FOOTNOTES:[1]Conf., x. 62.[2]Conf., x.[3]Ib.x. 70.[4]Louis François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti (1717-1776), was great-grandson of the brother of the Great Condé. He performed creditable things in the war of the Austrian Succession (in Piedmont 1744, in Belgium 1745); had a scheme of foreign policy as director of the secret diplomacy of Lewis XV. (1745-1756), which was to make Turkey, Poland, Sweden, Prussia, a barrier against Russia primarily, and Austria secondarily; lastly went into moderate opposition to the court, protesting against the destruction of theparlements(1771), and afterwards opposing the reforms of Turgot (1776). Finally he had the honour of refusing the sacraments of the church on his deathbed. See Martin'sHist. de France, xv. and xvi.[5]Conf., 97.Corr., v. 215.[6]Corr., ii. 144. Oct. 7, 1760.[7]Conf., x. 98.[8]The reader will distinguish this correspondent of Rousseau's,Comtessede Boufflers-Rouveret (1727-18—), from theDuchessede Boufflers, which was the title of Rousseau's Maréchale de Luxembourg before her second marriage. And also from theMarquisede Boufflers, said to be the mistress of the old king Stanislaus at Lunéville, and the mother of the Chevalier de Boufflers (who was the intimate of Voltaire, sat in the States General, emigrated, did homage to Napoleon, and finally died peaceably under Lewis XVIII.). See Jal'sDict. Critique, 259-262. Sainte Beuve has an essay on our present Comtesse de Boufflers (Nouveaux Lundis, iv. 163). She is the Madame de Boufflers who was taken by Beauclerk to visit Johnson in his Temple chambers, and was conducted to her coach by him in a remarkable manner (Boswell'sLife, ch. li. p. 467). Also much talked of in H. Walpole's Letters. See D'Alembert to Frederick, April 15, 1768.[9]Streckeisen, ii. 32.[10]Conf., x. 71.[11]For instance,Corr.ii. 85, 90, 92, etc. 1759.[12]Streckeisen, ii. 28, etc.[13]Ib., 29.[14]Conf., x. 99.[15]Ib., x. 57.[16]Ib., xi. 119.[17]Corr., ii. 196. Feb. 16, 1761.[18]Ib., ii. 102, 176, etc.[19]Conf., x. 60.[20]Corr., ii. 12.[21]As M. St. Marc Girardin has put it: "There are in all Rousseau's discussions two things to be carefully distinguished from one another; the maxims of the discourse, and the conclusions of the controversy. The maxims are ordinarily paradoxical; the conclusions are full of good sense."Rev. des Deux Mondes, Aug. 1852, p. 501.[22]Corr., ii. 244-246. Oct. 24, 1761.[23]Ib., 1766.Oeuv., lxxv. 364.[24]Corr., ii. 32. (1758.)[25]Corr., ii. 63. Jan. 15, 1779.[26]Bernardin de St. Pierre, xii. 102.[27]4th Letter, p. 375.[28]Mém., ii. 299.[29]Corr., ii. 98. July 10, 1759.[30]Corr., ii. 106. Nov. 10, 1759.[31]Ib., ii. 179. Jan. 18, 1761.[32]Ib., ii. 268. Dec. 12, 1761.[33]Ib., ii. 28. Dec. 23, 1761.[34]Nouv. Hél., III. xxii. 147. In 1784 Hume's suppressed essays on "Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul" were published in London:—"With Remarks, intended as an Antidote to the Poison contained in these Performances, by the Editor; to which is added, Two Letters on Suicide, from Rousseau's Eloisa." In the preface the reader is told that these "two very masterly letters have been much celebrated." See Hume'sEssays, by Green and Grose, i. 69, 70.[35]Corr., iii. 235. Aug. 1, 1763.[36]Corr., ii. 226. Sept. 29, 1761.[37]P. 294. Jan. 11, 1762.[38]Madame Latour (Nov. 7, 1730-Sept. 6, 1789) was the wife of a man in the financial world, who used her ill and dissipated as much of her fortune as he could, and from whom she separated in 1775. After that she resumed her maiden name and was known as Madame de Franqueville. Musset-Pathay, ii. 182, and Sainte Beuve,Causeries, ii. 63.[39]Corr., ii. 214.Conf., ix. 289.[40]English translations of Rousseau's works appeared very speedily after the originals. A second edition of the Heloïsa was called for as early as May 1761. SeeCorr.ii. 223. A German translation of the Heloïsa appeared at Leipzig in 1761, in six duodecimos.[41]For instance,Corr., ii. 168. Nov. 19, 1762.[42]Choderlos de La Clos: 1741-1803.[43]Journal, iv. 496. (Ed. Charpentier, 1857.)[44]Nouv. Hél., III. xiv. 48.[45]E.g.Letters, 40-46.[46]Madame de Staël (1765-1817), in herLettres sur les écrits et le caractère de J.J. Rousseau, written when she was twenty, and her first work of any pretensions.Oeuv., i. 41. Ed. 1820.[47]Nowhere more pungently than in a little piece of some half-dozen pages, headed,Prédiction tirée d'un vieux Manuscrit, the form of which is borrowed from Grimm's squib in the dispute about French music,Le petit Prophète de Boehmischbroda, though it seems to me to be superior to Grimm in pointedness. Here are a few verses from the supposed prophecy of the man who should come—and of what he should do. "Et la multitude courra sur ses pas et plusieurs croiront en lui. Et il leur dira: Vous êtes des scélérats et des fripons, vos femmes sont toutes des femmes perdues, et je viens vivre parmi vous. Et il ajoutera tous les hommes sont vertueux dans le pays où je suis né, et je n'habiterai jamais le pays où je suis né.... Et il dira aussi qu'il est impossible d'avoir des moeurs, et de lire des Romans, et il fera un Roman; et dans son Roman le vice sera en action et la vertu en paroles, et ses personages seront forcenés d'amour et de philosophie. Et dans son Roman on apprendra l'art de suborner philosophiquement une jeune fille. Et l'Ecolière perdra toute honte et toute pudeur, et elle fera avec son maître des sottises et des maximes.... Et le bel Ami étant dans un Bateau seul avec sa Maîtresse voudra le jetter dans l'eau et se précipiter avec elle. Et ils appelleront tout cela de la Philosophie et de la Vertu," and so on, humorously enough in its way.[48]See passages in Goncourt'sLa Femme au 18ième siècle, p. 380.[49]Musset-Pathay, II. 361. See Madame Roland'sMém., i. 207.[50]Corr., March 3, and March 19, 1761. The criticisms of Ximénès, a thoroughly mediocre person in all respects, were entirely literary, and were directed against the too strained and highly coloured quality of the phrases—"baisers âcres"—among them.[51]Nouv. Hél., V. v. 115.[52]VI. vii.[53]VI. vi.[54]Michelet'sLouis XV. et Louis XVI., p. 58.[55]See Hettner'sLiteraturgeschichte, II. 486.[56]IV. xi.[57]IV. xvii. See vol. iii. 423.[58]In 1816. Moore'sLife, iii. 247; also 285. And the note to the stanzas in the Third Canto,—a note curious for a slight admixture of transcendentalism, so rare a thing with Byron, who, sentimental though he was, usually rejoiced in a truly Voltairean common sense.[59]"The present fashion in France, of passing some time in the country, is new; at this time of the year, and for many weeks past, Paris is, comparatively speaking, empty. Everybody who has a country seat is at it, and such as have none visit others who have. This remarkable revolution in the French manners is certainly one of the best customs they have taken from England; and its introduction was effected the easier, being assisted by the magic of Rousseau's writings. Mankind are much indebted to that splendid genius, who, when living, was hunted from country to country, to seek an asylum, with as much venom as if he had been a mad dog; thanks to the vile spirit of bigotry, which has not received its death wound. Women of the first fashion in France are now ashamed of not nursing their own children; and stays are universally proscribed from the bodies of the poor infants, which were for so many ages torture to them, as they are still in Spain. The country residence may not have effects equally obvious; but they will be no less sure in the end, and in all respects beneficial to every class in the state." Arthur Young'sTravels, i. 72.[60]Causeries, xi. 195.[61]Nouv. Hél., V. iii. "You remember Rousseau's description of an English morning: such are the mornings I spend with these good people."—Cowper to Joseph Hill, Oct. 25, 1765.Works, iii. 269. In a letter to William Unwin (Sept. 21, 1779), speaking of his being engaged in mending windows, he says, "Rousseau would have been charmed to have seen me so occupied, and would have exclaimed with rapture that he had found the Emilius who, he supposed, had subsisted only in his own idea." For a description illustrative of the likeness between Rousseau and Cowper in their feeling for nature, see letter to Newton (Sept. 18, 1784, v. 78), and compare it with the description of Les Charmettes, making proper allowance for the colour of prose.[62]IV. x. 260.[63]V. ii. 37.[64]V. ii. 47-52.[65]Rousseau considered that the Fourth and Sixth parts of the New Heloïsa were masterpieces of diction.Conf.ix. 334.[66]VI. viii.. 298.Conf., xi. 106.[67]The La Bédoyère case, which began in 1745. See Barbier, iv. 54, 59, etc.[68]III. xviii. 84.[69]III. xx. 116. In the letter to Christopher de Beaumont (p. 102), he fires a double shot against the philosophers on the one hand, and the church on the other; exalting continence and purity, of which the philosophers in their reaction against asceticism thought lightly, and exalting marriage over the celibate state, which the churchmen associated with mysterious sanctity.[70]I. lxii.[71]V. ii.[72]V. vii. 141.[73]V. ii. 31-33.[74]For the Robecq family, see Saint Simon, xviii. 58.[75]Morellet'sMém., i. 89-93. Rousseau,Conf., x. 85, etc. ThisVisionis also in the style of Grimm'sPétit Prophète, like the piece referred to in a previous note, vol. ii. p. 31.[76]Madame de Vandeul'sMém. sur Diderot, p. 27. Rousseau,Conf., vii. 130.[77]Nouv. Hél., V. xiii. 194.Conf., x. 43.[78]The reader will find a fuller mention of the French book trade in myDiderot, ch. vi.[79]Conf., xi. 127.[80]See a letter from Rousseau to Malesherbes, Nov. 5, 1760.Corr., ii. 157.[81]Corr., ii. 157.[82]C.G. de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (p. 1721—guillotined, 1794), son of the chancellor, and one of the best instructed and most enlightened men of the century—a Turgot of the second rank—was Directeur de la Librairie from 1750-1763. The process was this: a book was submitted to him; he named a censor for it; on the censor's report the director gave or refused permission to print, or required alterations. Even after these formalities were complied with, the book was liable to a decree of the royal council, a decree of the parliament, or else alettre-de-cachetmight send the author to the Bastile. See Barbier, vii. 126.After Lord Shelburne saw Malesherbes, he said, "I have seen for the first time in my life what I never thought could exist—a man whose soul is absolutely free from hope or fear, and yet who is full of life and ardour." Mdlle. Lespinasse'sLettres, 90.[83]See note, p. 132.[84]Conf., xi. 134.[85]Conf., xi. 139.[86]Ib., xi. 139.Corr., ii. 270, etc. Dec. 12, 1761, etc.[87]Conf., xi. 150.[88]Fourth Letter to Malesherbes, p. 377.[89]With one trifling exception, the Letter to Grimm on the Opera of Omphale (1752):Écrits sur la Musique, p. 337.[90]See Barbier's Journal, viii. 45 (Ed. Charpentier, 1857). A succinct contemporary account of the general situation is to be found in D'Alembert's little book, theDestruction des Jésuites.[91]Grimm, for instance:Corr. Lit., iii. 117.[92]Corr., ii. 337. June 7, 1672.Conf., xi. 152, 162.[93]Conf., xi. 162. The Levite's story is to be read inJudges, ch. xix.
[1]Conf., x. 62.
[1]Conf., x. 62.
[2]Conf., x.
[2]Conf., x.
[3]Ib.x. 70.
[3]Ib.x. 70.
[4]Louis François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti (1717-1776), was great-grandson of the brother of the Great Condé. He performed creditable things in the war of the Austrian Succession (in Piedmont 1744, in Belgium 1745); had a scheme of foreign policy as director of the secret diplomacy of Lewis XV. (1745-1756), which was to make Turkey, Poland, Sweden, Prussia, a barrier against Russia primarily, and Austria secondarily; lastly went into moderate opposition to the court, protesting against the destruction of theparlements(1771), and afterwards opposing the reforms of Turgot (1776). Finally he had the honour of refusing the sacraments of the church on his deathbed. See Martin'sHist. de France, xv. and xvi.
[4]Louis François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti (1717-1776), was great-grandson of the brother of the Great Condé. He performed creditable things in the war of the Austrian Succession (in Piedmont 1744, in Belgium 1745); had a scheme of foreign policy as director of the secret diplomacy of Lewis XV. (1745-1756), which was to make Turkey, Poland, Sweden, Prussia, a barrier against Russia primarily, and Austria secondarily; lastly went into moderate opposition to the court, protesting against the destruction of theparlements(1771), and afterwards opposing the reforms of Turgot (1776). Finally he had the honour of refusing the sacraments of the church on his deathbed. See Martin'sHist. de France, xv. and xvi.
[5]Conf., 97.Corr., v. 215.
[5]Conf., 97.Corr., v. 215.
[6]Corr., ii. 144. Oct. 7, 1760.
[6]Corr., ii. 144. Oct. 7, 1760.
[7]Conf., x. 98.
[7]Conf., x. 98.
[8]The reader will distinguish this correspondent of Rousseau's,Comtessede Boufflers-Rouveret (1727-18—), from theDuchessede Boufflers, which was the title of Rousseau's Maréchale de Luxembourg before her second marriage. And also from theMarquisede Boufflers, said to be the mistress of the old king Stanislaus at Lunéville, and the mother of the Chevalier de Boufflers (who was the intimate of Voltaire, sat in the States General, emigrated, did homage to Napoleon, and finally died peaceably under Lewis XVIII.). See Jal'sDict. Critique, 259-262. Sainte Beuve has an essay on our present Comtesse de Boufflers (Nouveaux Lundis, iv. 163). She is the Madame de Boufflers who was taken by Beauclerk to visit Johnson in his Temple chambers, and was conducted to her coach by him in a remarkable manner (Boswell'sLife, ch. li. p. 467). Also much talked of in H. Walpole's Letters. See D'Alembert to Frederick, April 15, 1768.
[8]The reader will distinguish this correspondent of Rousseau's,Comtessede Boufflers-Rouveret (1727-18—), from theDuchessede Boufflers, which was the title of Rousseau's Maréchale de Luxembourg before her second marriage. And also from theMarquisede Boufflers, said to be the mistress of the old king Stanislaus at Lunéville, and the mother of the Chevalier de Boufflers (who was the intimate of Voltaire, sat in the States General, emigrated, did homage to Napoleon, and finally died peaceably under Lewis XVIII.). See Jal'sDict. Critique, 259-262. Sainte Beuve has an essay on our present Comtesse de Boufflers (Nouveaux Lundis, iv. 163). She is the Madame de Boufflers who was taken by Beauclerk to visit Johnson in his Temple chambers, and was conducted to her coach by him in a remarkable manner (Boswell'sLife, ch. li. p. 467). Also much talked of in H. Walpole's Letters. See D'Alembert to Frederick, April 15, 1768.
[9]Streckeisen, ii. 32.
[9]Streckeisen, ii. 32.
[10]Conf., x. 71.
[10]Conf., x. 71.
[11]For instance,Corr.ii. 85, 90, 92, etc. 1759.
[11]For instance,Corr.ii. 85, 90, 92, etc. 1759.
[12]Streckeisen, ii. 28, etc.
[12]Streckeisen, ii. 28, etc.
[13]Ib., 29.
[13]Ib., 29.
[14]Conf., x. 99.
[14]Conf., x. 99.
[15]Ib., x. 57.
[15]Ib., x. 57.
[16]Ib., xi. 119.
[16]Ib., xi. 119.
[17]Corr., ii. 196. Feb. 16, 1761.
[17]Corr., ii. 196. Feb. 16, 1761.
[18]Ib., ii. 102, 176, etc.
[18]Ib., ii. 102, 176, etc.
[19]Conf., x. 60.
[19]Conf., x. 60.
[20]Corr., ii. 12.
[20]Corr., ii. 12.
[21]As M. St. Marc Girardin has put it: "There are in all Rousseau's discussions two things to be carefully distinguished from one another; the maxims of the discourse, and the conclusions of the controversy. The maxims are ordinarily paradoxical; the conclusions are full of good sense."Rev. des Deux Mondes, Aug. 1852, p. 501.
[21]As M. St. Marc Girardin has put it: "There are in all Rousseau's discussions two things to be carefully distinguished from one another; the maxims of the discourse, and the conclusions of the controversy. The maxims are ordinarily paradoxical; the conclusions are full of good sense."Rev. des Deux Mondes, Aug. 1852, p. 501.
[22]Corr., ii. 244-246. Oct. 24, 1761.
[22]Corr., ii. 244-246. Oct. 24, 1761.
[23]Ib., 1766.Oeuv., lxxv. 364.
[23]Ib., 1766.Oeuv., lxxv. 364.
[24]Corr., ii. 32. (1758.)
[24]Corr., ii. 32. (1758.)
[25]Corr., ii. 63. Jan. 15, 1779.
[25]Corr., ii. 63. Jan. 15, 1779.
[26]Bernardin de St. Pierre, xii. 102.
[26]Bernardin de St. Pierre, xii. 102.
[27]4th Letter, p. 375.
[27]4th Letter, p. 375.
[28]Mém., ii. 299.
[28]Mém., ii. 299.
[29]Corr., ii. 98. July 10, 1759.
[29]Corr., ii. 98. July 10, 1759.
[30]Corr., ii. 106. Nov. 10, 1759.
[30]Corr., ii. 106. Nov. 10, 1759.
[31]Ib., ii. 179. Jan. 18, 1761.
[31]Ib., ii. 179. Jan. 18, 1761.
[32]Ib., ii. 268. Dec. 12, 1761.
[32]Ib., ii. 268. Dec. 12, 1761.
[33]Ib., ii. 28. Dec. 23, 1761.
[33]Ib., ii. 28. Dec. 23, 1761.
[34]Nouv. Hél., III. xxii. 147. In 1784 Hume's suppressed essays on "Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul" were published in London:—"With Remarks, intended as an Antidote to the Poison contained in these Performances, by the Editor; to which is added, Two Letters on Suicide, from Rousseau's Eloisa." In the preface the reader is told that these "two very masterly letters have been much celebrated." See Hume'sEssays, by Green and Grose, i. 69, 70.
[34]Nouv. Hél., III. xxii. 147. In 1784 Hume's suppressed essays on "Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul" were published in London:—"With Remarks, intended as an Antidote to the Poison contained in these Performances, by the Editor; to which is added, Two Letters on Suicide, from Rousseau's Eloisa." In the preface the reader is told that these "two very masterly letters have been much celebrated." See Hume'sEssays, by Green and Grose, i. 69, 70.
[35]Corr., iii. 235. Aug. 1, 1763.
[35]Corr., iii. 235. Aug. 1, 1763.
[36]Corr., ii. 226. Sept. 29, 1761.
[36]Corr., ii. 226. Sept. 29, 1761.
[37]P. 294. Jan. 11, 1762.
[37]P. 294. Jan. 11, 1762.
[38]Madame Latour (Nov. 7, 1730-Sept. 6, 1789) was the wife of a man in the financial world, who used her ill and dissipated as much of her fortune as he could, and from whom she separated in 1775. After that she resumed her maiden name and was known as Madame de Franqueville. Musset-Pathay, ii. 182, and Sainte Beuve,Causeries, ii. 63.
[38]Madame Latour (Nov. 7, 1730-Sept. 6, 1789) was the wife of a man in the financial world, who used her ill and dissipated as much of her fortune as he could, and from whom she separated in 1775. After that she resumed her maiden name and was known as Madame de Franqueville. Musset-Pathay, ii. 182, and Sainte Beuve,Causeries, ii. 63.
[39]Corr., ii. 214.Conf., ix. 289.
[39]Corr., ii. 214.Conf., ix. 289.
[40]English translations of Rousseau's works appeared very speedily after the originals. A second edition of the Heloïsa was called for as early as May 1761. SeeCorr.ii. 223. A German translation of the Heloïsa appeared at Leipzig in 1761, in six duodecimos.
[40]English translations of Rousseau's works appeared very speedily after the originals. A second edition of the Heloïsa was called for as early as May 1761. SeeCorr.ii. 223. A German translation of the Heloïsa appeared at Leipzig in 1761, in six duodecimos.
[41]For instance,Corr., ii. 168. Nov. 19, 1762.
[41]For instance,Corr., ii. 168. Nov. 19, 1762.
[42]Choderlos de La Clos: 1741-1803.
[42]Choderlos de La Clos: 1741-1803.
[43]Journal, iv. 496. (Ed. Charpentier, 1857.)
[43]Journal, iv. 496. (Ed. Charpentier, 1857.)
[44]Nouv. Hél., III. xiv. 48.
[44]Nouv. Hél., III. xiv. 48.
[45]E.g.Letters, 40-46.
[45]E.g.Letters, 40-46.
[46]Madame de Staël (1765-1817), in herLettres sur les écrits et le caractère de J.J. Rousseau, written when she was twenty, and her first work of any pretensions.Oeuv., i. 41. Ed. 1820.
[46]Madame de Staël (1765-1817), in herLettres sur les écrits et le caractère de J.J. Rousseau, written when she was twenty, and her first work of any pretensions.Oeuv., i. 41. Ed. 1820.
[47]Nowhere more pungently than in a little piece of some half-dozen pages, headed,Prédiction tirée d'un vieux Manuscrit, the form of which is borrowed from Grimm's squib in the dispute about French music,Le petit Prophète de Boehmischbroda, though it seems to me to be superior to Grimm in pointedness. Here are a few verses from the supposed prophecy of the man who should come—and of what he should do. "Et la multitude courra sur ses pas et plusieurs croiront en lui. Et il leur dira: Vous êtes des scélérats et des fripons, vos femmes sont toutes des femmes perdues, et je viens vivre parmi vous. Et il ajoutera tous les hommes sont vertueux dans le pays où je suis né, et je n'habiterai jamais le pays où je suis né.... Et il dira aussi qu'il est impossible d'avoir des moeurs, et de lire des Romans, et il fera un Roman; et dans son Roman le vice sera en action et la vertu en paroles, et ses personages seront forcenés d'amour et de philosophie. Et dans son Roman on apprendra l'art de suborner philosophiquement une jeune fille. Et l'Ecolière perdra toute honte et toute pudeur, et elle fera avec son maître des sottises et des maximes.... Et le bel Ami étant dans un Bateau seul avec sa Maîtresse voudra le jetter dans l'eau et se précipiter avec elle. Et ils appelleront tout cela de la Philosophie et de la Vertu," and so on, humorously enough in its way.
[47]Nowhere more pungently than in a little piece of some half-dozen pages, headed,Prédiction tirée d'un vieux Manuscrit, the form of which is borrowed from Grimm's squib in the dispute about French music,Le petit Prophète de Boehmischbroda, though it seems to me to be superior to Grimm in pointedness. Here are a few verses from the supposed prophecy of the man who should come—and of what he should do. "Et la multitude courra sur ses pas et plusieurs croiront en lui. Et il leur dira: Vous êtes des scélérats et des fripons, vos femmes sont toutes des femmes perdues, et je viens vivre parmi vous. Et il ajoutera tous les hommes sont vertueux dans le pays où je suis né, et je n'habiterai jamais le pays où je suis né.... Et il dira aussi qu'il est impossible d'avoir des moeurs, et de lire des Romans, et il fera un Roman; et dans son Roman le vice sera en action et la vertu en paroles, et ses personages seront forcenés d'amour et de philosophie. Et dans son Roman on apprendra l'art de suborner philosophiquement une jeune fille. Et l'Ecolière perdra toute honte et toute pudeur, et elle fera avec son maître des sottises et des maximes.... Et le bel Ami étant dans un Bateau seul avec sa Maîtresse voudra le jetter dans l'eau et se précipiter avec elle. Et ils appelleront tout cela de la Philosophie et de la Vertu," and so on, humorously enough in its way.
[48]See passages in Goncourt'sLa Femme au 18ième siècle, p. 380.
[48]See passages in Goncourt'sLa Femme au 18ième siècle, p. 380.
[49]Musset-Pathay, II. 361. See Madame Roland'sMém., i. 207.
[49]Musset-Pathay, II. 361. See Madame Roland'sMém., i. 207.
[50]Corr., March 3, and March 19, 1761. The criticisms of Ximénès, a thoroughly mediocre person in all respects, were entirely literary, and were directed against the too strained and highly coloured quality of the phrases—"baisers âcres"—among them.
[50]Corr., March 3, and March 19, 1761. The criticisms of Ximénès, a thoroughly mediocre person in all respects, were entirely literary, and were directed against the too strained and highly coloured quality of the phrases—"baisers âcres"—among them.
[51]Nouv. Hél., V. v. 115.
[51]Nouv. Hél., V. v. 115.
[52]VI. vii.
[52]VI. vii.
[53]VI. vi.
[53]VI. vi.
[54]Michelet'sLouis XV. et Louis XVI., p. 58.
[54]Michelet'sLouis XV. et Louis XVI., p. 58.
[55]See Hettner'sLiteraturgeschichte, II. 486.
[55]See Hettner'sLiteraturgeschichte, II. 486.
[56]IV. xi.
[56]IV. xi.
[57]IV. xvii. See vol. iii. 423.
[57]IV. xvii. See vol. iii. 423.
[58]In 1816. Moore'sLife, iii. 247; also 285. And the note to the stanzas in the Third Canto,—a note curious for a slight admixture of transcendentalism, so rare a thing with Byron, who, sentimental though he was, usually rejoiced in a truly Voltairean common sense.
[58]In 1816. Moore'sLife, iii. 247; also 285. And the note to the stanzas in the Third Canto,—a note curious for a slight admixture of transcendentalism, so rare a thing with Byron, who, sentimental though he was, usually rejoiced in a truly Voltairean common sense.
[59]"The present fashion in France, of passing some time in the country, is new; at this time of the year, and for many weeks past, Paris is, comparatively speaking, empty. Everybody who has a country seat is at it, and such as have none visit others who have. This remarkable revolution in the French manners is certainly one of the best customs they have taken from England; and its introduction was effected the easier, being assisted by the magic of Rousseau's writings. Mankind are much indebted to that splendid genius, who, when living, was hunted from country to country, to seek an asylum, with as much venom as if he had been a mad dog; thanks to the vile spirit of bigotry, which has not received its death wound. Women of the first fashion in France are now ashamed of not nursing their own children; and stays are universally proscribed from the bodies of the poor infants, which were for so many ages torture to them, as they are still in Spain. The country residence may not have effects equally obvious; but they will be no less sure in the end, and in all respects beneficial to every class in the state." Arthur Young'sTravels, i. 72.
[59]"The present fashion in France, of passing some time in the country, is new; at this time of the year, and for many weeks past, Paris is, comparatively speaking, empty. Everybody who has a country seat is at it, and such as have none visit others who have. This remarkable revolution in the French manners is certainly one of the best customs they have taken from England; and its introduction was effected the easier, being assisted by the magic of Rousseau's writings. Mankind are much indebted to that splendid genius, who, when living, was hunted from country to country, to seek an asylum, with as much venom as if he had been a mad dog; thanks to the vile spirit of bigotry, which has not received its death wound. Women of the first fashion in France are now ashamed of not nursing their own children; and stays are universally proscribed from the bodies of the poor infants, which were for so many ages torture to them, as they are still in Spain. The country residence may not have effects equally obvious; but they will be no less sure in the end, and in all respects beneficial to every class in the state." Arthur Young'sTravels, i. 72.
[60]Causeries, xi. 195.
[60]Causeries, xi. 195.
[61]Nouv. Hél., V. iii. "You remember Rousseau's description of an English morning: such are the mornings I spend with these good people."—Cowper to Joseph Hill, Oct. 25, 1765.Works, iii. 269. In a letter to William Unwin (Sept. 21, 1779), speaking of his being engaged in mending windows, he says, "Rousseau would have been charmed to have seen me so occupied, and would have exclaimed with rapture that he had found the Emilius who, he supposed, had subsisted only in his own idea." For a description illustrative of the likeness between Rousseau and Cowper in their feeling for nature, see letter to Newton (Sept. 18, 1784, v. 78), and compare it with the description of Les Charmettes, making proper allowance for the colour of prose.
[61]Nouv. Hél., V. iii. "You remember Rousseau's description of an English morning: such are the mornings I spend with these good people."—Cowper to Joseph Hill, Oct. 25, 1765.Works, iii. 269. In a letter to William Unwin (Sept. 21, 1779), speaking of his being engaged in mending windows, he says, "Rousseau would have been charmed to have seen me so occupied, and would have exclaimed with rapture that he had found the Emilius who, he supposed, had subsisted only in his own idea." For a description illustrative of the likeness between Rousseau and Cowper in their feeling for nature, see letter to Newton (Sept. 18, 1784, v. 78), and compare it with the description of Les Charmettes, making proper allowance for the colour of prose.
[62]IV. x. 260.
[62]IV. x. 260.
[63]V. ii. 37.
[63]V. ii. 37.
[64]V. ii. 47-52.
[64]V. ii. 47-52.
[65]Rousseau considered that the Fourth and Sixth parts of the New Heloïsa were masterpieces of diction.Conf.ix. 334.
[65]Rousseau considered that the Fourth and Sixth parts of the New Heloïsa were masterpieces of diction.Conf.ix. 334.
[66]VI. viii.. 298.Conf., xi. 106.
[66]VI. viii.. 298.Conf., xi. 106.
[67]The La Bédoyère case, which began in 1745. See Barbier, iv. 54, 59, etc.
[67]The La Bédoyère case, which began in 1745. See Barbier, iv. 54, 59, etc.
[68]III. xviii. 84.
[68]III. xviii. 84.
[69]III. xx. 116. In the letter to Christopher de Beaumont (p. 102), he fires a double shot against the philosophers on the one hand, and the church on the other; exalting continence and purity, of which the philosophers in their reaction against asceticism thought lightly, and exalting marriage over the celibate state, which the churchmen associated with mysterious sanctity.
[69]III. xx. 116. In the letter to Christopher de Beaumont (p. 102), he fires a double shot against the philosophers on the one hand, and the church on the other; exalting continence and purity, of which the philosophers in their reaction against asceticism thought lightly, and exalting marriage over the celibate state, which the churchmen associated with mysterious sanctity.
[70]I. lxii.
[70]I. lxii.
[71]V. ii.
[71]V. ii.
[72]V. vii. 141.
[72]V. vii. 141.
[73]V. ii. 31-33.
[73]V. ii. 31-33.
[74]For the Robecq family, see Saint Simon, xviii. 58.
[74]For the Robecq family, see Saint Simon, xviii. 58.
[75]Morellet'sMém., i. 89-93. Rousseau,Conf., x. 85, etc. ThisVisionis also in the style of Grimm'sPétit Prophète, like the piece referred to in a previous note, vol. ii. p. 31.
[75]Morellet'sMém., i. 89-93. Rousseau,Conf., x. 85, etc. ThisVisionis also in the style of Grimm'sPétit Prophète, like the piece referred to in a previous note, vol. ii. p. 31.
[76]Madame de Vandeul'sMém. sur Diderot, p. 27. Rousseau,Conf., vii. 130.
[76]Madame de Vandeul'sMém. sur Diderot, p. 27. Rousseau,Conf., vii. 130.
[77]Nouv. Hél., V. xiii. 194.Conf., x. 43.
[77]Nouv. Hél., V. xiii. 194.Conf., x. 43.
[78]The reader will find a fuller mention of the French book trade in myDiderot, ch. vi.
[78]The reader will find a fuller mention of the French book trade in myDiderot, ch. vi.
[79]Conf., xi. 127.
[79]Conf., xi. 127.
[80]See a letter from Rousseau to Malesherbes, Nov. 5, 1760.Corr., ii. 157.
[80]See a letter from Rousseau to Malesherbes, Nov. 5, 1760.Corr., ii. 157.
[81]Corr., ii. 157.
[81]Corr., ii. 157.
[82]C.G. de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (p. 1721—guillotined, 1794), son of the chancellor, and one of the best instructed and most enlightened men of the century—a Turgot of the second rank—was Directeur de la Librairie from 1750-1763. The process was this: a book was submitted to him; he named a censor for it; on the censor's report the director gave or refused permission to print, or required alterations. Even after these formalities were complied with, the book was liable to a decree of the royal council, a decree of the parliament, or else alettre-de-cachetmight send the author to the Bastile. See Barbier, vii. 126.After Lord Shelburne saw Malesherbes, he said, "I have seen for the first time in my life what I never thought could exist—a man whose soul is absolutely free from hope or fear, and yet who is full of life and ardour." Mdlle. Lespinasse'sLettres, 90.
[82]C.G. de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (p. 1721—guillotined, 1794), son of the chancellor, and one of the best instructed and most enlightened men of the century—a Turgot of the second rank—was Directeur de la Librairie from 1750-1763. The process was this: a book was submitted to him; he named a censor for it; on the censor's report the director gave or refused permission to print, or required alterations. Even after these formalities were complied with, the book was liable to a decree of the royal council, a decree of the parliament, or else alettre-de-cachetmight send the author to the Bastile. See Barbier, vii. 126.
After Lord Shelburne saw Malesherbes, he said, "I have seen for the first time in my life what I never thought could exist—a man whose soul is absolutely free from hope or fear, and yet who is full of life and ardour." Mdlle. Lespinasse'sLettres, 90.
[83]See note, p. 132.
[83]See note, p. 132.
[84]Conf., xi. 134.
[84]Conf., xi. 134.
[85]Conf., xi. 139.
[85]Conf., xi. 139.
[86]Ib., xi. 139.Corr., ii. 270, etc. Dec. 12, 1761, etc.
[86]Ib., xi. 139.Corr., ii. 270, etc. Dec. 12, 1761, etc.
[87]Conf., xi. 150.
[87]Conf., xi. 150.
[88]Fourth Letter to Malesherbes, p. 377.
[88]Fourth Letter to Malesherbes, p. 377.
[89]With one trifling exception, the Letter to Grimm on the Opera of Omphale (1752):Écrits sur la Musique, p. 337.
[89]With one trifling exception, the Letter to Grimm on the Opera of Omphale (1752):Écrits sur la Musique, p. 337.
[90]See Barbier's Journal, viii. 45 (Ed. Charpentier, 1857). A succinct contemporary account of the general situation is to be found in D'Alembert's little book, theDestruction des Jésuites.
[90]See Barbier's Journal, viii. 45 (Ed. Charpentier, 1857). A succinct contemporary account of the general situation is to be found in D'Alembert's little book, theDestruction des Jésuites.
[91]Grimm, for instance:Corr. Lit., iii. 117.
[91]Grimm, for instance:Corr. Lit., iii. 117.
[92]Corr., ii. 337. June 7, 1672.Conf., xi. 152, 162.
[92]Corr., ii. 337. June 7, 1672.Conf., xi. 152, 162.
[93]Conf., xi. 162. The Levite's story is to be read inJudges, ch. xix.
[93]Conf., xi. 162. The Levite's story is to be read inJudges, ch. xix.
Thoseto whom life consists in the immediate consciousness of their own direct relations with the people and circumstances that are in close contact with them, find it hard to follow the moods of a man to whom such consciousness is the least part of himself, and such relations the least real part of his life. Rousseau was no sooner in the post-chaise which was bearing him away towards Switzerland, than the troubles of the previous day at once dropped into a pale and distant past, and he returned to a world where was neither parliament, nor decree for burning books, nor any warrant for personal arrest. He took up the thread where harassing circumstances had broken it, and again fell musing over the tragic tale of the Levite of Ephraim. His dream absorbed him so entirely as to take specific literary form, and before the journey was at an end he had composed a long impassioned version of the Bible story. Though it has Rousseau's usual fine sonorousness in a high degree, no man now reads it; the author himself always preserved a certain tenderness for it.[95]The contrast between this singular quietism and the angry stir that marked Voltaire's many flights in post-chaises, points like all else to the profound difference between the pair. Contrast with Voltaire's shrill cries under any personal vexation, this calm utterance:—"Though the consequences of this affair have plunged me into a gulf of woes from which I shall never come up again so long as I live, I bear these gentlemen no grudge. I am aware that their object was not to do me any harm, but only to reach ends of their own. I know that towards me they have neither liking nor hate. I was found in their way, like a pebble that you thrust aside with the foot without even looking at it. They ought not to say they have performed their duty, but that they have done their business."[96]A new note from a persecuted writer.
Rousseau, in spite of the belief which henceforth possessed him that he was the victim of a dark unfathomable plot, and in spite of passing outbreaks of gloomy rage, was incapable of steady glowing and active resentments. The world was not real enough to him for this. A throng of phantoms pressed noiselessly before his sight, and dulled all sense of more actual impression. "It is amazing," he wrote, "with what ease I forget past ill, however fresh it may be. In proportion as the anticipation of it alarms andconfuses me when I see it coming, so the memory of it returns feebly to my mind and dies out the moment after it has arrived. My cruel imagination, which torments itself incessantly in anticipating woes that are still unborn, makes a diversion for my memory, and hinders me from recalling those which have gone. I exhaust disaster beforehand. The more I have suffered in foreseeing it, the more easily do I forget it; while on the contrary, being incessantly busy with my past happiness, I recall it and brood and ruminate over it, so as to enjoy it over again whenever I wish."[97]The same turn of humour saved him from vindictiveness. "I concern myself too little with the offence, to feel much concern about the offender. I only think of the hurt that I have received from him, on account of the hurt that he may still do me; and if I were sure he would do me no more, what he had already done would be forgotten straightway." Though he does not carry the analysis any further, we may easily perceive that the same explanation covers what he called his natural ingratitude. Kindness was not much more vividly understood by him than malice. It was only one form of the troublesome interposition of an outer world in his life; he was fain to hurry back from it to the real world of his dreams. If any man called practical is tempted to despise this dreaming creature, as he fares in his chaise from stage to stage, let him remember that one making that journey through France less than thirty years later mighthave seen the castles of the great flaring in the destruction of a most righteous vengeance, the great themselves fleeing ignobly from the land to which their selfishness, and heedlessness, and hatred of improvement, and inhuman pride had been a curse, while the legion of toilers with eyes blinded by the oppression of ages were groping with passionate uncertain hand for that divine something which they thought of as justice and right. And this was what Rousseau both partially foresaw and helped to prepare,[98]while the common politicians, like Choiseul or D'Aiguillon, played their poor game—the elemental forces rising unseen into tempest around them.
He reached the territory of the canton of Berne, and alighted at the house of an old friend at Yverdun,[99]where native air, the beauty of the spot, and the charms of the season, immediately repaired all weariness and fatigue.[100]Friends at Geneva wrote letters of sincere feeling, joyful that he had not followed the precedent of Socrates too closely by remaining in the power of a government eager to destroy him.[101]A post or two later brought worse news. The Council at Geneva ordered not only Emilius, but the Social Contract also, to be publicly burnt, and issued a warrant of arrest against their author, if he should set foot in the territory of the republic (June19).[102]Rousseau could hardly believe it possible that the free Government which he had held up to the reverence of Europe, could have condemned him unheard, but he took occasion in a highly characteristic manner to chide severely a friend at Geneva who had publicly taken his part.[103]Within a fortnight this blow was followed by another. His two books were reported to the senate of Berne, and Rousseau was informed by one of the authorities that a notification was on its way admonishing him to quit the canton within the space of fifteen days.[104]This stroke he avoided by flight to Motiers, a village in the principality of Neuchâtel (July 10), then part of the dominions of the King of Prussia.[105]Rousseau had some antipathyto Frederick, both because he had beaten the French, whom Rousseau loved, and because his maxims and his conduct alike seemed to trample under foot respect for the natural law and not a few human duties. He had composed a verse to the effect that Frederick thought like a philosopher and acted like a king, philosopher and king notoriously being words of equally evil sense in his dialect. There was also a passage in Emilius about Adrastus, King of the Daunians, which was commonly understood to mean Frederick, King of the Prussians. Still Rousseau was acute enough to know that mean passions usually only rule the weak, and have little hold over the strong. He boldly wrote both to the king and to Lord Marischal, the governor of the principality, informing them that he was there, and asking permission to remain in the only asylum left for him upon the earth.[106]He compared himself loftily to Coriolanus among the Volscians, and wrote to the king in a vein that must have amused the strong man. "I have said much ill of you, perhaps I shall still say more; yet, driven from France, from Geneva, from the canton of Berne, I am come to seek shelter in your states. Perhaps I was wrong in not beginning there; this is eulogy of which you are worthy. Sire, I have deserved no grace from you, and I seek none, but I thought it my duty to inform your majesty that I am in your power, and that I am so of set design. Your majesty will dispose of me as shallseem good to you."[107]Frederick, though no admirer of Rousseau or his writings,[108]readily granted the required permission. He also, says Lord Marischal, "gave me orders to furnish him his small necessaries if he would accept them; and though that king's philosophy be very different from that of Jean Jacques, yet he does not think that a man of an irreproachable life is to be persecuted because his sentiments are singular. He designs to build him a hermitage with a little garden, which I find he will not accept, nor perhaps the rest, which I have not yet offered him."[109]When the offer of the flour, wine, and firewood was at length made in as delicate terms as possible, Rousseau declined the gift on grounds which may raise a smile, but which are not without a rather touching simplicity.[110]"I have enough to live on for two or three years," he said, "but if I were dying of hunger, I would rather in the present condition of your good prince, and not being of any service to him, go and eat grass and grub up roots, than accept a morsel of bread from him."[111]Hume might well call this a phenomenon in the world of letters, and one very honourable for the person concerned.[112]And we recognise its dignity the more when we contrastit with the baseness of Voltaire, who drew his pension from the King of Prussia while Frederick was in his most urgent straits, and while the poet was sportively exulting to all his correspondents in the malicious expectation that he would one day have to allow the King of Prussia himself a pension.[113]And Rousseau was a poor man, living among the poor and in their style. His annual outlay at this time was covered by the modest sum of sixty louis.[114]What stamps his refusal of Frederick's gifts as true dignity, is the fact that he not only did not refuse money for any work done, but expected and asked for it. Malesherbes at this very time begged him to collect plants for him. Joyfully, replied Rousseau, "but as I cannot subsist without the aid of my own labour, I never meant, in spite of the pleasure that it might otherwise have been to me, to offer you the use of my time for nothing."[115]In the same year, we may add, when the tremendous struggle of the Seven Years' War was closing, the philosopher wrote a second terse epistle to the king, and with this their direct communication came to an end. "Sire, you are my protector and my benefactor; I would fain repay you if I can. You wish to give me bread; is there none of your own subjects in want of it? Take that sword away from my sight, it dazzles and pains me. It has done its work only too well; the sceptre is abandoned. Great is the career for kings of yourstuff, and you are still far from the term; time presses, you have not a moment to lose. Fathom well your heart, O Frederick! Can you dare to die without having been the greatest of men? Would that I could see Frederick, the just and the redoubtable, covering his states with multitudes of men to whom he should be a father; then will J.J. Rousseau, the foe of kings, hasten to die at the foot of his throne."[116]Frederick, strong as his interest was in all curious persons who could amuse him, was too busy to answer this, and Rousseau was not yet recognised as Voltaire's rival in power and popularity.
Motiers is one of the half-dozen decent villages standing in the flat bottom of the Val de Travers, a widish valley that lies between the gorges of the Jura and the Lake of Neuchâtel, and is famous in our day for its production of absinthe and of asphalt. The flat of the valley, with the Reuss making a bald and colourless way through the midst of it, is nearly treeless, and it is too uniform to be very pleasing. In winter the climate is most rigorous, for the level is high, and the surrounding hills admit the sun's rays late and cut them off early. Rousseau's description, accurate and recognisable as it is,[117]strikes an impartial tourist as too favourable. But when a piece of scenery is a home to a man, he has an eye for a thousand outlines, changes of light, soft variations of colour;the landscape lives for him with an unspoken suggestion and intimate association, to all of which the swift passing stranger is very cold.
His cottage, which is still shown, was in the midst of the other houses, and his walks, which were at least as important to him as the home in which he dwelt, lay mostly among woody heights with streaming cascades. The country abounded in natural curiosities of a humble sort, and here that interest in plants which had always been strong in him, began to grow into a passion. Rousseau had so curious a feeling about them, that when in his botanical expeditions he came across a single flower of its kind, he could never bring himself to pluck it. His sight, though not good for distant objects, was of the very finest for things held close; his sense of smell was so acute and subtle that, according to a good witness, he might have classified plants by odours, if language furnished as many names as nature supplies varieties of fragrance.[118]He insisted in all botanising and other walking excursions on going bareheaded, even in the heat of the dog-days; he declared that the action of the sun did him good. When the days began to turn, the summer was straightway at an end for him: "My imagination," he said, in a phrase which went further through his life than he supposed, "at once brings winter." He hated rain as much as he loved sun, so he must once have lost all the mystic fascination of the green Savoy lakes gleaming luminous through paleshowers, and now again must have lost the sombre majesty of the pines of his valley dripping in torn edges of cloud, and all those other sights in landscape that touch subtler parts of us than comforted sense.
One of his favourite journeys was to Colombier, the summer retreat of Lord Marischal. For him he rapidly conceived the same warm friendship which he felt for the Duke of Luxembourg, whom he had just left. And the sagacious, moderate, silent Scot had as warm a liking for the strange refugee who had come to him for shelter, or shall we call it a kind of shaggy compassion, as of a faithful inarticulate creature. His letters, which are numerous enough, abound in expressions of hearty good-will. These, if we reflect on the genuine worth, veracity, penetration, and experience of the old man who wrote them, may fairly be counted the best testimony that remains to the existence of something sterling at the bottom of Rousseau's character.[119]It is here no insincere fine lady of the French court, but a homely and weather-beaten Scotchman, who speaks so often of his refugee's rectitude of heart and true sensibility.[120]
He insisted on being allowed to settle a small sum on Theresa, who had joined Rousseau at Motiers, and in other ways he showed a true solicitude and considerateness both for her and for him.[121]It was his constant dream, that on his return to Scotland, Jean Jacques should accompany him, and that with David Hume, they would make a trio of philosophic hermits; that this was no mere cheery pleasantry is shown by the pains he took in settling the route for the journey.[122]The plan only fell through in consequence of Frederick's cordial urgency that his friend should end his days with him; he returned to Prussia and lived at Sans Souci until the close, always retaining something of his good-will for "his excellent savage," as he called the author of the Discourses. They had some common antipathies, including the fundamental one of dislike to society, and especially to the society of the people of Neuchâtel, the Gascons of Switzerland. "Rousseau is gay in company," Lord Marischal wrote to Hume, "polite, and what the French callaimable, and gainsground daily in the opinion of even the clergy here. His enemies elsewhere continue to persecute him, and he is pestered with anonymous letters."[123]
Some of these were of a humour that disclosed the master hand. Voltaire had been universally suspected of stirring up the feeling of Geneva against its too famous citizen,[124]though for a man of less energy the affair of the Calas, which he was now in the thick of, might have sufficed. Voltaire's letters at this time show how hard he found it in the case of Rousseau to exercise his usual pity for the unfortunate. He could not forget that the man who was now tasting persecution had barked at philosophers and stage-plays; that he was a false brother, who had fatuously insulted the only men who could take his part; that he was a Judas who had betrayed the sacred cause.[125]On the whole, however, we ought probably to accept his word, though not very categorically given,[126]that he had nothing to do with the action taken against Rousseau. That action is quite adequately explained, first by the influence of the resident of France at Geneva, which we know to have been exerted against the two fatal books,[127]and second by the anxiety of the oligarchic party to keep out of their town a man whose democratic tendencies they now knew so well and so justlydreaded.[128]Moultou, a Genevese minister, in the full tide of devotion and enthusiasm for the author of Emilius, met Voltaire at the house of a lady in Geneva. All will turn out well, cried the patriarch; "the syndics will say M. Rousseau, you have done ill to write what you have written; promise for the future to respect the religion of your country. Jean Jacques will promise, and perhaps he will say that the printer took the liberty of adding a sheet or two to his book." "Never," cried the ardent Moultou; "Jean Jacques never puts his name to works to disown them after."[129]Voltaire disowned his own books with intrepid and sustained mendacity, yet he bore no grudge to Moultou for his vehemence. He sent for him shortly afterwards, professed an extreme desire to be reconciled with Rousseau, and would talk of nothing else. "I swear to you," wrote Moultou, "that I could not understand him the least in the world; he is a marvellous actor; I could have sworn that he loved you."[130]And there really was no acting in it. The serious Genevese did not see that he was dealing with "one all fire and fickleness, a child."
Rousseau soon found out that he had excited not only the band of professed unbelievers, but also the tormenting wasps of orthodoxy. The doctors of the Sorbonne, not to be outdone in fervour for truth by the lawyers of the parliament, had condemned Emilius as a matter of course. In the same spirit of generousemulation, Christopher de Beaumont, "by the divine compassion archbishop of Paris, Duke of Saint Cloud, peer of France, commander of the order of the Holy Ghost," had issued (Aug. 20, 1762) one of those hateful documents in which bishops, Catholic and Protestant, have been wont for the last century and a half to hide with swollen bombastic phrase their dead and decomposing ideas. The windy folly of these poor pieces is usually in proportion to the hierarchic rank of those who promulgate them, and an archbishop owes it to himself to blaspheme against reason and freedom in superlatives of malignant unction. Rousseau's reply (Nov. 18, 1762) is a masterpiece of dignity and uprightness. Turning to it from the mandate which was its provocative, we seem to grasp the hand of a man, after being chased by a nightmare of masked figures. Rousseau never showed the substantial quality of his character more surely and unmistakably than in controversy. He had such gravity, such austere self-command, such closeness of grip. Most of us feel pleasure in reading the matchless banter with which Voltaire assailed his theological enemies. Reading Rousseau's letter to De Beaumont we realise the comparative lowness of the pleasure which Voltaire had given us. We understand how it was that Rousseau made fanatics, while Voltaire only made sceptics. At the very first words, the mitre, the crosier, the ring, fall into the dust; the Archbishop of Paris, the Duke of Saint Cloud, the peer of France, the commander of the Holy Ghost, is restored fromthe disguises of his enchantment, and becomes a human being. We hear the voice of a man hailing a man. Voltaire often sank to the level of ecclesiastics. Rousseau raised the archbishop to his own level, and with magnanimous courtesy addressed him as an equal. "Why, my lord, have I anything to say to you? What common tongue can we use? How are we to understand one another? And what is there between me and you?" And he persevered in this distant lofty vein, hardly permitting himself a single moment of acerbity. We feel the ever-inspiring breath of seriousness and sincerity. This was because, as we repeat so often, Rousseau's ideas, all engendered of dreams as they were, yet lived in him and were truly rooted in his character. He did not merely say, as any of us can say so fluently, that he craved reality in human relations, that distinctions of rank and post count for nothing, that our lives are in our own hands and ought not to be blown hither and thither by outside opinion and words heedlessly scattered; that our faith, whatever it may be, is the most sacred of our possessions, organic, indissoluble, self-sufficing; that our passage across the world, if very short, is yet too serious to be wasted in frivolous disrespect for ourselves, and angry disrespect for others. All this was actually his mind. And hence the little difficulty he had in keeping his retort to the archbishop, as to his other antagonists, on a worthy level.
Only once or twice does his sense of the reckless injustice with which he had been condemned, and ofthe persecution which was inflicted on him by one government after another, stir in him a blaze of high remonstrance. "You accuse me of temerity," he cried; "how have I earned such a name, when I only propounded difficulties, and even that with so much reserve; when I only advanced reasons, and even that with so much respect; when I attacked no one, nor even named one? And you, my lord, how do you dare to reproach with temerity a man of whom you speak with such scanty justice and so little decency, with so small respect and so much levity? You call me impious, and of what impiety can you accuse me—me who never spoke of the Supreme Being except to pay him the honour and glory that are his due, nor of man except to persuade all men to love one another? The impious are those who unworthily profane the cause of God by making it serve the passions of men. The impious are those who, daring to pass for the interpreters of divinity, and judges between it and man, exact for themselves the honours that are due to it only. The impious are those who arrogate to themselves the right of exercising the power of God upon earth, and insist on opening and shutting the gates of heaven at their own good will and pleasure. The impious are those who have libels read in the church. At this horrible idea my blood is enkindled, and tears of indignation fall from my eyes. Priests of the God of peace, you shall render an account one day, be very sure, of the use to which you have dared to put his house.... My lord, youhave publicly insulted me: you are now convicted of heaping calumny upon me. If you were a private person like myself, so that I could cite you before an equitable tribunal, and we could both appear before it, I with my book, and you with your mandate, assuredly you would be declared guilty; you would be condemned to make reparation as public as the wrong was public. But you belong to a rank that relieves you from the necessity of being just, and I am nothing. Yet you who profess the gospel, you, a prelate appointed to teach others their duty, you know what your own duty is in such a case. Mine I have done: I have nothing more to say to you, and I hold my peace."[131]
The letter was as good in dialectic as it was in moral tone. For this is a little curious, that Rousseau, so diffuse in expounding his opinions, and so unscientific in his method of coming to them, should have been one of the keenest and most trenchant of the controversialists of a very controversial time. Some of his strokes in defence of his first famous assault on civilisation are as hard, as direct, and as effective as any in the records of polemical literature. We will give one specimen from the letter to the Archbishop of Paris; it has the recommendation of touching an argument that is not yet quite universally recognised for slain. The Savoyard Vicar had dwelt on the difficulty of accepting revelation as the voice of God, on account of the long distance of time between us,and the questionableness of the supporting testimony. To which the archbishop thus:—"But is there not then an infinity of facts, even earlier than those of the Christian revelation, which it would be absurd to doubt? By what way other than that of human testimony has our author himself known the Sparta, the Athens, the Rome, whose laws, manners, and heroes he extols with such assurance? How many generations of men between him and the historians who have preserved the memory of these events?" First, says Rousseau in answer, "it is in the order of things that human circumstances should be attested by human evidence, and they can be attested in no other way. I can only know that Rome and Sparta existed, because contemporaries assure me that they existed. In such a case this intermediate communication is indispensable. But why is it necessary between God and me? Is it simple or natural that God should have gone in search of Moses to speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau? Second, nobody is obliged to believe that Sparta once existed, and nobody will be devoured by eternal flames for doubting it. Every fact of which we are not witnesses is only established by moral proofs, and moral proofs have various degrees of strength. Will the divine justice hurl me into hell for missing the exact point at which a proof becomes irresistible? If there is in the world an attested story, it is that of vampires; nothing is wanting for judicial proof,—reports and certificates from notables, surgeons, clergy, magistrates. Butwho believes in vampires, and shall we all be damned for not believing? Third,my constant experience and that of all men is stronger in reference to prodigies than the testimony of some men."
He then strikes home with a parable. The Abbé Pâris had died in the odour of Jansenist sanctity (1727), and extraordinary doings went on at his tomb; the lame walked, men and women sick of the palsy were made whole, and so forth. Suppose, says Rousseau, that an inhabitant of the Rue St. Jacques speaks thus to the Archbishop of Paris, "My lord, I know that you neither believe in the beatitude of St. Jean de Pâris, nor in the miracles which God has been pleased publicly to work upon his tomb in the sight of the most enlightened and most populous city in the world; but I feel bound to testify to you that I have just seen the saint in person raised from the dead in the spot where his bones were laid." The man of the Rue St. Jacques gives all the detail of such a circumstance that could strike a beholder. "I am persuaded that on hearing such strange news, you will begin by interrogating him who testifies to its truth, as to his position, his feelings, his confessor, and other such points; and when from his air, as from his speech, you have perceived that he is a poor workman, and when having no confessional ticket to show you, he has confirmed your notion that he is a Jansenist, Ah, ah, you will say to him, you are a convulsionary, and have seen Saint Pâris resuscitated. There is nothing wonderful in that; you have seen so many otherwonders!" The man would insist that the miracle had been seen equally by a number of other people, who though Jansenists, it is true, were persons of sound sense, good character, and excellent reputation. Some would send the man to Bedlam, "but you after a grave reprimand, will be content with saying: I know that two or three witnesses, good people and of sound sense, may attest the life or the death of a man, but I do not know how many more are needed to establish the resurrection of a Jansenist. Until I find that out, go, my son, and try to strengthen your brain: I give you a dispensation from fasting, and here is something for you to make your broth with. That is what you would say, and what any other sensible man would say in your place. Whence I conclude that even according to you and to every other sensible man, the moral proofs which are sufficient to establish facts that are in the order of moral possibilities, are not sufficient to establish facts of another order and purely supernatural."[132]
Perhaps, however, the formal denunciation by the Archbishop of Paris was less vexatious than the swarming of the angrier hive of ministers at his gates. "If I had declared for atheism," he says bitterly, "they would at first have shrieked, but they would soon have left me in peace like the rest. The people of the Lord would not have kept watch over me; everybody would not have thought he was doing me a high favour in not treating me as a person cut offfrom communion, and I should have been quits with all the world. The holy women in Israel would not have written me anonymous letters, and their charity would not have breathed devout insults. They would not have taken the trouble to assure me in all humility of heart that I was a castaway, an execrable monster, and that the world would have been well off if some good soul had been at the pains to strangle me in my cradle. Worthy people on their side would not torment themselves and torment me to bring me back to the way of salvation; they would not charge at me from right and left, nor stifle me under the weight of their sermons, nor force me to bless their zeal while I cursed their importunity, nor to feel with gratitude that they are obeying a call to lay me in my very grave with weariness."[133]
He had done his best to conciliate the good opinion of his vigilant neighbours. Their character for contentious orthodoxy was well known. It was at Neuchâtel that the controversy as to the eternal punishment of the wicked raged with a fury that ended in a civil outbreak. The peace of the town was violently disturbed, ministers were suspended, magistrates were interdicted, life was lost, until at last Frederick promulgated his famous bull:—"Let the parsons who make for themselves a cruel and barbarous God, be eternally damned as they desire and deserve; and let those parsons who conceive God gentle and merciful, enjoy the plenitude of hismercy."[134]When Rousseau came within the territory, preparations were made to imitate the action of Paris, Geneva, and Berne. It was only the king's express permission that saved him from a fourth proscription. The minister at Motiers was of the less inhuman stamp, and Rousseau, feeling that he could not, without failing in his engagements and his duty as a citizen, neglect the public profession of the faith to which he had been restored eight years before, attended the religious services with regularity. He even wrote to the pastor a letter in vindication of his book, and protesting the sincerity of his union with the reformed congregation.[135]The result of this was that the pastor came to tell him how great an honour he held it to count such a member in his flock, and how willing he was to admit him without further examination to partake of the communion.[136]Rousseau went to the ceremony with eyes full of tears and a heart swelling with emotion. We may respect his mood as little or as much as we please, but it was certainly more edifying than the sight of Voltaire going through the same rite, merely to harass a priest and fill a bishop with fury.
In all other respects he lived a harmless life during the three years of his sojourn in the Val de Travers. As he could never endure what he calls the inactive chattering of the parlour—people sittingin front of one another with folded hands and nothing in motion except the tongue—he learnt the art of making laces; he used to carry his pillow about with him, or sat at his own door working like the women of the village, and chatting with the passers-by. He made presents of his work to young women about to marry, always on the condition that they should suckle their children when they came to have them. If a little whimsical, it was a harmless and respectable pastime. It is pleasanter to think of a philosopher finding diversion in weaving laces, than of noblemen making it the business of their lives to run after ribands. A society clothed in breeches was incensed about the same time by Rousseau's adoption of the Armenian costume, the vest, the furred bonnet, the caftan, and the girdle. There was nothing very wonderful in this departure from use. An Armenian tailor used often to visit some friends at Montmorency. Rousseau knew him, and reflected that such a dress would be of singular comfort to him in the circumstances of his bodily disorder.[137]Here was a solid practical reason for what has usually been counted a demonstration of a turned brain. Rousseau had as good cause for going about in a caftan as Chatham had for coming to the House of Parliament wrapped in flannel. Vanity and a desire to attract notice may, we admit, have had something to do with Rousseau's adoption of an uncommon way of dressing. Shrewd wits like theDuke of Luxembourg and his wife did not suppose that it was so. We, living a hundred years after, cannot possibly know whether it was so or not, and our estimate of Rousseau's strange character would be very little worth forming, if it only turned on petty singularities of this kind. The foolish, equivocally gifted with the quality of articulate speech, may, if they choose, satisfy their own self-love by reducing all action out of the common course to a series of variations on the same motive in others. Men blessed by the benignity of experience will be thankful not to waste life in guessing evil about unknowable trifles.
During his stay at Motiers Rousseau's time was hardly ever his own. Visitors of all nations, drawn either by respect for his work or by curiosity to see a man who had been prescribed by so many governments, came to him in throngs. His partisans at Geneva insisted on sending people to convince themselves how good a man they were persecuting. "I had never been free from strangers for six weeks," he writes. "Two days after, I had a Westphalian gentleman and one from Genoa; six days later, two persons from Zurich, who stayed a week; then a Genevese, recovering from an illness, and coming for change of air, fell ill again, and he has only just gone away."[138]One visitor, writing home to his wife of the philosopher to whom he had come on a pilgrimage, describes his manners in terms which perhaps touchus with surprise:—"Thou hast no idea how charming his society is, what true politeness there is in his manners, what a depth of serenity and cheerfulness in his talk. Didst thou not expect quite a different picture, and figure to thyself an eccentric creature, always grave and sometimes even abrupt? Ah, what a mistake! To an expression of great mildness he unites a glance of fire, and eyes of a vivacity the like of which never was seen. When you handle any matter in which he takes an interest, then his eyes, his lips, his hands, everything about him speaks. You would be quite wrong to picture in him an everlasting grumbler. Not at all; he laughs with those who laugh, he chats and jokes with children, he rallies his housekeeper."[139]He was not so civil to all the world, and occasionally turned upon his pursuers with a word of most sardonic roughness.[140]But he could also be very generous. We find him pressing a loan from his scanty store on an outcast adventurer, and warning him, "When I lend (which happens rarely enough), 'tis my constant maxim never to count on repayment, nor to exact it."[141]He received hundreds of letters, some seeking an application of his views on education to a special case, others craving further exposition of his religious doctrines. Before he had been at Motiers nine months he had paid ten louis for the postage of letters, which after all containedlittle more than reproaches, insults, menaces, imbecilities.[142]