ministers, saw the whole country of which he took the
part, rise up against him, and when I arrived there the stupid murmur had
not entirely subsided. He passed for a man influenced by the prejudices
with which he was inspired by others, and of all the imputations brought
against him it was the most devoid of truth. My first sentiment on
seeing this venerable old man, was that of tender commiseration, on
account of his extreme leanness of body, years having already left him
little else but skin and bone; but when I raised my eyes to his animated,
open, noble countenance, I felt a respect, mingled with confidence, which
absorbed every other sentiment. He answered the very short compliment I
made him when I first came into his presence by speaking of something
else, as if I had already been a week in his house. He did not bid us
sit down. The stupid chatelain, the lord of the manor, remained
standing. For my part I at first sight saw in the fine and piercing eye
of his lordship something so conciliating that, feeling myself entirely
at ease, I without ceremony, took my seat by his side upon the sofa. By
the familiarity of his manner I immediately perceived the liberty I took
gave him pleasure, and that he said to himself: This is not a
Neuchatelois.
Singular effect of the similarity of characters! At an age when the
heart loses its natural warmth, that of this good old man grew warm by
his attachment to me to a degree which surprised everybody. He came to
see me at Motiers under the pretence of quail shooting, and stayed there
two days without touching a gun. We conceived such a friendship for each
other that we knew not how to live separate; the castle of Colombier,
where he passed the summer, was six leagues from Motiers; I went there at
least once a fortnight, and made a stay of twenty-four hours, and then
returned like a pilgrim with my heart full of affection for my host. The
emotion I had formerly experienced in my journeys from the Hermitage to
Raubonne was certainly very different, but it was not more pleasing than
that with which I approached Columbier.
What tears of tenderness have I shed when on the road to it, while
thinking of the paternal goodness, amiable virtues, and charming
philosophy of this respectable old man! I called him father, and he
called me son. These affectionate names give, in some measure, an idea
of the attachment by which we were united, but by no means that of the
want we felt of each other, nor of our continual desire to be together.
He would absolutely give me an apartment at the castle of Columbier, and
for a long time pressed me to take up my residence in that in which I
lodged during my visits. I at length told him I was more free and at my
ease in my own house, and that I had rather continue until the end of my
life to come and see him. He approved of my candor, and never afterwards
spoke to me on the subject. Oh, my good lord! Oh, my worthy father!
How is my heart still moved when I think of your goodness? Ah, barbarous
wretches! how deeply did they wound me when they deprived me of your
friendship? But no, great man, you are and ever will be the same for me,
who am still the same. You have been deceived, but you are not changed.
My lord marechal is not without faults; he is a man of wisdom, but he is
still a man. With the greatest penetration, the nicest discrimination,
and the most profound knowledge of men, he sometimes suffers himself to
be deceived, and never recovers his error. His temper is very singular
and foreign to his general turn of mind. He seems to forget the people
he sees every day, and thinks of them in a moment when they least expect
it; his attention seems ill-timed; his presents are dictated by caprice
and not by propriety. He gives or sends in an instant whatever comes
into his head, be the value of it ever so small. A young Genevese,
desirous of entering into the service of Prussia, made a personal
application to him; his lordship, instead of giving him a letter, gave
him a little bag of peas, which he desired him to carry to the king. On
receiving this singular recommendation his majesty gave a commission to
the bearer of it. These elevated geniuses have between themselves a
language which the vulgar will never understand. The whimsical manner of
my lord marechal, something like the caprice of a fine woman, rendered
him still more interesting to me. I was certain, and afterwards had
proofs, that it had not the least influence over his sentiments, nor did
it affect the cares prescribed by friendship on serious occasions, yet in
his manner of obliging there is the same singularity as in his manners in
general. Of this I will give one instance relative to a matter of no
great importance. The journey from Motiers to Colombier being too long
for me to perform in one day, I commonly divided it by setting off after
dinner and sleeping at Brot, which is half way. The landlord of the
house where I stopped, named Sandoz, having to solicit at Berlin a favor
of importance to him, begged I would request his excellency to ask it in
his behalf. "Most willingly," said I, and took him with me. I left him
in the antechamber, and mentioned the matter to his lordship, who
returned me no answer. After passing with him the whole morning, I saw
as I crossed the hall to go to dinner, poor Sandoz, who was fatigued to
death with waiting. Thinking the governor had forgotten what I had said
to him, I again spoke of the business before we sat down to table, but
still received no answer. I thought this manner of making me feel I was
importunate rather severe, and, pitying the poor man in waiting, held my
tongue. On my return the next day I was much surprised at the thanks he
returned me for the good dinner his excellency had given him after
receiving his paper. Three weeks afterwards his lordship sent him the
rescript he had solicited, dispatched by the minister, and signed by the
king, and this without having said a word either to myself or Sandoz
concerning the business, about which I thought he did not wish to give
himself the least concern.
I could wish incessantly to speak of George Keith; from him proceeds my
recollection of the last happy moments I have enjoyed: the rest of my
life, since our separation, has been passed in affliction and grief of
heart. The remembrance of this is so melancholy and confused that it was
impossible for me to observe the least order in what I write, so that in
future I shall be under the necessity of stating facts without giving
them a regular arrangement.
I was soon relieved from my inquietude arising from the uncertainty of my
asylum, by the answer from his majesty to the lord marshal, in whom, as
it will readily be believed, I had found an able advocate. The king not
only approved of what he had done, but desired him, for I must relate
everything, to give me twelve louis. The good old man, rather
embarrassed by the commission, and not knowing how to execute it
properly, endeavored to soften the insult by transforming the money into
provisions, and writing to me that he had received orders to furnish me
with wood and coal to begin my little establishment; he moreover added,
and perhaps from himself, that his majesty would willingly build me a
little house, such a one as I should choose to have, provided I would fix
upon the ground. I was extremely sensible of the kindness of the last
offer, which made me forget the weakness of the other. Without accepting
either, I considered Frederic as my benefactor and protector, and became
so sincerely attached to him, that from that moment I interested myself
as much in his glory as until then I had thought his successes unjust.
At the peace he made soon after, I expressed my joy by an illumination in
a very good taste: it was a string of garlands, with which I decorated
the house I inhabited, and in which, it is true, I had the vindictive
haughtiness to spend almost as much money as he had wished to give me.
The peace ratified, I thought as he was at the highest pinnacle of
military and political fame, he would think of acquiring that of another
nature, by reanimating his states, encouraging in them commerce and
agriculture, creating a new soil, covering it with a new people,
maintaining peace amongst his neighbors, and becoming the arbitrator,
after having been the terror, of Europe. He was in a situation to sheath
his sword without danger, certain that no sovereign would oblige him
again to draw it. Perceiving he did not disarm, I was afraid he would
profit but little by the advantages he had gained, and that he would be
great only by halves. I dared to write to him upon the subject, and with
a familiarity of a nature to please men of his character, conveying to
him the sacred voice of truth, which but few kings are worthy to hear.
The liberty I took was a secret between him and myself. I did not
communicate it even to the lord marshal, to whom I sent my letter to the
king sealed up. His lordship forwarded my dispatch without asking what
it contained. His majesty returned me no answer and the marshal going
soon after to Berlin, the king told him he had received from me a
scolding. By this I understood my letter had been ill received, and the
frankness of my zeal had been mistaken for the rusticity of a pedant.
In fact, this might possibly be the case; perhaps I did not say what was
necessary, nor in the manner proper to the occasion. All I can answer
for is the sentiment which induced me to take up the pen.
Shortly after my establishment at Motiers, Travers having every possible
assurance that I should be suffered to remain there in peace, I took the
Armenian habit. This was not the first time I had thought of doing it.
I had formerly had the same intention, particularly at Montmorency, where
the frequent use of probes often obliging me to keep my chamber, made me
more clearly perceive the advantages of a long robe. The convenience of
an Armenian tailor, who frequently came to see a relation he had at
Montmorency, almost tempted me to determine on taking this new dress,
troubling myself but little about what the world would say of it. Yet,
before I concluded about the matter, I wished to take the opinion of
M. de Luxembourg, who immediately advised me to follow my inclination.
I therefore procured a little Armenian wardrobe, but on account of the
storm raised against me, I was induced to postpone making use of it until
I should enjoy tranquillity, and it was not until some months afterwards
that, forced by new attacks of my disorder, I thought I could properly,
and without the least risk, put on my new dress at Motiers, especially
after having consulted the pastor of the place, who told me I might wear
it even in the temple without indecency. I then adopted the waistcoat,
caffetan, fur bonnet, and girdle; and after having in this dress attended
divine service, I saw no impropriety in going in it to visit his
lordship. His excellency in seeing me clothed in this manner made me no
other compliment than that which consisted in saying "Salaam aliakum,"
i.e., "Peace be with you;" the common Turkish salutation; after which
nothing more was said upon the subject, and I continued to wear my new
dress.
Having quite abandoned literature, all I now thought of was leading a
quiet life, and one as agreeable as I could make it. When alone, I have
never felt weariness of mind, not even in complete inaction; my
imagination filling up every void, was sufficient to keep up my
attention. The inactive babbling of a private circle, where, seated
opposite to each other, they who speak move nothing but the tongue, is
the only thing I have ever been unable to support. When walking and
rambling about there is some satisfaction in conversation; the feet and
eyes do something; but to hear people with their arms across speak of the
weather, of the biting of flies, or what is still worse, compliment each
other, is to me an insupportable torment. That I might not live like a
savage, I took it into my head to learn to make laces. Like the women,
I carried my cushion with me, when I went to make visits, or sat down to
work at my door, and chatted with passers-by. This made me the better
support the emptiness of babbling, and enabled me to pass my time with my
female neighbors without weariness. Several of these were very amiable
and not devoid of wit. One in particular, Isabella d'Ivernois, daughter
of the attorney-general of Neuchatel, I found so estimable as to induce
me to enter with her into terms of particular friendship, from which she
derived some advantage by the useful advice I gave her, and the services
she received from me on occasions of importance, so that now a worthy and
virtuous mother of a family, she is perhaps indebted to me for her
reason, her husband, her life, and happiness. On my part, I received
from her gentle consolation, particularly during a melancholy winter,
through out the whole of which when my sufferings were most cruel, she
came to pass with Theresa and me long evenings, which she made very short
for us by her agreeable conversation, and our mutual openness of heart.
She called me papa, and I called her daughter, and these names, which we
still give to each other, will, I hope, continue to be as dear to her as
they are to me. That my laces might be of some utility, I gave them to
my young female friends at their marriages, upon condition of their
suckling their children; Isabella's eldest sister had one upon these
terms, and well deserved it by her observance of them; Isabella herself
also received another, which, by intention she as fully merited. She has
not been happy enough to be able to pursue her inclination. When I sent
the laces to the two sisters, I wrote each of them a letter; the first
has been shown about in the world; the second has not the same celebrity:
friendship proceeds with less noise.
Amongst the connections I made in my neighborhood, of which I will not
enter into a detail, I must mention that with Colonel Pury, who had a
house upon the mountain, where he came to pass the summer. I was not
anxious to become acquainted with him, because I knew he was upon bad
terms at court, and with the lord marshal, whom he did not visit. Yet,
as he came to see me, and showed me much attention, I was under the
necessity of returning his visit; this was repeated, and we sometimes
dined with each other. At his house I became acquainted with M. du
Perou, and afterwards too intimately connected with him to pass his name
over in silence.
M. du Perou was an American, son to a commandant of Surinam, whose
successor, M. le Chambrier, of Neuchatel, married his widow. Left a
widow a second time, she came with her son to live in the country of her
second husband.
Du Perou, an only son, very rich, and tenderly beloved by his mother, had
been carefully brought up, and his education was not lost upon him. He
had acquired much knowledge, a taste for the arts, and piqued himself
upon his having cultivated his rational faculty: his Dutch appearance,
yellow complexion, and silent and close disposition, favored this
opinion. Although young, he was already deaf and gouty. This rendered
his motions deliberate and very grave, and although he was fond of
disputing, he in general spoke but little because his hearing was bad.
I was struck with his exterior, and said to myself, this is a thinker, a
man of wisdom, such a one as anybody would be happy to have for a friend.
He frequently addressed himself to me without paying the least
compliment, and this strengthened the favorable opinion I had already
formed of him. He said but little to me of myself or my books, and still
less of himself; he was not destitute of ideas, and what he said was
just. This justness and equality attracted my regard. He had neither
the elevation of mind, nor the discrimination of the lord marshal, but he
had all his simplicity: this was still representing him in something. I
did not become infatuated with him, but he acquired my attachment from
esteem; and by degrees this esteem led to friendship, and I totally
forgot the objection I made to the Baron Holbach: that he was too rich.
For a long time I saw but little of Du Perou, because I did not go to
Neuchatel, and he came but once a year to the mountain of Colonel Pury.
Why did I not go to Neuchatel? This proceeded from a childishness upon
which I must not be silent.
Although protected by the King of Prussia and the lord marshal, while I
avoided persecution in my asylum, I did not avoid the murmurs of the
public, of municipal magistrates and ministers. After what had happened
in France it became fashionable to insult me; these people would have
been afraid to seem to disapprove of what my persecutors had done by not
imitating them. The 'classe' of Neuchatel, that is, the ministers of
that city, gave the impulse, by endeavoring to move the council of state
against me. This attempt not having succeeded, the ministers addressed
themselves to the municipal magistrate, who immediately prohibited my
book, treating me on all occasions with but little civility, and saying,
that had I wished to reside in the city I should not have been suffered
to do it. They filled their Mercury with absurdities and the most stupid
hypocrisy, which, although, it makes every man of sense laugh, animated
the people against me. This, however, did not prevent them from setting
forth that I ought to be very grateful for their permitting me to live at
Motiers, where they had no authority; they would willingly have measured
me the air by the pint, provided I had paid for it a dear price. They
would have it that I was obliged to them for the protection the king
granted me in spite of the efforts they incessantly made to deprive me of
it. Finally, failing of success, after having done me all the injury
they could, and defamed me to the utmost of their power, they made a
merit of their impotence, by boasting of their goodness in suffering me
to stay in their country. I ought to have laughed at their vain efforts,
but I was foolish enough to be vexed at them, and had the weakness to be
unwilling to go to Neuchatel, to which I yielded for almost two years,
as if it was not doing too much honor to such wretches, to pay attention
to their proceedings, which, good or bad, could not be imputed to them,
because they never act but from a foreign impulse. Besides, minds
without sense or knowledge, whose objects of esteem are influence, power
and money, and far from imagining even that some respect is due to
talents, and that it is dishonorable to injure and insult them.
A certain mayor of a village, who from sundry malversations had been
deprived of his office, said to the lieutenant of Val de Travers, the
husband of Isabella: "I am told this Rousseau has great wit,--bring him
to me that I may see whether he has or not." The disapprobation of such
a man ought certainly to have no effect upon those on whom it falls.
After the treatment I had received at Paris, Geneva, Berne, and even at
Neuchatel, I expected no favor from the pastor of this place. I had,
however, been recommended to him by Madam Boy de la Tour, and he had
given me a good reception; but in that country where every new-comer is
indiscriminately flattered, civilities signify but little. Yet, after my
solemn union with the reformed church, and living in a Protestant
country, I could not, without failing in my engagements, as well as in
the duty of a citizen, neglect the public profession of the religion into
which I had entered; I therefore attended divine service. On the other
hand, had I gone to the holy table, I was afraid of exposing myself to a
refusal, and it was by no means probable, that after the tumult excited
at Geneva by the council, and at Neuchatel by the classe (the ministers),
he would, without difficulty administer to me the sacrament in his
church. The time of communion approaching, I wrote to M. de Montmollin,
the minister, to prove to him my desire of communicating, and declaring
myself heartily united to the Protestant church; I also told him, in
order to avoid disputing upon articles of faith, that I would not hearken
to any particular explanation of the point of doctrine. After taking
these steps I made myself easy, not doubting but M. de Montmollin would
refuse to admit me without the preliminary discussion to which I refused
to consent, and that in this manner everything would be at an end without
any fault of mine. I was deceived: when I least expected anything of the
kind, M. de Montmollin came to declare to me not only that he admitted me
to the communion under the condition which I had proposed, but that he
and the elders thought themselves much honored by my being one of their
flock. I never in my whole life felt greater surprise or received from
it more consolation. Living always alone and unconnected, appeared to me
a melancholy destiny, especially in adversity. In the midst of so many
proscriptions and persecutions, I found it extremely agreeable to be able
to say to myself: I am at least amongst my brethren; and I went to the
communion with an emotion of heart, and my eyes suffused with tears of
tenderness, which perhaps were the most agreeable preparation to Him to
whose table I was drawing near.
Sometime afterwards his lordship sent me a letter from Madam de
Boufflers, which he had received, at least I presumed so, by means of
D'Alembert, who was acquainted with the marechal. In this letter, the
first this lady had written to me after my departure from Montmorency,
she rebuked me severely for having written to M. de Montmollin, and
especially for having communicated. I the less understood what she meant
by her reproof, as after my journey to Geneva, I had constantly declared
myself a Protestant, and had gone publicly to the Hotel de Hollande
without incurring the least censure from anybody. It appeared to me
diverting enough, that Madam de Boufflers should wish to direct my
conscience in matters of religion. However, as I had no doubt of the
purity of her intention, I was not offended by this singular sally, and I
answered her without anger, stating to her my reasons.
Calumnies in print were still industriously circulated, and their benign
authors reproached the different powers with treating me too mildly.
For my part, I let them say and write what they pleased, without giving
myself the least concern about the matter. I was told there was a
censure from the Sorbonne, but this I could not believe. What could the
Sorbonne have to do in the matter? Did the doctors wish to know to a
certainty that I was not a Catholic? Everybody already knew I was not
one. Were they desirous of proving I was not a good Calvinist? Of what
consequence was this to them? It was taking upon themselves a singular
care, and becoming the substitutes of our ministers. Before I saw this
publication I thought it was distributed in the name of the Sorbonne, by
way of mockery: and when I had read it I was convinced this was the case.
But when at length there was not a doubt of its authenticity, all I could
bring myself to believe was, that the learned doctors would have been
better placed in a madhouse than they were in the college.
I was more affected by another publication, because it came from a man
for whom I always had an esteem, and whose constancy I admired, though I
pitied his blindness. I mean the mandatory letter against me by the
archbishop of Paris. I thought to return an answer to it was a duty I
owed myself. This I felt I could do without derogating from my dignity;
the case was something similar to that of the King of Poland. I had
always detested brutal disputes, after the manner of Voltaire. I never
combat but with dignity, and before I deign to defend myself I must be
certain that he by whom I am attacked will not dishonor my retort. I had
no doubt but this letter was fabricated by the Jesuits, and although they
were at that time in distress, I discovered in it their old principle of
crushing the wretched. I was therefore at liberty to follow my ancient
maxim, by honoring the titulary author, and refuting the work which I
think I did completely.
I found my residence at Motiers very agreeable, and nothing was wanting
to determine me to end my days there, but a certainty of the means of
subsistence. Living is dear in that neighborhood, and all my old
projects had been overturned by the dissolution of my household
arrangements at Montmorency, the establishment of others, the sale or
squandering of my furniture, and the expenses incurred since my
departure. The little capital which remained to me daily diminished.
Two or three years were sufficient to consume the remainder without my
having the means of renewing it, except by again engaging in literary
pursuits: a pernicious profession which I had already abandoned.
Persuaded that everything which concerned me would change, and that the
public, recovered from its frenzy, would make my persecutors blush, all
my endeavors tended to prolong my resources until this happy revolution
should take place, after which I should more at my ease choose a resource
from amongst those which might offer themselves. To this effect I took
up my Dictionary of Music, which ten years' labor had so far advanced as
to leave nothing wanting to it but the last corrections. My books which
I had lately received, enabled me to finish this work; my papers sent me
by the same conveyance, furnished me with the means of beginning my
memoirs to which I was determined to give my whole attention. I began by
transcribing the letters into a book, by which my memory might be guided
in the order of fact and time. I had already selected those I intended
to keep for this purpose, and for ten years the series was not
interrupted. However, in preparing them for copying I found an
interruption at which I was surprised. This was for almost six months,
from October, 1756, to March following. I recollected having put into my
selection a number of letters from Diderot, De Leyre, Madam d' Epinay,
Madam de Chenonceaux, etc., which filled up the void and were missing.
What was become of them? Had any person laid their hands upon my papers
whilst they remained in the Hotel de Luxembourg? This was not
conceivable, and I had seen M. de Luxembourg take the key of the chamber
in which I had deposited them. Many letters from different ladies, and
all those from Diderot, were without date, on which account I had been
under the necessity of dating them from memory before they could be put
in order, and thinking I might have committed errors, I again looked them
over for the purpose of seeing whether or not I could find those which
ought to fill up the void. This experiment did not succeed. I perceived
the vacancy to be real, and that the letters had certainly been taken
away. By whom and for what purpose? This was what I could not
comprehend. These letters, written prior to my great quarrels, and at
the time of my first enthusiasm in the composition of 'Eloisa', could not
be interesting to any person. They contained nothing more than
cavillings by Diderot, jeerings from De Leyre, assurances of friendship
from M. de Chenonceaux, and even Madam d'Epinay, with whom I was then
upon the best of terms. To whom were these letters of consequence? To
what use were they to be put? It was not until seven years afterwards
that I suspected the nature of the theft. The deficiency being no longer
doubtful, I looked over my rough drafts to see whether or not it was the
only one. I found several, which on account of the badness of my memory,
made me suppose others in the multitude of my papers. Those I remarked
were that of the 'Morale Sensitive', and the extract of the adventures of
Lord Edward. The last, I confess, made me suspect Madam de Luxembourg.
La Roche, her valet de chambre, had sent me the papers, and I could think
of nobody but herself to whom this fragment could be of consequence; but
what concern could the other give her, any more than the rest of the
letters missing, with which, even with evil intentions, nothing to my
prejudice could be done, unless they were falsified? As for the
marechal, with whose friendship for me, and invariable integrity, I was
perfectly acquainted, I never could suspect him for a moment. The most
reasonable supposition, after long tormenting my mind in endeavoring to
discover the author of the theft, that which imputed it to D'Alembert,
who, having thrust himself into the company of Madam de Luxembourg, might
have found means to turn over these papers, and take from amongst them
such manuscripts and letters as he might have thought proper, either for
the purpose of endeavoring to embroil me with the writer of them, or to
appropriate those he should find useful to his own private purposes. I
imagined that, deceived by the title of Morale Sensitive, he might have
supposed it to be the plan of a real treatise upon materialism, with
which he would have armed himself against me in a manner easy to be
imagined. Certain that he would soon be undeceived by reading the sketch
and determined to quit all literary pursuits, these larcenies gave me but
little concern. They besides were not the first the same hand
[I had found in his 'Elemens de Musique' (Elements of Music)
several things taken from what I had written for the 'Encyclopedie',
and which were given to him several years before the publication of
his elements. I know not what he may have had to do with a book
entitled 'Dictionaire des Beaux Arts' (Dictionary of the Fine Arts)
but I found in it articles transcribed word for word from mine, and
this long before the same articles were printed in the
Encyclopedie.]
had committed upon me without having complained of these pilferings. In
a very little time I thought no more of the trick that had been played me
than if nothing had happened, and began to collect the materials I had
left for the purpose of undertaking my projected confessions.
I had long thought the company of ministers, or at least the citizens and
burgesses of Geneva, would remonstrate against the infraction of the
edict in the decree made against me. Everything remained quiet, at least
to all exterior appearance; for discontent was general, and ready, on the
first opportunity, openly to manifest itself. My friends, or persons
calling themselves such, wrote letter after letter exhorting me to come
and put myself at their head, assuring me of public separation from the
council. The fear of the disturbance and troubles which might be caused
by my presence, prevented me from acquiescing with their desires, and,
faithful to the oath I had formerly made, never to take the least part in
any civil dissension in my country, I chose rather to let the offence
remain as it was, and banish myself forever from the country, than to
return to it by means which were violent and dangerous. It is true,
I expected the burgesses would make legal remonstrances against an
infraction in which their interests were deeply concerned; but no such
steps were taken. They who conducted the body of citizens sought less
the real redress of grievances than an opportunity to render themselves
necessary. They caballed but were silent, and suffered me to be
bespattered by the gossips and hypocrites set on to render me odious in
the eyes of the populace, and pass upon them their boistering for a zeal
in favor of religion.
After having, during a whole year, vainly expected that some one would
remonstrate against an illegal proceeding, and seeing myself abandoned by
my fellow-citizens, I determined to renounce my ungrateful country in
which I never had lived, from which I had not received either inheritance
or services, and by which, in return for the honor I had endeavored to do
it, I saw myself so unworthily treated by unanimous consent, since they,
who should have spoken, had remained silent. I therefore wrote to the
first syndic for that year, to M. Favre, if I remember right, a letter in
which I solemnly gave up my freedom of the city of Geneva, carefully
observing in it, however, that decency and moderation, from which I have
never departed in the acts of haughtiness which, in my misfortunes, the
cruelty of my enemies have frequently forced upon me,
This step opened the eyes of the citizens, who feeling they had neglected
their own interests by abandoning my defence, took my part when it was
too late. They had wrongs of their own which they joined to mine, and
made these the subject of several well-reasoned representations, which
they strengthened and extended, as the refusal of the council, supported
by the ministry of France, made them more clearly perceive the project
formed to impose on them a yoke. These altercations produced several
pamphlets which were undecisive, until that appeared entitled 'Lettres
ecrites de la Campagne', a work written in favor of the council, with
infinite art, and by which the remonstrating party, reduced to silence,
was crushed for a time. This production, a lasting monument of the rare
talents of its author, came from the Attorney-General Tronchin, a man of
wit and an enlightened understanding, well versed in the laws and
government of the republic. 'Siluit terra'.
The remonstrators, recovered from their first overthrow, undertook to
give an answer, and in time produced one which brought them off tolerably
well. But they all looked to me, as the only person capable of combating
a like adversary with hope of success. I confess I was of their opinion,
and excited by my former fellow-citizens, who thought it was my duty to
aid them with my pen, as I had been the cause of their embarrassment, I
undertook to refute the 'Lettres ecrites de la Campagne', and parodied
the title of them by that of 'Lettres ecrites de la Montagne,' which I
gave to mine. I wrote this answer so secretly, that at a meeting I had
at Thonon, with the chiefs of the malcontents to talk of their affairs,
and where they showed me a sketch of their answer, I said not a word of
mine, which was quite ready, fearing obstacles might arise relative to
the impression of it, should the magistrate or my enemies hear of what I
had done. This work was, however known in France before the publication;
but government chose rather to let it appear, than to suffer me to guess
at the means by which my secret had been discovered. Concerning this I
will state what I know, which is but trifling: what I have conjectured
shall remain with myself.
I received, at Motiers, almost as many visits as at the Hermitage and
Montmorency; but these, for the most part were a different kind. They
who had formerly come to see me were people who, having taste, talents,
and principles, something similar to mine, alleged them as the causes of
their visits, and introduced subjects on which I could converse. At
Motiers the case was different, especially with the visitors who came
from France. They were officers or other persons who had no taste for
literature, nor had many of them read my works, although, according to
their own accounts, they had travelled thirty, forty, sixty, and even a
hundred leagues to come and see me, and admire the illustrious man, the
very celebrated, the great man, etc. For from the time of my settling at
Motiers, I received the most impudent flattery, from which the esteem of
those with whom I associated had formerly sheltered me. As but few of my
new visitors deigned to tell me who or what they were, and as they had
neither read nor cast their eye over my works, nor had their researches
and mine been directed to the same objects, I knew not what to speak to
them upon: I waited for what they had to say, because it was for them to
know and tell me the purpose of their visit. It will naturally be
imagined this did not produce conversations very interesting to me,
although they, perhaps, were so to my visitors, according to the
information they might wish to acquire; for as I was without suspicion,
I answered without reserve, to every question they thought proper to ask
me, and they commonly went away as well informed as myself of the
particulars of my situation.
I was, for example, visited in this manner by M. de Feins, equerry to the
queen, and captain of cavalry, who had the patience to pass several days
at Motiers, and to follow me on foot even to La Ferriere, leading his
horse by the bridle, without having with me any point of union, except
our acquaintance with Mademoiselle Fel, and that we both played at
'bilboquet'. [A kind of cup and ball.]
Before this I had received another visit much more extraordinary. Two
men arrived on foot, each leading a mule loaded with his little baggage,
lodging at the inn, taking care of their mules and asking to see me. By
the equipage of these muleteers they were taken for smugglers, and the
news that smugglers were come to see me was instantly spread. Their
manner of addressing me sufficiently showed they were persons of another
description; but without being smugglers they might be adventurers, and
this doubt kept me for some time on my guard. They soon removed my
apprehensions. One was M. de Montauban, who had the title of Comte de la
Tour du Pin, gentleman to the dauphin; the other, M. Dastier de
Carpentras, an old officer who had his cross of St. Louis in his pocket,
because he could not display it. These gentlemen, both very amiable,
were men of sense, and their manner of travelling, so much to my own
taste, and but little like that of French gentlemen, in some measure
gained them my attachment, which an intercourse with them served to
improve. Our acquaintance did not end with the visit; it is still kept
up, and they have since been several times to see me, not on foot, that
was very well for the first time; but the more I have seen of these
gentlemen the less similarity have I found between their taste and mine;
I have not discovered their maxims to be such as I have ever observed,
that my writings are familiar to them, or that there is any real sympathy
between them and myself. What, therefore, did they want with me? Why
came they to see me with such an equipage? Why repeat their visit? Why
were they so desirous of having me for their host? I did not at that
time propose to myself these questions; but they have sometimes occurred
to me since.
Won by their advances, my heart abandoned itself without reserve,
especially to M. Dastier, with whose open countenance I was more
particularly pleased. I even corresponded with him, and when I
determined to print the 'Letters from the Mountains', I thought of
addressing myself to him, to deceive those by whom my packet was waited
for upon the road to Holland. He had spoken to me a good deal, and
perhaps purposely, upon the liberty of the press at Avignon; he offered
me his services should I have anything to print there: I took advantage
of the offer and sent him successively by the post my first sheets.
After having kept these for some time, he sent them back to me,
"Because," said he, "no bookseller dared to sell them;" and I was obliged
to have recourse to Rey taking care to send my papers, one after the
other, and not to part with those which succeeded until I had advice of
the reception of those already sent. Before the work was published,
I found it had been seen in the office of the ministers, and D'Escherny,
of Neuchatel, spoke to me of the book, entitled 'Del' Homme de la
Monlagne', which D'Holbach had told him was by me. I assured him, and it
was true, that I never had written a book which bore that title. When
the letters appeared he became furious, and accused me of falsehood;
although I had told him truth. By this means I was certain my manuscript
had been read; as I could not doubt the fidelity of Rey, the most
rational conjecture seemed to be, that my packets had been opened at the
post-house.
Another acquaintance I made much about the same time, but which was begun
by letters, was that with M. Laliand of Nimes, who wrote to me from
Paris, begging I would send him my profile; he said he was in want of it
for my bust in marble, which Le Moine was making for him to be placed in
his library. If this was a pretence invented to deceive me, it fully
succeeded. I imagined that a man who wished to have my bust in marble in
his library had his head full of my works, consequently of my principles,
and that he loved me because his mind was in unison with mine. It was
natural this idea should seduce me. I have since seen M. Laliand. I
found him very ready to render me many trifling services, and to concern
himself in my little affairs, but I have my doubts of his having, in the
few books he ever read, fallen upon any one of those I have written. I
do not know that he has a library, or that such a thing is of any use to
him; and for the bust he has a bad figure in plaster, by Le Moine, from
which has been engraved a hideous portrait that bears my name, as if it
bore to me some resemblance.
The only Frenchman who seemed to come to see me, on account of my
sentiments, and his taste for my works, was a young officer of the
regiment of Limousin, named Seguier de St. Brisson. He made a figure in
Paris, where he still perhaps distinguishes himself by his pleasing
talents and wit. He came once to Montmorency, the winter which preceded
my catastrophe. I was pleased with his vivacity. He afterwards wrote to
me at Motiers, and whether he wished to flatter me, or that his head was
turned with Emilius, he informed me he was about to quit the service to
live independently, and had begun to learn the trade of a carpenter. He
had an elder brother, a captain in the same regiment, the favorite of the
mother, who, a devotee to excess, and directed by I know not what
hypocrite, did not treat the youngest son well, accusing him of
irreligion, and what was still worse, of the unpardonable crime of being
connected with me. These were the grievances, on account of which he was
determined to break with his mother, and adopt the manner of life of
which I have just spoken, all to play the part of the young Emilius.
Alarmed at his petulance, I immediately wrote to him, endeavoring to make
him change his resolution, and my exhortations were as strong as I could
make them. They had their effect. He returned to his duty, to his
mother, and took back the resignation he had given the colonel, who had
been prudent enough to make no use of it, that the young man might have
time to reflect upon what he had done. St. Brisson, cured of these
follies, was guilty of another less alarming, but, to me, not less
disagreeable than the rest: he became an author. He successively
published two or three pamphlets which announced a man not devoid of
talents, but I have not to reproach myself with having encouraged him by
my praises to continue to write.
Some time afterwards he came to see me, and we made together a pilgrimage
to the island of St. Pierre. During this journey I found him different
from what I saw of him at Montmorency. He had, in his manner, something
affected, which at first did not much disgust me, although I have since
thought of it to his disadvantage. He once visited me at the hotel de
St. Simon, as I passed through Paris on my way to England. I learned
there what he had not told me, that he lived in the great world, and
often visited Madam de Luxembourg. Whilst I was at Trie, I never heard
from him, nor did he so much as make inquiry after me, by means of his
relation Mademoiselle Seguier, my neighbor. This lady never seemed
favorably disposed towards me. In a word, the infatuation of M. de St.
Brisson ended suddenly, like the connection of M. de Feins: but this man
owed me nothing, and the former was under obligations to me, unless the
follies I prevented him from committing were nothing more than
affectation; which might very possibly be the case.
I had visits from Geneva also. The Delucs, father and son, successively
chose me for their attendant in sickness. The father was taken ill on
the road, the son was already sick when he left Geneva; they both came to
my house. Ministers, relations, hypocrites, and persons of every
description came from Geneva and Switzerland, not like those from France,
to laugh at and admire me, but to rebuke and catechise me. The only
person amongst them, who gave me pleasure, was Moultou, who passed with
me three or four days, and whom I wished to remain much longer; the most
persevering of all, the most obstinate, and who conquered me by
importunity, was a M. d'Ivernois, a merchant at Geneva, a French refugee,
and related to the attorney-general of Neuchatel. This man came from
Geneva to Motiers twice a year, on purpose to see me, remained with me
several days together from morning to night, accompanied me in my walks,
brought me a thousand little presents, insinuated himself in spite of me
into my confidence, and intermeddled in all my affairs, notwithstanding
there was not between him and myself the least similarity of ideas,
inclination, sentiment, or knowledge. I do not believe he ever read a
book of any kind throughout, or that he knows upon what subject mine are
written. When I began to herbalize, he followed me in my botanical
rambles, without taste for that amusement, or having anything to say to
me or I to him. He had the patience to pass with me three days in a
public house at Goumoins, whence, by wearying him and making him feel how
much he wearied me, I was in hopes of driving him away. I could not,
however, shake his incredible perseverance, nor by any means discover the
motive of it.
Amongst these connections, made and continued by force, I must not omit
the only one that was agreeable to me, and in which my heart was really
interested: this was that I had with a young Hungarian who came to live
at Neuchatel, and from that place to Motiers, a few months after I had
taken up my residence there. He was called by the people of the country
the Baron de Sauttern, by which name he had been recommended from Zurich.
He was tall, well made, had an agreeable countenance, and mild and social
qualities. He told everybody, and gave me also to understand that he
came to Neuchatel for no other purpose, than that of forming his youth to
virtue, by his intercourse with me. His physiognomy, manner, and
behavior, seemed well suited to his conversation, and I should have
thought I failed in one of the greatest duties had I turned my back upon
a young man in whom I perceived nothing but what was amiable, and who
sought my acquaintance from so respectable a motive. My heart knows not
how to connect itself by halves. He soon acquired my friendship, and all
my confidence, and we were presently inseparable. He accompanied me in
all my walks, and become fond of them. I took him to the marechal, who
received him with the utmost kindness. As he was yet unable to explain
himself in French, he spoke and wrote to me in Latin, I answered in
French, and this mingling of the two languages did not make our
conversations either less smooth or lively. He spoke of his family, his
affairs, his adventures, and of the court of Vienna, with the domestic
details of which he seemed well acquainted. In fine, during two years
which we passed in the greatest intimacy, I found in him a mildness of
character proof against everything, manners not only polite but elegant,
great neatness of person, an extreme decency in his conversation, in a
word, all the marks of a man born and educated a gentleman, and which
rendered him in my eyes too estimable not to make him dear to me.
At the time we were upon the most intimate and friendly terms,
D' Ivernois wrote to me from Geneva, putting me upon my guard against the
young Hungarian who had taken up his residence in my neighborhood;
telling me he was a spy whom the minister of France had appointed to
watch my proceedings. This information was of a nature to alarm me the
more, as everybody advised me to guard against the machinations of
persons who were employed to keep an eye upon my actions, and to entice
me into France for the purpose of betraying me. To shut the mouths, once
for all, of these foolish advisers, I proposed to Sauttern, without
giving him the least intimation of the information I had received,
a journey on foot to Pontarlier, to which he consented. As soon as we
arrived there I put the letter from D'Ivernois into his hands, and after
giving him an ardent embrace, I said: "Sauttern has no need of a proof of
my confidence in him, but it is necessary I should prove to the public
that I know in whom to place it." This embrace was accompanied with a
pleasure which persecutors can neither feel themselves, nor take away
from the oppressed.
I will never believe Sauttern was a spy, nor that he betrayed me: but I
was deceived by him. When I opened to him my heart without reserve, he
constantly kept his own shut, and abused me by lies. He invented I know
not what kind of story, to prove to me his presence was necessary in his
own country. I exhorted him to return to it as soon as possible. He
setoff, and when I thought he was in Hungary, I learned he was at
Strasbourgh. This was not the first time he had been there. He had
caused some disorder in a family in that city; and the husband knowing I
received him in my house, wrote to me. I used every effort to bring the
young woman back to the paths of virtue, and Sauttern to his duty.
When I thought they were perfectly detached from each other, they renewed
their acquaintance, and the husband had the complaisance to receive the
young man at his house; from that moment I had nothing more to say.
I found the pretended baron had imposed upon me by a great number of
lies. His name was not Sauttern, but Sauttersheim. With respect to the
title of baron, given him in Switzerland, I could not reproach him with
the impropriety, because he had never taken it; but I have not a doubt of
his being a gentleman, and the marshal, who knew mankind, and had been in
Hungary, always considered and treated him as such.
He had no sooner left my neighborhood, than the girl at the inn where he
eat, at Motiers, declared herself with child by him. She was so dirty a
creature, and Sauttern, generally esteemed in the country for his conduct
and purity of morals, piqued himself so much upon cleanliness, that
everybody was shocked at this impudent pretension. The most amiable
women of the country, who had vainly displayed to him their charms, were
furious: I myself was almost choked with indignation. I used every
effort to get the tongue of this impudent woman stopped, offering to pay
all expenses, and to give security for Sauttersheim. I wrote to him in
the fullest persuasion, not only that this pregnancy could not relate to
him, but that it was feigned, and the whole a machination of his enemies
and mine. I wished him to return and confound the strumpet, and those by
whom she was dictated to. The pusillanimity of his answer surprised me.
He wrote to the master of the parish to which the creature belonged, and
endeavored to stifle the matter. Perceiving this, I concerned myself no
more about it, but I was astonished that a man who could stoop so low
should have been sufficiently master of himself to deceive me by his
reserve in the closest familiarity.
From Strasbourgh, Sauttersheim went to seek his fortune in Paris, and
found there nothing but misery. He wrote to me acknowledging his error.
My compassion was excited by the recollection of our former friendship,
and I sent him a sum of money. The year following, as I passed through
Paris, I saw him much in the same situation; but he was the intimate
friend of M. de Laliand, and I could not learn by what means he had
formed this acquaintance, or whether it was recent or of long standing.
Two years afterwards Sauttersheim returned to Strasbourgh, whence he
wrote to me and where he died. This, in a few words, is the history of
our connection, and what I know of his adventures; but while I mourn the
fate of the unhappy young man, I still, and ever shall, believe he was
the son of people of distinction, and the impropriety of his conduct was
the effect of the situations to which he was reduced.
Such were the connections and acquaintance I acquired at Motiers. How
many of these would have been necessary to compensate the cruel losses I
suffered at the same time.
The first of these was that of M. de Luxembourg, who, after having been
long tormented by the physicians, at length became their victim, by being
treated for the gout which they would not acknowledge him to have, as for
a disorder they thought they could cure.
According to what La Roche, the confidential servant of Madam de
Luxembourg, wrote to me relative to what had happened, it is by this
cruel and memorable example that the miseries of greatness are to be
deplored.
The loss of this good nobleman afflicted me the more, as he was the only
real friend I had in France, and the mildness of his character was such
as to make me quite forget his rank, and attach myself to him as his
equal. Our connection was not broken off on account of my having quitted
the kingdom; he continued to write to me as usual.
I nevertheless thought I perceived that absence, or my misfortune, had
cooled his affection for me. It is difficult to a courtier to preserve
the same attachment to a person whom he knows to be in disgrace with
courts. I moreover suspected the great ascendancy Madam de Luxembourg
had over his mind, had been unfavorable to me, and that she had taken
advantage of our separation to injure me in his esteem. For her part,
notwithstanding a few affected marks of regard, which daily became less
frequent, she less concealed the change in her friendship. She wrote to
me four or five times into Switzerland, after which she never wrote to me
again, and nothing but my prejudice, confidence and blindness, could have
prevented my discovering in her something more than a coolness towards
me.
Guy the bookseller, partner with Duchesne, who, after I had left
Montmorency, frequently went to the hotel de Luxembourg, wrote to me that
my name was in the will of the marechal. There was nothing in this
either incredible or extraordinary, on which account I had no doubt of
the truth of the information. I deliberated within myself whether or not
I should receive the legacy. Everything well considered, I determined to
accept it, whatever it might be, and to do that honor to the memory of an
honest man, who, in a rank in which friendship is seldom found, had had a
real one for me. I had not this duty to fulfill. I heard no more of the
legacy, whether it were true or false; and in truth I should have felt
some pain in offending against one of the great maxims of my system of
morality, in profiting by anything at the death of a person whom I had
once held dear. During the last illness of our friend Mussard, Leneips
proposed to me to take advantage of the grateful sense he expressed for
our cares, to insinuate to him dispositions in our favor. "Ah! my dear
Leneips," said I, "let us not pollute by interested ideas the sad but
sacred duties we discharge towards our dying friend. I hope my name will
never be found in the testament of any person, at least not in that of a
friend." It was about this time that my lord marshal spoke to me of his,
of what he intended to do in it for me, and that I made him the answer of
which I have spoken in the first part of my memoirs.
My second loss, still more afflicting and irreparable, was that of the
best of women and mothers, who, already weighed down with years, and
overburthened with infirmities and misery, quitted this vale of tears for
the abode of the blessed, where the amiable remembrance of the good we
have done here below is the eternal reward of our benevolence. Go,
gentle and beneficent shade, to those of Fenelon, Berneg, Catinat, and
others, who in a more humble state have, like them, opened their hearts
to pure charity; go and taste of the fruit of your own benevolence, and
prepare for your son the place he hopes to fill by your side. Happy in
your misfortunes that Heaven, in putting to them a period, has spared you
the cruel spectacle of his! Fearing, lest I should fill her heart with
sorrow by the recital of my first disasters, I had not written to her
since my arrival in Switzerland; but I wrote to M. de Conzie, to inquire
after her situation, and it was from him I learned she had ceased to
alleviate the sufferings of the afflicted, and that her own were at an
end. I myself shall not suffer long; but if I thought I should not see
her again in the life to come, my feeble imagination would less delight
in the idea of the perfect happiness I there hope to enjoy.
My third and last loss, for since that time I have not had a friend to
lose, was that of the lord marshal. He did not die but tired of serving
the ungratful, he left Neuchatel, and I have never seen him since.
He still lives, and will, I hope, survive me: he is alive, and thanks to
him all my attachments on earth are not destroyed. There is one man
still worthy of my friendship; for the real value of this consists more
in what we feel than in that which we inspire; but I have lost the
pleasure I enjoyed in his, and can rank him in the number of those only
whom I love, but with whom I am no longer connected. He went to England
to receive the pardon of the king, and acquired the possession of the
property which formerly had been confiscated. We did not separate
without an intention of again being united, the idea of which seemed to
give him as much pleasure as I received from it. He determined to reside
at Keith Hall, near Aberdeen, and I was to join him as soon as he was
settled there: but this project was too flattering to my hopes to give me
any of its success. He did not remain in Scotland. The affectionate
solicitations of the King of Prussia induced him to return to Berlin,
and the reason of my not going to him there will presently appear.
Before this departure, foreseeing the storm which my enemies began to
raise against me, he of his own accord sent me letters of naturalization,
which seemed to be a certain means of preventing me from being driven
from the country. The community of the Convent of Val de Travers
followed the example of the governor, and gave me letters of Communion,
gratis, as they were the first. Thus, in every respect, become a
citizen, I was sheltered from legal expulsion, even by the prince; but it
has never been by legitimate means, that the man who, of all others, has
shown the greatest respect for the laws, has been persecuted. I do not
think I ought to enumerate, amongst the number of my losses at this time,
that of the Abbe Malby. Having lived sometime at the house of his
mother, I have been acquainted with the abbe, but not very intimately,
and I have reason to believe the nature of his sentiments with respect to
me changed after I acquired a greater celebrity than he already had. But
the first time I discovered his insincerity was immediately after the
publication of the 'Letters from the Mountain'. A letter attributed to
him, addressed to Madam Saladin, was handed about in Geneva, in which he
spoke of this work as the seditious clamors of a furious demagogue.
The esteem I had for the Abbe Malby, and my great opinion of his
understanding, did not permit me to believe this extravagant letter was
written by him. I acted in this business with my usual candor. I sent
him a copy of the letter, informing him he was said to be the author of
it. He returned me no answer. This silence astonished me: but what was
my surprise when by a letter I received from Madam de Chenonceaux,
I learned the Abbe was really the author of that which was attributed to
him, and found himself greatly embarrassed by mine. For even supposing
for a moment that what he stated was true, how could he justify so public
an attack, wantonly made, without obligation or necessity, for the sole
purpose of overwhelming in the midst of his greatest misfortunes, a man
to whom he had shown himself a well-wisher, and who had not done anything
that could excite his enmity? In a short time afterwards the 'Dialogues
of Phocion', in which I perceived nothing but a compilation, without
shame or restraint, from my writings, made their appearance.
In reading this book I perceived the author had not the least regard for
me, and that in future I must number him among my most bitter enemies.
I do not believe he has ever pardoned me for the Social Contract, far
superior to his abilities, or the Perpetual Peace; and I am, besides, of
opinion that the desire he expressed that I should make an extract from
the Abby de St. Pierre, proceeded from a supposition in him that I should
not acquit myself of it so well.
The further I advance in my narrative, the less order I feel myself
capable of observing. The agitation of the rest of my life has deranged
in my ideas the succession of events. These are too numerous, confused,
and disagreeable to be recited in due order. The only strong impression
they have left upon my mind is that of the horrid mystery by which the
cause of them is concealed, and of the deplorable state to which they
have reduced me. My narrative will in future be irregular, and according
to the events which, without order, may occur to my recollection.
I remember about the time to which I refer, full of the idea of my
confessions, I very imprudently spoke of them to everybody, never
imagining it could be the wish or interest, much less within the power
of any person whatsoever, to throw an obstacle in the way of this
undertaking, and had I suspected it, even this would not have rendered
me more discreet, as from the nature of my disposition it is totally
impossible for me to conceal either my thoughts or feelings. The
knowledge of this enterprise was, as far as I can judge, the cause of the
storm that was raised to drive me from Switzerland, and deliver me into
the hands of those by whom I might be prevented from executing it.
I had another project in contemplation which was not looked upon with a
more favorable eye by those who were afraid of the first: this was a
general edition of my works. I thought this edition of them necessary to
ascertain what books, amongst those to which my name was affixed, were
really written by me, and to furnish the public with the means of
distinguishing them from the writings falsely attributed to me by my
enemies, to bring me to dishonor and contempt. This was besides a simple
and an honorable means of insuring to myself a livelihood, and the only
one that remained to me. As I had renounced the profession of an author,
my memoirs not being of a nature to appear during my lifetime; as I no
longer gained a farthing in any manner whatsoever, and constantly lived
at a certain expense, I saw the end of my resources in that of the
produce of the last things I had written. This reason had induced me to
hasten the finishing of my Dictionary of Music, which still was
incomplete. I had received for it a hundred louis(guineas) and a life
annuity of three hundred livres; but a hundred louis could not last long
in the hands of a man who annually expended upwards of sixty, and three-
hundred livres (twelve guineas) a year was but a trifling sum to one upon
whom parasites and beggarly visitors lighted like a swarm of flies.
A company of merchants from Neuchatel came to undertake the general
edition, and a printer or bookseller of the name of Reguillat, from
Lyons, thrust himself, I know not by what means, amongst them to direct
it. The agreement was made upon reasonable terms, and sufficient to
accomplish my object. I had in print and manuscript, matter for six
volumes in quarto. I moreover agreed to give my assistance in bringing
out the edition. The merchants were, on their part, to pay me a thousand
crowns (one hundred and twenty-five pounds) down, and to assign me an
annuity of sixteen hundred livres (sixty-six pounds) for life.
The agreement was concluded but not signed, when the Letters from the
Mountain appeared. The terrible explosion caused by this infernal work,
and its abominable author, terrified the company, and the undertaking was
at an end.
I would compare the effect of this last production to that of the Letter
on French Music, had not that letter, while it brought upon me hatred,
and exposed me to danger, acquired me respect and esteem. But after the
appearance of the last work, it was a matter of astonishment at Geneva
and Versailles that such a monster as the author of it should be suffered
to exist. The little council, excited by Resident de France, and
directed by the attorney-general, made a declaration against my work,
by which, in the most severe terms, it was declared to be unworthy of
being burned by the hands of the hangman, adding, with an address which
bordered upon the burlesque, there was no possibility of speaking of or
answering it without dishonor. I would here transcribe the curious.
piece of composition, but unfortunately I have it not by me. I ardently
wish some of my readers, animated by the zeal of truth and equity, would
read over the Letters from the Mountain: they will, I dare hope, feel the
stoical moderation which reigns throughout the whole, after all the cruel
outrages with which the author was loaded. But unable to answer the
abuse, because no part of it could be called by that name nor to the
reasons because these were unanswerable, my enemies pretended to appear
too much enraged to reply: and it is true, if they took the invincible
arguments it contains, for abuse, they must have felt themselves roughly
treated.
The remonstrating party, far from complaining of the odious declaration,
acted according to the spirit of it, and instead of making a trophy of
the Letters from the Mountain, which they veiled to make them serve as a
shield, were pusillanimous enough not to do justice or honor to that
work, written to defend them, and at their own solicitation. They did
not either quote or mention the letters, although they tacitly drew from
them all their arguments, and by exactly following the advice with which
they conclude, made them the sole cause of their safety and triumph.
They had imposed on me this duty: I had fulfilled it, and unto the end
had served their cause and the country. I begged of them to abandon me,
and in their quarrels to think of nobody but themselves. They took me at
my word, and I concerned myself no more about their affairs, further than
constantly to exhort them to peace, not doubting, should they continue to
be obstinate, of their being crushed by France; this however did not
happen; I know the reason why it did not, but this is not the place to
explain what I mean.
The effect produced at Neuchatel by the Letters from the Mountain was at
first very mild. I sent a copy of them to M. de Montmollin, who received
it favorably, and read it without making any objection. He was ill as
well as myself; as soon as he recovered he came in a friendly manner to
see me, and conversed on general subjects. A rumor was however begun;
the book was burned I know not where. From Geneva, Berne, and perhaps
from Versailles, the effervescence quickly passed to Neuchatel, and
especially to Val de Travers, where, before even the ministers had taken
any apparent Steps, an attempt was secretly made to stir up the people,
I ought, I dare assert, to have been beloved by the people of that
country in which I have lived, giving alms in abundance, not leaving
about me an indigent person without assistance, never refusing to do any
service in my power, and which was consistent with justice, making myself
perhaps too familiar with everybody, and avoiding, as far as it was
possible for me to do it, all distinction which might excite the least
jealousy. This, however, did not prevent the populace, secretly stirred
up against me, by I know not whom, from being by degrees irritated
against me, even to fury, nor from publicly insulting me, not only in the
country and upon the road, but in the street. Those to whom I had
rendered the greatest services became most irritated against me, and even
people who still continued to receive my benefactions, not daring to
appear, excited others, and seemed to wish thus to be revenged of me for
their humiliation, by the obligations they were under for the favors I
had conferred upon them. Montmollin seemed to pay no attention to what
was passing, and did not yet come forward. But as the time of communion
approached, he came to advise me not to present myself at the holy table,
assuring me, however, he was not my enemy, and that he would leave me
undisturbed. I found this compliment whimsical enough; it brought to my
recollection the letter from Madam de Boufflers, and I could not conceive
to whom it could be a matter of such importance whether I communicated or
not. Considering this condescension on my part as an act of cowardice,
and moreover, being unwilling to give to the people a new pretext under
which they might charge me with impiety, I refused the request of the
minister, and he went away dissatisfied, giving me to understand I should
repent of my obstinacy.
He could not of his own authority forbid me the communion: that of the
Consistory, by which I had been admitted to it, was necessary, and as
long as there was no objection from that body I might present myself
without the fear of being refused. Montmollin procured from the Classe
(the ministers) a commission to summon me to the Consistory, there to
give an account of the articles of my faith, and to excommunicate me
should I refuse to comply. This excommunication could not be pronounced
without the aid of the Consistory also, and a majority of the voices.
But the peasants, who under the appellation of elders, composed this
assembly, presided over and governed by their minister, might naturally
be expected to adopt his opinion, especially in matters of the clergy,
which they still less understood than he did. I was therefore summoned,
and I resolved to appear.
What a happy circumstance and triumph would this have been to me could I
have spoken, and had I, if I may so speak, had my pen in my mouth! With
what superiority, with what facility even, should I have overthrown this
poor minister in the midst of his six peasants! The thirst after power
having made the Protestant clergy forget all the principles of the
reformation, all I had to do to recall these to their recollection and to
reduce them to silence, was to make comments upon my first 'Letters from
the Mountain', upon which they had the folly to animadvert.
My text was ready, and I had only to enlarge on it, and my adversary was
confounded. I should not have been weak enough to remain on the
defensive; it was easy to me to become an assailant without his even
perceiving it, or being able to shelter himself from my attack. The
contemptible priests of the Classe, equally careless and ignorant, had of
themselves placed me in the most favorable situation I could desire to
crush them at pleasure. But what of this? It was necessary I should
speak without hesitation, and find ideas, turn of expression, and words
at will, preserving a presence of mind, and keeping myself collected,
without once suffering even a momentary confusion. For what could I
hope, feeling as I did, my want of aptitude to express myself with ease?
I had been reduced to the most mortifying silence at Geneva, before an
assembly which was favorable to me, and previously resolved to approve of
everything I should say. Here, on the contrary, I had to do with a
cavalier who, substituting cunning to knowledge, would spread for me a
hundred snares before I could perceive one of them, and was resolutely
determined to catch me in an error let the consequence be what it would.
The more I examined the situation in which I stood, the greater danger I
perceived myself exposed to, and feeling the impossibility of
successfully withdrawing from it, I thought of another expedient.
I meditated a discourse which I intended to pronounce before the
Consistory, to exempt myself from the necessity of answering. The thing
was easy. I wrote the discourse and began to learn it by memory, with an
inconceivable ardor. Theresa laughed at hearing me mutter and
incessantly repeat the same phrases, while endeavoring to cram them into
my head. I hoped, at length, to remember what I had written: I knew the
chatelain as an officer attached to the service of the prince, would be
present at the Consistory, and that notwithstanding the manoeuvres and
bottles of Montmollin, most of the elders were well disposed towards me.
I had, moreover, in my favor, reason, truth, and justice, with the
protection of the king, the authority of the council of state, and the
good wishes of every real patriot, to whom the establishment of this
inquisition was threatening. In fine, everything contributed to
encourage me.
On the eve of the day appointed, I had my discourse by rote, and recited
it without missing a word. I had it in my head all night: in the morning
I had forgotten it. I hesitated at every word, thought myself before the
assembly, became confused, stammered, and lost my presence of mind. In
fine, when the time to make my appearance was almost at hand, my courage
totally failed me. I remained at home and wrote to the Consistory,
hastily stating my reasons, and pleaded my disorder, which really, in the
state to which apprehension had reduced me, would scarcely have permitted
me to stay out the whole sitting.
The minister, embarrassed by my letter, adjourned the Consistory. In the
interval, he of himself, and by his creatures, made a thousand efforts to
seduce the elders, who, following the dictates of their consciences,
rather than those they received from him, did not vote according to his
wishes, or those of the class. Whatever power his arguments drawn from
his cellar might have over this kind of people, he could not gain one of
them, more than the two or three who were already devoted to his will,
and who were called his 'ames damnees'.--[damned souls]-- The officer of
the prince, and the Colonel Pury, who, in this affair, acted with great
zeal, kept the rest to their duty, and when Montmollin wished to proceed
to excommunication, his Consistory, by a majority of voices, flatly
refused to authorize him to do it. Thus reduced to the last expedient,
that of stirring up the people against me, he, his colleagues, and other
persons, set about it openly, and were so successful, that not-
withstanding the strong and frequent rescripts of the king, and the
orders of the council of state, I was at length obliged to quit the
country, that I might not expose the officer of the king to be himself
assassinated while he protected me.
The recollection of the whole of this affair is so confused, that it is
impossible for me to reduce to or connect the circumstances of it.
I remember a kind of negotiation had been entered into with the class,
in which Montmollin was the mediator. He feigned to believe it was
feared I should, by my writings, disturb the peace of the country, in
which case, the liberty I had of writing would be blamed. He had given
me to understand that if I consented to lay down my pen, what was past
would be forgotten. I had already entered into this engagement with
myself, and did not hesitate in doing it with the class, but
conditionally and solely in matters of religion. He found means to have
a duplicate of the agreement upon some change necessary to be made in it.
The condition having been rejected by the class; I demanded back the
writing, which was returned to me, but he kept the duplicate, pretending
it was lost. After this, the people, openly excited by the ministers,
laughed at the rescripts of the king, and the orders of the council of
state, and shook off all restraint. I was declaimed against from the
pulpit, called antichrist, and pursued in the country like a mad wolf.
My Armenian dress discovered me to the populace; of this I felt the cruel
inconvenience, but to quit it in such circumstances, appeared to me an
act of cowardice. I could not prevail upon myself to do it, and I
quietly walked through the country with my caffetan and fur bonnet in the
midst of the hootings of the dregs of the people, and sometimes through a
shower of stones. Several times as I passed before houses, I heard those
by whom they were inhabited call out: "Bring me my gun that I may fire at
him." As I did not on this account hasten my pace, my calmness increased
their fury, but they never went further than threats, at least with
respect to firearms.
During the fermentation I received from two circumstances the most
sensible pleasure. The first was my having it in my power to prove my
gratitude by means of the lord marshal. The honest part of the
inhabitants of Neuchatel, full of indignation at the treatment I
received, and the manoeuvres of which I was the victim, held the
ministers in execration, clearly perceiving they were obedient to a
foreign impulse, and the vile agents of people, who, in making them act,
kept themselves concealed; they were moreover afraid my case would have
dangerous consequences, and be made a precedent for the purpose of
establishing a real inquisition.
The magistrates, and especially M. Meuron, who had succeeded
M. d' Ivernois in the office of attorney-general, made every effort to
defend me. Colonel Pury, although a private individual, did more and
succeeded better. It was the colonel who found means to make Montmollin
submit in his Consistory, by keeping the elders to their duty. He had
credit, and employed it to stop the sedition; but he had nothing more
than the authority of the laws, and the aid of justice and reason, to
oppose to that of money and wine: the combat was unequal, and in this
point Montmollin was triumphant. However, thankful for his zeal and
cares, I wished to have it in my power to make him a return of good
offices, and in some measure discharge a part of the obligations I was
under to him. I knew he was very desirous of being named a counsellor of
state; but having displeased the court by his conduct in the affair of
the minister Petitpierre, he was in disgrace with the prince and
governor. I however undertook, at all risks, to write to the lord
marshal in his favor: I went so far as even to mention the employment of
which he was desirous, and my application was so well received that,
contrary to the expectations of his most ardent well wishers, it was
almost instantly conferred upon him by the king. In this manner fate,
which has constantly raised me to too great an elevation, or plunged me
into an abyss of adversity, continued to toss me from one extreme to
another, and whilst the populace covered me with mud I was able to make a
counsellor of state.
The other pleasing circumstance was a visit I received from Madam de
Verdelin with her daughter, with whom she had been at the baths of
Bourbonne, whence they came to Motiers and stayed with me two or three
days. By her attention and cares, she at length conquered my long
repugnancy; and my heart, won by her endearing manner, made her a return
of all the friendship of which she had long given me proofs. This
journey made me extremely sensible of her kindness: my situation rendered
the consolations of friendship highly necessary to support me under my
sufferings. I was afraid she would be too much affected by the insults
I received from the populace, and could have wished to conceal them from
her that her feelings might not be hurt, but this was impossible; and
although her presence was some check upon the insolent populace in our
walks, she saw enough of their brutality to enable her to judge of what
passed when I was alone. During the short residence she made at Motiers,
I was still attacked in my habitation. One morning her chambermaid found
my window blocked up with stones, which had been thrown at it during the
night. A very heavy bench placed in the street by the side of the house,
and strongly fastened down, was taken up and reared against the door in
such a manner as, had it not been perceived from the window, to have
knocked down the first person who should have opened the door to go out.
Madam de Verdelin was acquainted with everything that passed; for,
besides what she herself was witness to, her confidential servant went
into many houses in the village, spoke to everybody, and was seen in
conversation with Montmollin. She did not, however, seem to pay the
least attention to that which happened to me, nor never mentioned
Montmollin nor any other person, and answered in a few words to what I
said to her of him. Persuaded that a residence in England would be more
agreeable to me than any other, she frequently spoke of Mr. Hume who was
then at Paris, of his friendship for me, and the desire he had of being
of service to me in his own country. It is time I should say something
of Hume.
He had acquired a great reputation in France amongst the Encyclopedists
by his essays on commerce and politics, and in the last place by his
history of the House of Stuart, the only one of his writings of which I
had read a part, in the translation of the Abbe Prevot. For want of
being acquainted with his other works, I was persuaded, according to what
I heard of him, that Mr. Hume joined a very republican mind to the
English Paradoxes in favor of luxury. In this opinion I considered his
whole apology of Charles I. as a prodigy of impartiality, and I had as
great an idea of his virtue as of his genius. The desire of being
acquainted with this great man, and of obtaining his friendship, had
greatly strengthened the inclination I felt to go to England, induced by
the solicitations of Madam de Boufflers, the intimate friend of Hume.
After my arrival in Switzerland, I received from him, by means of this
lady, a letter extremely flattering; in which, to the highest encomiums
on my genius, he subjoined a pressing invitation to induce me to go to
England, and the offer of all his interest, and that of his friends, to
make my residence there agreeable. I found in the country to which I had
retired, the lord marshal, the countryman and friend of Hume, who
confirmed my good opinion of him, and from whom I learned a literary
anecdote, which did him great honor in the opinion of his lordship and
had the same effect in mine. Wallace, who had written against Hume upon
the subject of the population of the ancients, was absent whilst his work
was in the press. Hume took upon himself to examine the proofs, and to
do the needful to the edition. This manner of acting was according to my
way of thinking. I had sold at six sous (three pence) a piece, the
copies of a song written against myself. I was, therefore, strongly
prejudiced in favor of Hume, when Madam de Verdelin came and mentioned
the lively friendship he expressed for me, and his anxiety to do me the
honors of England; such was her expression. She pressed me a good deal
to take advantage of this zeal and to write to him. As I had not
naturally an inclination to England, and did not intend to go there until
the last extremity, I refused to write or make any promise; but I left
her at liberty to do whatever she should think necessary to keep Mr. Hume
favorably disposed towards me. When she went from Motiers, she left me
in the persuasion, by everything she had said to me of that illustrious
man, that he was my friend, and she herself still more his.
After her departure, Montmollin carried on his manoeuvres with more
vigor, and the populace threw off all restraint. Yet I still continued
to walk quietly amidst the hootings of the vulgar; and a taste for
botany, which I had begun to contract with Doctor d'Ivernois, making my
rambling more amusing, I went through the country herbalising, without
being affected by the clamors of this scum of the earth, whose fury was
still augmented by my calmness. What affected me most was, seeing
families of my friends,
[This fatality had begun with my residence at, Yverdon; the banneret
Roguin dying a year or two after my departure from that city, the
old papa Roguin had the candor to inform me with grief, as he said,
that in he papers of his relation, proofs had been found of his
having been concerned in the conspiracy to expel me from Yverdon and
the state of Berne. This clearly proved the conspiracy not to be,
as some people pretended to believe, an affair of hypocrisy since
the banneret, far from being a devotee, carried materialism and
incredulity to intolerance and fanaticism. Besides, nobody at
Yverdon had shown me more constant attention, nor had so prodigally
bestowed upon me praises and flattery as this banneret. He
faithfully followed the favorite plan of my persecutors.]
or of persons who gave themselves that name, openly join the league of my
persecutors; such as the D'Ivernois, without excepting the father and
brother of my Isabel le Boy de la Tour, a relation to the friend in whose
house I lodged, and Madam Girardier, her sister-in-law. This Peter Boy
was such a brute; so stupid, and behaved so uncouthly, that, to prevent
my mind from being disturbed, I took the liberty to ridicule him; and
after the manner of the 'Petit Prophete', I wrote a pamphlet of a few
pages, entitled, 'la Vision de Pierre de la Montagne dit le Voyant,
--[The vision of Peter of the Mountain called the Seer.]--in which I
found means to be diverting enough on the miracles which then served as
the great pretext for my persecution. Du Peyrou had this scrap printed
at Geneva, but its success in the country was but moderate; the
Neuchatelois with all their wit, taste but weakly attic salt or
pleasantry when these are a little refined.
In the midst of decrees and persecutions, the Genevese had distinguished
themselves by setting up a hue and cry with all their might; and my
friend Vernes amongst others, with an heroical generosity, chose that
moment precisely to publish against me letters in which he pretended to
prove I was not a Christian. These letters, written with an air of self-
sufficiency were not the better for it, although it was positively said
the celebrated Bonnet had given them some correction: for this man,
although a materialist, has an intolerant orthodoxy the moment I am in
question. There certainly was nothing in this work which could tempt me
to answer it; but having an opportunity of saying a few words upon it in
my 'Letters from the Mountain', I inserted in them a short note
sufficiently expressive of disdain to render Vernes furious. He filled
Geneva with his furious exclamations, and D'Ivernois wrote me word he had
quite lost his senses. Sometime afterwards appeared an anonymous sheet,
which instead of ink seemed to be written with water of Phelethon. In
this letter I was accused of having exposed my children in the streets,
of taking about with me a soldier's trull, of being worn out with
debaucheries,....., and other fine things of a like nature. It was not
difficult for me to discover the author. My first idea on reading this
libel, was to reduce to its real value everything the world calls fame
and reputation amongst men; seeing thus a man who was never in a brothel
in his life, and whose greatest defect was in being as timid and shy as a
virgin, treated as a frequenter of places of that description; and in
finding myself charged with being......, I, who not only never had the
least taint of such disorder, but, according to the faculty, was so
constructed as to make it almost impossible for me to contract it.
Everything well considered, I thought I could not better refute this
libel than by having it printed in the city in which I longest resided,
and with this intention I sent it to Duchesne to print it as it was with
an advertisement in which I named M. Vernes and a few short notes by way
of eclaircissement. Not satisfied with printing it only, I sent copies
to several persons, and amongst others one copy to the Prince Louis of
Wirtemberg, who had made me polite advances and with whom I was in
correspondence. The prince, Du Peyrou, and others, seemed to have their
doubts about the author of the libel, and blamed me for having named
Vernes upon so slight a foundation. Their remarks produced in me some
scruples, and I wrote to Duchesne to suppress the paper. Guy wrote to me
he had suppressed it: this may or may not be the case; I have been
deceived on so many occasions that there would be nothing extraordinary
in my being so on this, and from the time of which I speak, was so
enveloped in profound darkness that it was impossible for me to come at
any kind of truth.
M. Vernes bore the imputation with a moderation more than astonishing in
a man who was supposed not to have deserved it, and after the fury with
which he was seized on former occasions. He wrote me two or three
letters in very guarded terms, with a view, as it appeared to me,
to endeavor by my answers to discover how far I was certain of his being
the author of the paper, and whether or not I had any proofs against him.
I wrote him two short answers, severe in the sense, but politely
expressed, and with which he was not displeased. To his third letter,
perceiving he wished to form with me a kind of correspondence, I returned
no answer, and he got D'Ivernois to speak to me. Madam Cramer wrote to
Du Peyrou, telling him she was certain the libel was not by Vernes. This
however, did not make me change my opinion. But as it was possible I
might be deceived, and as it is certain that if I were, I owed Vernes an
explicit reparation, I sent him word by D'Ivernois that I would make him
such a one as he should think proper, provided he would name to me the
real author of the libel, or at least prove that he himself was not so.
I went further: feeling that, after all, were he not culpable, I had no
right to call upon him for proofs of any kind, I stated in a memoir of
considerable length, the reasons whence I had inferred my conclusion, and
determined to submit them to the judgment of an arbitrator, against whom
Vernes could not except. But few people would guess the arbitrator of
whom I made choice. I declared at the end of the memoir, that if, after
having examined it, and made such inquiries as should seem necessary, the
council pronounced M. Vernes not to be the author of the libel, from that
moment I should be fully persuaded he was not, and would immediately go
and throw myself at his feet, and ask his pardon until I had obtained it.
I can say with the greatest truth that my ardent zeal for equity, the
uprightness and generosity of my heart, and my confidence in the love of
justice innate in every mind never appeared more fully and perceptible
than in this wise and interesting memoir, in which I took, without
hesitation, my most implacable enemies for arbitrators between a
calumniator and myself. I read to Du Peyrou what I had written: he
advised me to suppress it, and I did so. He wished me to wait for the
proofs Vernes promised, and I am still waiting for them: he thought it
best that I should in the meantime be silent, and I held my tongue, and
shall do so the rest of my life, censured as I am for having brought
against Vernes a heavy imputation, false and unsupportable by proof,
although I am still fully persuaded, nay, as convinced as I am of my
existence, that he is the author of the libel. My memoir is in the hands
of Du Peyrou. Should it ever be published my reasons will be found in
it, and the heart of Jean Jacques, with which my contemporaries would not
be acquainted, will I hope be known.
I have now to proceed to my catastrophe at Motiers, and to my departure
from Val de Travers, after a residence of two years and a half, and an
eight months suffering with unshaken constancy of the most unworthy
treatment. It is impossible for me clearly to recollect the
circumstances of this disagreeable period, but a detail of them will be
found in a publication to that effect by Du Peyrou, of which I shall
hereafter have occasion to speak.
After the departure of Madam de Verdelin the fermentation increased, and,
notwithstanding the reiterated rescripts of the king, the frequent orders
of the council of state, and the cares of the chatelain and magistrates
of the place, the people, seriously considering me as antichrist, and
perceiving all their clamors to be of no effect, seemed at length
determined to proceed to violence; stones were already thrown after me
in the roads, but I was however in general at too great a distance to
receive any harm from them. At last, in the night of the fair of
Motiers, which is in the beginning of September, I was attacked in my
habitation in such a manner as to endanger the lives of everybody in the
house.
At midnight I heard a great noise in the gallery which ran along the back
part of the house. A shower of stones thrown against the window and the
door which opened to the gallery fell into it with so much noise and
violence, that my dog, which usually slept there, and had begun to bark,
ceased from fright, and ran into a corner gnawing and scratching the
planks to endeavor to make his escape. I immediately rose, and was
preparing to go from my chamber into the kitchen, when a stone thrown by
a vigorous arm crossed the latter, after having broken the window, forced
open the door of my chamber, and fell at my feet, so that had I been a
moment sooner upon the floor I should have had the stone against my
stomach. I judged the noise had been made to bring me to the door, and
the stone thrown to receive me as I went out. I ran into the kitchen,
where I found Theresa, who also had risen, and was tremblingly making her
way to me as fast as she could. We placed ourselves against the wall out
of the direction of the window to avoid the stones, and deliberate upon
what was best to be done; for going out to call assistance was the
certain means of getting ourselves knocked on the head. Fortunately the
maid-servant of an old man who lodged under me was waked by the noise,
and got up and ran to call the chatelain, whose house was next to mine.
He jumped from his bed, put on his robe de chambre, and instantly came to
me with the guard, which, on account of the fair, went the round that
night, and was just at hand. The chatelain was so alarmed at the sight
of the effects of what had happened that he turned pale and on seeing the
stones in the gallery, exclaimed, "Good God! here is a quarry!" On
examining below stairs, a door of a little court was found to have been
forced, and there was an appearance of an attempt having been made to get
into the house by the gallery. On inquiring the reason why the guard had
neither prevented nor perceived the disturbance, it came out that the
guards of Motiers had insisted upon doing duty that night, although it
was the turn of those of another village.
The next day the chatelain sent his report to the council of state, which
two days afterwards sent an order to inquire into the affair, to promise
a reward and secrecy to those who should impeach such as were guilty, and
in the meantime to place, at the expense of the king, guards about my
house, and that of the chatelain, which joined to it. The day after the
disturbance, Colonel Pury, the Attorney-General Meuron, the Chatelain
Martinet, the Receiver Guyenet, the Treasurer d'Ivernois and his father,
in a word, every person of consequence in the country, came to see me,
and united their solicitations to persuade me to yield to the storm and
leave, at least for a time, a place in which I could no longer live in
safety nor with honor. I perceived that even the chatelain was
frightened at the fury of the people, and apprehending it might extend to
himself, would be glad to see me depart as soon as possible, that he
might no longer have the trouble of protecting me there, and be able to
quit the parish, which he did after my departure. I therefore yielded to
their solicitations, and this with but little pain, for the hatred of the
people so afflicted my heart that I was no longer able to support it.
I had a choice of places to retire to. After Madam de Verdelin returned
to Paris, she had, in several letters, mentioned a Mr. Walpole, whom she
called my lord, who, having a strong desire to serve me, proposed to me
an asylum at one of his country houses, of the situation of which she
gave me the most agreeable description; entering, relative to lodging and
subsistence, into a detail which proved she and Lord Walpole had held
particular consultations upon the project. My lord marshal had always
advised me to go to England or Scotland, and in case of my determining
upon the latter, offered me there an asylum. But he offered me another
at Potsdam, near to his person, and which tempted me more than all the
rest.
He had just communicated to me what the king had said to him about my
going there, which was a kind of invitation to me from that monarch, and
the Duchess of Saxe-Gotha depended so much upon my taking the journey
that she wrote to me desiring I should go to see her in my way to the
court of Prussia, and stay some time before I proceeded farther; but I
was so attached to Switzerland that I could not resolve to quit it so
long as it was possible for me to live there, and I seized this
opportunity to execute a project of which I had for several months
conceived the idea, and of which I have deferred speaking, that I might
not interrupt my narrative.
This project consisted in going to reside in the island of St. Peter,
an estate belonging to the Hospital of Berne, in the middle of the lake
of Bienne. In a pedestrian pilgrimage I had made the preceding year with
Du Peyrou we had visited this isle, with which I was so much delighted
that I had since that time incessantly thought of the means of making it
my place of residence. The greatest obstacle to my wishes arose from the
property of the island being vested in the people of Berne, who three
years before had driven me from amongst them; and besides the
mortification of returning to live with people who had given me so
unfavorable a reception, I had reason to fear they would leave me no more
at peace in the island than they had done at Yverdon. I had consulted
the lord marshal upon the subject, who thinking as I did, that the people
of Berne would be glad to see me banished to the island, and to keep me
there as a hostage for the works I might be tempted to write, and sounded
their dispositions by means of M. Sturler, his old neighbor at Colombier.
M. Sturler addressed himself to the chiefs of the state, and, according
to their answer assured the marshal the Bernois, sorry for their past
behavior, wished to see me settled in the island of St. Peter, and to
leave me there at peace. As an additional precaution, before I
determined to reside there, I desired the Colonel Chaillet to make new
inquiries. He confirmed what I had already heard, and the receiver of
the island having obtained from his superiors permission to lodge me in
it, I thought I might without danger go to the house, with the tactic
consent of the sovereign and the proprietors; for I could not expect the
people of Berne would openly acknowledge the injustice they had done me,
and thus act contrary to the most inviolable maxim of all sovereigns.
The island of St. Peter, called at Neuchatel the island of La Motte, in
the middle of the lake of Bienne, is half a league in, circumference; but
in this little space all the chief productions necessary to subsistence
are found. The island has fields, meadows, orchards, woods, and
vineyards, and all these, favored by variegated and mountainous
situations, form a distribution of the more agreeable, as the parts, not
being discovered all at once, are seen successively to advantage, and
make the island appear greater than it really is. A very elevated
terrace forms the western part of it, and commands Gleresse and
Neuverville. This terrace is planted with trees which form a long alley,
interrupted in the middle by a great saloon, in which, during the
vintage, the people from the neighboring shores assemble and divert
themselves. There is but one house in the whole island, but that is very
spacious and convenient, inhabited by the receiver, and situated in a
hollow by which it is sheltered from the winds.
Five or six hundred paces to the south of the island of St. Peter is
another island, considerably less than the former, wild and uncultivated,
which appears to have been detached from the greater island by storms:
its gravelly soil produces nothing but willows and persicaria, but there
is in it a high hill well covered with greensward and very pleasant. The
form of the lake is an almost regular oval. The banks, less rich than
those of the lake of Geneva and Neuchatel, form a beautiful decoration,
especially towards the western part, which is well peopled, and edged
with vineyards at the foot, of a chain of mountains, something like those
of Cote-Rotie, but which produce not such excellent wine. The bailiwick
of St. John, Neuveville, Berne, and Bienne, lie in a line from the south
to the north, to the extremity of the lake, the whole interspersed with
very agreeable villages.
Such was the asylum I had prepared for myself, and to which I was
determined to retire alter quitting Val de Travers.
[It may perhaps be necessary to remark that I left there an enemy in
M. du Teneaux, mayor of Verrieres, not much esteemed in the country,
but who has a brother, said to be an honest man, in the office of M.
de St. Florentin. The mayor had been to see him sometime before my
adventure. Little remarks of this kind, though of no consequence,
in themselves, may lead to the discovery of many underhand
dealings.]
This choice was so agreeable to my peaceful inclinations, and my solitary
and indolent disposition, that I consider it as one of the pleasing
reveries of which I became the most passionately fond. I thought I
should in that island be more separated from men, more sheltered from
their outrages, and sooner forgotten by mankind: in a word, more
abandoned to the delightful pleasures of the inaction of a contemplative
life. I could have wished to have been confined in it in such a manner
as to have had no intercourse with mortals, and I certainly took every
measure I could imagine to relieve me from the necessity of troubling my
head about them.
The great question was that of subsistence, and by the dearness of
provisions, and the difficulty of carriage, this is expensive in the
island; the inhabitants are besides at the mercy of the receiver. This
difficulty was removed by an arrangement which Du Peyrou made with me in
becoming a substitute to the company which had undertaken and abandoned
my general edition. I gave him all the materials necessary, and made the
proper arrangement and distribution. To the engagement between us I
added that of giving him the memoirs of my life, and made him the general
depositary of all my papers, under the express condition of making no use
of them until after my death, having it at heart quietly to end my days
without doing anything which should again bring me back to the
recollection of the public. The life annuity he undertook to pay me was
sufficient to my subsistence. My lord marshal having recovered all his
property, had offered me twelve hundred livres (fifty pounds) a year,
half of which I accepted. He wished to send me the principal, and this I
refused on account of the difficulty of placing it. He then sent the
amount to Du Peyrou, in whose hands it remained, and who pays me the
annuity according to the terms agreed upon with his lordship. Adding
therefore to the result of my agreement with Du Peyrou, the annuity of
the marshal, two-thirds of which were reversible to Theresa after my
death, and the annuity of three hundred livres from Duchesne, I was
assured of a genteel subsistence for myself, and after me for Theresa, to
whom I left seven hundred livres (twenty-nine pounds) a year, from the
annuities paid me by Rey and the lord marshal; I had therefore no longer
to fear a want of bread. But it was ordained that honor should oblige me
to reject all these resources which fortune and my labors placed within
my reach, and that I should die as poor as I had lived. It will be seen
whether or not, without reducing myself to the last degree of infamy, I
could abide by the engagements which care has always taken to render
ignominious, by depriving me of every other resource to force me to
consent to my own dishonor. How was it possible anybody could doubt of
the choice I should make in such an alternative? Others have judged of
my heart by their own.
My mind at ease relative to subsistence was without care upon every other
subject. Although I left in the world the field open to my enemies,
there remained in the noble enthusiasm by which my writings were
dictated, and in the constant uniformity of my principles, an evidence of
the uprightness of my heart which answered to that deducible from my
conduct in favor of my natural disposition. I had no need of any other
defense against my calumniators. They might under my name describe
another man, but it was impossible they should deceive such as were
unwilling to be imposed upon. I could have given them my whole life to
animadvert upon, with a certainty, notwithstanding all my faults and
weaknesses, and my want of aptitude to, support the lightest yoke, of
their finding me in every situation a just and good man, without
bitterness, hatred, or jealousy, ready to acknowledge my errors, and
still more prompt to forget the injuries I received from others; seeking
all my happiness in love, friendship, and affection and in everything
carrying my sincerity even to imprudence and the most incredible
disinterestedness.
I therefore in some measure took leave of the age in which I lived and my
contemporaries, and bade adieu to the world, with an intention to confine
myself for the rest of my days to that island; such was my resolution,
and it was there I hoped to execute the great project of the indolent
life to which I had until then consecrated the little activity with which
Heaven had endowed me. The island was to become to me that of Papimanie,
that happy country where the inhabitants sleep:
Ou l'on fait plus, ou l'on fait nulle chose.
[Where they do more: where they do nothing.]
This more was everything for me, for I never much regretted sleep;
indolence is sufficient to my happiness, and provided I do nothing, I had
rather dream waking than asleep. Being past the age of romantic
projects, and having been more stunned than flattered by the trumpet of
fame, my only hope was that of living at ease, and constantly at leisure.
This is the life of the blessed in the world to come, and for the rest of
mine here below I made it my supreme happiness.
They who reproach me with so many contradictions, will not fail here to
add another to the number. I have observed the indolence of great
companies made them unsupportable to me, and I am now seeking solitude
for the sole purpose of abandoning myself to inaction. This however is
my disposition; if there be in it a contradiction, it proceeds from
nature and not from me; but there is so little that it is precisely on
that account that I am always consistent. The indolence of company is
burdensome because it is forced. That of solitude is charming because it
is free, and depends upon the will. In company I suffer cruelly by
inaction, because this is of necessity. I must there remain nailed to my
chair, or stand upright like a picket, without stirring hand or foot, not
daring to run, jump, sing, exclaim, nor gesticulate when I please, not
allowed even to dream, suffering at the same time the fatigue of inaction
and all the torment of constraint; obliged to pay attention to every
foolish thing uttered, and to all the idle compliments paid, and
constantly to keep my mind upon the rack that I may not fail to introduce
in my turn my jest or my lie. And this is called idleness! It is the
labor of a galley slave.
The indolence I love is not that of a lazy fellow who sits with his arms
across in total inaction, and thinks no more than he acts, but that of a
child which is incessantly in motion doing nothing, and that of a dotard
who wanders from his subject. I love to amuse myself with trifles, by
beginning a hundred things and never finishing one of them, by going or
coming as I take either into my head, by changing my project at every
instant, by following a fly through all its windings, in wishing to
overturn a rock to see what is under it, by undertaking with ardor the
work of ten years, and abandoning it without regret at the end of ten
minutes; finally, in musing from morning until night without order or
coherence, and in following in everything the caprice of a moment.
Botany, such as I have always considered it, and of which after my own
manner I began to become passionately fond, was precisely an idle study,
proper to fill up the void of my leisure, without leaving room for the
delirium of imagination or the weariness of total inaction. Carelessly
wandering in the woods and the country, mechanically gathering here a
flower and there a branch; eating my morsel almost by chance, observing a
thousand and a thousand times the same things, and always with the same
interest, because I always forgot them, were to me the means of passing
an eternity without a weary moment. However elegant, admirable, and
variegated the structure of plants may be, it does not strike an ignorant
eye sufficiently to fix the attention. The constant analogy, with, at
the same time, the prodigious variety which reigns in their conformation,
gives pleasure to those only who have already some idea of the vegetable
system. Others at the sight of these treasures of nature feel nothing
more than a stupid and monotonous admiration. They see nothing in detail
because they know not for what to look, nor do they perceive the whole,
having no idea of the chain of connection and combinations which
overwhelms with its wonders the mind of the observer. I was arrived at
that happy point of knowledge, and my want of memory was such as
constantly to keep me there, that I knew little enough to make the whole
new to me, and yet everything that was necessary to make me sensible to
the beauties of all the parts. The different soils into which the
island, although little, was divided, offered a sufficient variety of
plants, for the study and amusement of my whole life. I was determined
not to leave a blade of grass without analyzing it, and I began already
to take measures for making, with an immense collection of observations,
the 'Flora Petrinsularis'.
I sent for Theresa, who brought with her my books and effects. We
boarded with the receiver of the island. His wife had sisters at Nidau,
who by turns came to see her, and were company for Theresa. I here made
the experiment of the agreeable life which I could have wished to
continue to the end of my days, and the pleasure I found in it only
served to make me feel to a greater degree the bitterness of that by
which it was shortly to be succeeded.
I have ever been passionately fond of water, and the sight of it throws
me into a delightful reverie, although frequently without a determinate
object.
Immediately after I rose from my bed I never failed, if the weather was
fine, to run to the terrace to respire the fresh and salubrious air of
the morning, and glide my eye over the horizon of the lake, bounded by
banks and mountains, delightful to the view. I know no homage more
worthy of the divinity than the silent admiration excited by the
contemplation of his works, and which is not externally expressed.
I can easily comprehend the reason why the inhabitants of great cities,
who see nothing but walls, and streets, have but little faith; but not
whence it happens that people in the country, and especially such as live
in solitude, can possibly be without it. How comes it to pass that these
do not a hundred times a day elevate their minds in ecstasy to the Author
of the wonders which strike their senses. For my part, it is especially
at rising, wearied by a want of sleep, that long habit inclines me to
this elevation which imposes not the fatigue of thinking. But to this
effect my eyes must be struck with the ravishing beauties of nature. In
my chamber I pray less frequently, and not so fervently; but at the view
of a fine landscape I feel myself moved, but by what I am unable to tell.
I have somewhere read of a wise bishop who in a visit to his diocese
found an old woman whose only prayer consisted in the single interjection
"Oh!"--"Good mother," said he to her, "continue to pray in this manner;
your prayer is better than ours." This better prayer is mine also.
After breakfast, I hastened, with a frown on my brow, to write a few
pitiful letters, longing ardently for the moment after which I should
have no more to write. I busied myself for a few minutes about my books
and papers, to unpack and arrange them, rather than to read what they
contained; and this arrangement, which to me became the work of Penelope,
gave me the pleasure of musing for a while. I then grew weary, and
quitted my books to spend the three or four hours which remained to me of
the morning in the study of botany, and especially of the system of
Linnaeus, of which I became so passionately fond, that, after having felt
how useless my attachment to it was, I yet could not entirely shake it
off. This great observer is, in my opinion, the only one who, with
Ludwig, has hitherto considered botany as a naturalist, and a
philosopher; but he has too much studied it in herbals and gardens, and
not sufficiently in nature herself. For my part, whose garden was always
the whole island, the moment I wanted to make or verify an observation,
I ran into the woods or meadows with my book under my arm, and there laid
myself upon the ground near the plant in question, to examine it at my
ease as it stood. This method was of great service to me in gaining a
knowledge of vegetables in their natural state, before they had been
cultivated and changed in their nature by the hands of men. Fagon, first
physician to Louis XIV., and who named and perfectly knew all the plants
in the royal garden, is said to have been so ignorant in the country as
not to know how to distinguish the same plants. I am precisely the
contrary. I know something of the work of nature, but nothing of that of
the gardener.
I gave every afternoon totally up to my indolent and careless
disposition, and to following without regularity the impulse of the
moment. When the weather was calm, I frequently went immediately after
I rose from dinner, and alone got into the boat. The receiver had taught
me to row with one oar; I rowed out into the middle of the lake. The
moment I withdrew from the bank, I felt a secret joy which almost made me
leap, and of which it is impossible for me to tell or even comprehend the
cause, if it were not a secret congratulation on my being out of the
reach of the wicked. I afterwards rowed about the lake, sometimes
approaching the opposite bank, but never touching at it. I often let my
boat float at the mercy of the wind and water, abandoning myself to
reveries without object, and which were not the less agreeable for their
stupidity. I sometimes exclaimed, "O nature! O my mother! I am here
under thy guardianship alone; here is no deceitful and cunning mortal to
interfere between thee and me." In this manner I withdrew half a league
from land; I could have wished the lake had been the ocean. However, to
please my poor dog, who was not so fond as I was of such a long stay on
the water, I commonly followed one constant course; this was going to
land at the little island where I walked an hour or two, or laid myself
down on the grass on the summit of the hill, there to satiate myself with
the pleasure of admiring the lake and its environs, to examine and
dissect all the herbs within my reach, and, like another Robinson Crusoe,
built myself an imaginary place of residence in the island. I became
very much attached to this eminence. When I brought Theresa, with the
wife of the receiver and her sisters, to walk there, how proud was I to
be their pilot and guide! We took there rabbits to stock it. This was
another source of pleasure to Jean Jacques. These animals rendered the
island still more interesting to me. I afterwards went to it more
frequently, and with greater pleasure to observe the progress of the new
inhabitants.
To these amusements I added one which recalled to my recollection the
delightful life I led at the Charmettes, and to which the season
particularly invited me. This was assisting in the rustic labors of
gathering of roots and fruits, of which Theresa and I made it a pleasure
to partake with the wife of the receiver and his family. I remember a
Bernois, one M. Kirkeberguer, coming to see me, found me perched upon a
tree with a sack fastened to my waist, and already so full of apples that
I could not stir from the branch on which I stood. I was not sorry to be
caught in this and similar situations. I hoped the people of Berne,
witnesses to the employment of my leisure, would no longer think of
disturbing my tranquillity but leave me at peace in my solitude. I
should have preferred being confined there by their desire: this would
have rendered the continuation of my repose more certain.
This is another declaration upon which I am previously certain of the
incredulity of many of my readers, who obstinately continue to judge me
by themselves, although they cannot but have seen, in the course of my
life, a thousand internal affections which bore no resemblance to any of
theirs. But what is still more extraordinary is, that they refuse me
every sentiment, good or indifferent, which they have not, and are
constantly ready to attribute to me such bad ones as cannot enter into
the heart of man: in this case they find it easy to set me in opposition
to nature, and to make of me such a monster as cannot in reality exist.
Nothing absurd appears to them incredible, the moment it has a tendency
to blacken me, and nothing in the least extraordinary seems to them
possible, if it tends to do me honor.
But, notwithstanding what they may think or say, I will still continue
faithfully to state what J. J. Rousseau was, did, and thought; without
explaining, or justifying, the singularity of his sentiments and ideas,
or endeavoring to discover whether or not others have thought as he did.
I became so delighted with the island of St. Peter, and my residence
there was so agreeable to me that, by concentrating all my desires within
it, I formed the wish that I might stay there to the end of my life. The
visits I had to return in the neighborhood, the journeys I should be
under the necessity of making to Neuchatel, Bienne, Yverdon, and Nidau,
already fatigued my imagination. A day passed out of the island, seemed
to me a loss of so much happiness, and to go beyond the bounds of the
lake was to go out of my element. Past experience had besides rendered
me apprehensive. The very satisfaction that I received from anything
whatever was sufficient to make me fear the loss of it, and the ardent
desire I had to end my days in that island, was inseparable from the
apprehension of being obliged to leave it. I had contracted a habit of
going in the evening to sit upon the sandy shore, especially when the
lake was agitated. I felt a singular pleasure in seeing the waves break
at my feet. I formed of them in my imagination the image of the tumult
of the world contrasted with the peace of my habitation; and this
pleasing idea sometimes softened me even to tears. The repose I enjoyed
with ecstasy was disturbed by nothing but the fear of being deprived of
it, and this inquietude was accompanied with some bitterness. I felt my
situation so precarious as not to dare to depend upon its continuance.
"Ah! how willingly," said I to myself, "would I renounce the liberty of
quitting this place, for which I have no desire, for the assurance of
always remaining in it. Instead of being permitted to stay here by
favor, why am I not detained by force! They who suffer me to remain may
in a moment drive me away, and can I hope my persecutors, seeing me
happy, will leave me here to continue to be so? Permitting me to live in
the island is but a trifling favor. I could wish to be condemned to do
it, and constrained to remain here that I may not be obliged to go
elsewhere." I cast an envious eye upon Micheli du Cret, who, quiet in
the castle of Arbourg, had only to determine to be happy to become so.
In fine, by abandoning myself to these reflections, and the alarming
apprehensions of new storms always ready to break over my head, I wished
for them with an incredible ardor, and that instead of suffering me to
reside in the island, the Bernois would give it me for a perpetual
prison; and I can assert that had it depended upon me to get myself
condemned to this, I would most joyfully have done it, preferring a
thousand times the necessity of passing my life there to the danger of
being driven to another place.
This fear did not long remain on my mind. When I least expected what was
to happen, I received a letter from the bailiff of Nidau, within whose
jurisdiction the island of St. Peter was; by his letter he announced to
me from their excellencies an order to quit the island and their states.
I thought myself in a dream. Nothing could be less natural, reasonable,
or foreseen than such an order: for I considered my apprehensions as the
result of inquietude in a man whose imagination was disturbed by his
misfortunes, and not to proceed from a foresight which could have the
least foundation. The measures I had taken to insure myself the tacit
consent of the sovereign, the tranquillity with which I had been left to
make my establishment, the visits of several people from Berne, and that
of the bailiff himself, who had shown me such friendship and attention,
and the rigor of the season in which it was barbarous to expel a man who
was sickly and infirm, all these circumstances made me and many people
believe that there was some mistake in the order and that ill-disposed
people had purposely chosen the time of the vintage and the vacation of
the senate suddenly to do me an injury.
Had I yielded to the first impulse of my indignation, I should
immediately have departed. But to what place was I to go? What was to
become of me at the beginning of the winter, without object, preparation,
guide or carriage? Not to leave my papers and effects at the mercy of
the first comer, time was necessary to make proper arrangements, and it
was not stated in the order whether or not this would be granted me.
The continuance of misfortune began to weigh down my courage. For the
first time in my life I felt my natural haughtiness stoop to the yoke of
necessity, and, notwithstanding the murmurs of my heart, I was obliged to
demean myself by asking for a delay. I applied to M. de Graffenried, who
had sent me the order, for an explanation of it. His letter, conceived
in the strongest terms of disapprobation of the step that had been taken,
assured me it was with the greatest regret he communicated to me the
nature of it, and the expressions of grief and esteem it contained seemed
so many gentle invitations to open to him my heart: I did so. I had no
doubt but my letter would open the eyes of my persecutors, and that if so
cruel an order was not revoked, at least a reasonable delay, perhaps the
whole winter, to make the necessary preparations for my retreat, and to
choose a place of abode, would be granted me.
Whilst I waited for an answer, I reflected upon my situation, and
deliberated upon the steps I had to take. I perceived so many
difficulties on all sides, the vexation I had suffered had so strongly
affected me, and my health was then in such a bad state, that I was quite
overcome, and the effect of my discouragement was to deprive me of the
little resource which remained in my mind, by which I might, as well as
it was possible to do it, have withdrawn myself from my melancholy
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