Book: The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book VIII.
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Jean Jacques Rousseau >> The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book VIII.
Since I had lived in the house of Madam Dupin, I had always been
satisfied with my situation, without showing the least sign of a desire
to improve it. The addition which, in conjunction with M. de Francueil,
she had made to my salary, was entirely of their own accord. This year
M. de Francueil, whose friendship for me daily increased, had it in his
thoughts to place me more at ease, and in a less precarious situation.
He was receiver-general of finance. M. Dudoyer, his cash-keeper, was old
and rich, and wished to retire. M. de Francueil offered me his place,
and to prepare myself for it, I went during a few weeks, to Dudoyer, to
take the necessary instructions. But whether my talents were ill-suited
to the employment, or that M. Dudoyer, who I thought wished to procure
his place for another, was not in earnest in the instructions he gave me,
I acquired by slow degrees, and very imperfectly, the knowledge I was in
want of, and could never understand the nature of accounts, rendered
intricate, perhaps designedly. However, without having possessed myself
of the whole scope of the business, I learned enough of the method to
pursue it without the least difficulty; I even entered on my new office;
I kept the cashbook and the cash; I paid and received money, took and
gave receipts; and although this business was so ill suited to my
inclinations as to my abilities, maturity of years beginning to render me
sedate, I was determined to conquer my disgust, and entirely devote
myself to my new employment.
Unfortunately for me, I had no sooner begun to proceed without
difficulty, than M. de Francueil took a little journey, during which I
remained intrusted with the cash, which, at that time, did not amount to
more than twenty-five to thirty thousand livres. The anxiety of mind
this sum of money occasioned me, made me perceive I was very unfit to be
a cash-keeper, and I have no doubt but my uneasy situation, during his
absence, contributed to the illness with which I was seized after his
return.
I have observed in my first part that I was born in a dying state. A
defect in the bladder caused me, during my early years, to suffer an
almost continual retention of urine, and my Aunt Susan, to whose care I
was intrusted, had inconceivable difficulty in preserving me. However,
she succeeded, and my robust constitution at length got the better of all
my weakness, and my health became so well established that except the
illness from languor, of which I have given an account, and frequent
heats in the bladder which the least heating of the blood rendered
troublesome, I arrived at the age of thirty almost without feeling my
original infirmity. The first time this happened was upon my arrival at
Venice. The fatigue of the voyage, and the extreme heat I had suffered,
renewed the burnings, and gave me a pain in the loins, which continued
until the beginning of winter. After having seen padoana, I thought
myself near the end of my career, but I suffered not the least
inconvenience. After exhausting my imagination more than my body for my
Zulietta, I enjoyed better health than ever. It was not until after the
imprisonment of Diderot that the heat of blood, brought on by my journeys
to Vincennes during the terrible heat of that summer, gave me a violent
nephritic colic, since which I have never recovered my primitive good
state of health.
At the time of which I speak, having perhaps fatigued myself too much in
the filthy work of the cursed receiver-general's office, I fell into a
worse state than ever, and remained five or six weeks in my bed in the
most melancholy state imaginable. Madam Dupin sent me the celebrated
Morand who, notwithstanding his address and the delicacy of his touch,
made me suffer the greatest torments. He advised me to have recourse to
Daran, who, in fact gave me some relief: but Morand, when he gave Madam
Dupin an account of the state I was in, declared to her I should not be
alive in six months. This afterwards came to my ear, and made me reflect
seriously on my situation and the folly of sacrificing the repose of the
few days I had to live to the slavery of an employment for which I felt
nothing but disgust. Besides, how was it possible to reconcile the
severe principles I had just adopted to a situation with which they had
so little relation? Should not I, the cash-keeper of a receiver-general
of finances, have preached poverty and disinterestedness with a very ill
grace? These ideas fermented so powerfully in my mind with the fever,
and were so strongly impressed, that from that time nothing could remove
them; and, during my convalescence, I confirmed myself with the greatest
coolness in the resolutions I had taken during my delirium. I forever
abandoned all projects of fortune and advancement, resolved to pass in
independence and poverty the little time I had to exist. I made every
effort of which my mind was capable to break the fetters of prejudice,
and courageously to do everything that was right without giving myself
the least concern about the judgment of others. The obstacles I had to
combat, and the efforts I made to triumph over them, are inconceivable.
I succeeded as much as it was possible I should, and to a greater degree
than I myself had hoped for. Had I at the same time shaken off the yoke
of friendship as well as that of prejudice, my design would have been
accomplished, perhaps the greatest, at least the most useful one to
virtue, that mortal ever conceived; but whilst I despised the foolish
judgments of the vulgar tribe called great and wise, I suffered myself to
be influenced and led by persons who called themselves my friends.
These, hurt at seeing me walk alone in a new path, while I seemed to take
measures for my happiness, used all their endeavors to render me
ridiculous, and that they might afterwards defame me, first strove to
make me contemptible. It was less my literary fame than my personal
reformation, of which I here state the period, that drew upon me their
jealousy; they perhaps might have pardoned me for having distinguished
myself in the art of writing; but they could never forgive my setting
them, by my conduct, an example, which, in their eyes, seemed to reflect
on themselves. I was born for friendship; my mind and easy disposition
nourished it without difficulty. As long as I lived unknown to the
public I was beloved by all my private acquaintance, and I had not a
single enemy. But the moment I acquired literary fame, I had no longer a
friend. This, was a great misfortune; but a still greater was that of
being surrounded by people who called themselves my friends, and used the
rights attached to that sacred name to lead me on to destruction. The
succeeding part of these memoirs will explain this odious conspiracy. I
here speak of its origin, and the manner of the first intrigue will
shortly appear.
In the independence in which I lived, it was, however, necessary to
subsist. To this effect I thought of very simple means: which were
copying music at so much a page. If any employment more solid would have
fulfilled the same end I would have taken it up; but this occupation
being to my taste, and the only one which, without personal attendance,
could procure me daily bread, I adopted it. Thinking I had no longer
need of foresight, and, stifling the vanity of cash-keeper to a
financier, I made myself a copyist of music. I thought I had made an
advantageous choice, and of this I so little repented, that I never
quitted my new profession until I was forced to do it, after taking a
fixed resolution to return to it as soon as possible.
The success of my first discourse rendered the execution of this
resolution more easy. As soon as it had gained the premium, Diderot
undertook to get it printed. Whilst I was in my bed, he wrote me a note
informing me of the publication and effect: "It takes," said he, "beyond
all imagination; never was there an instance of alike success."
This favor of the public, by no means solicited, and to an unknown
author, gave me the first real assurance of my talents, of which,
notwithstanding an internal sentiment, I had always had my doubts. I
conceived the great advantage to be drawn from it in favor of the way of
life I had determined to pursue; and was of opinion, that a copyist of
some celebrity in the republic of letters was not likely to want
employment.
The moment my resolution was confirmed, I wrote a note to M, de
Francueil, communicating to him my intentions, thanking him and Madam
Dupin for all goodness, and offering them my services in the way of my
new profession. Francueil did not understand my note, and, thinking I
was still in the delirium of fever, hastened to my apartment; but he
found me so determined, that all he could say to me was without the least
effect. He went to Madam Dupin, and told her and everybody he met, that
I had become insane. I let him say what he pleased, and pursued the plan
I had conceived. I began the change in my dress; I quitted laced clothes
and white stockings; I put on a round wig, laid aside my sword, and sold
my watch; saying to myself, with inexpressible pleasure: "Thank Heaven!
I shall no longer want to know the hour!" M. de Francueil had the
goodness to wait a considerable time before he disposed of my place. At
length perceiving me inflexibly resolved, he gave it to M. d'Alibard,
formerly tutor to the young Chenonceaux, and known as a botanist by his
Flora Parisiensis.
[I doubt not but these circumstances are now differently related by
M. Francueil and his consorts: but I appeal to what he said of them
at the time and long afterwards, to everybody he knew, until the
forming of the conspiracy, and of which men of common sense and
honor, must have preserved a remembrance.]
However austere my sumptuary reform might be, I did not at first extend
it to my linen, which was fine and in great quantity, the remainder of my
stock when at Venice, and to which I was particularly attached. I had
made it so much an object of cleanliness, that it became one of luxury,
which was rather expensive. Some persons, however, did me the favor to
deliver me from this servitude. On Christmas Eve, whilst the governesses
were at vespers, and I was at the spiritual concert, the door of a
garret, in which all our linen was hung up after being washed, was broken
open. Everything was stolen; and amongst other things, forty-two of my
shirts, of very fine linen, and which were the principal part of my
stock. By the manner in which the neighbors described a man whom they
had seen come out of the hotel with several parcels whilst we were all
absent, Theresa and myself suspected her brother, whom we knew to be a
worthless man. The mother strongly endeavored to remove this suspicion,
but so many circumstances concurred to prove it to be well founded, that,
notwithstanding all she could say, our opinions remained still the same:
I dared not make a strict search for fear of finding more than I wished
to do. The brother never returned to the place where I lived, and, at
length, was no more heard of by any of us. I was much grieved Theresa
and myself should be connected with such a family, and I exhorted her
more than ever to shake off so dangerous a yoke. This adventure cured me
of my inclination for fine linen, and since that time all I have had has
been very common, and more suitable to the rest of my dress.
Having thus completed the change of that which related to my person, all
my cares tendered to render it solid and lasting, by striving to root out
from my heart everything susceptible of receiving an impression from the
judgment of men, or which, from the fear of blame, might turn me aside
from anything good and reasonable in itself. In consequence of the
success of my work, my resolution made some noise in the world also,
and procured me employment; so that I began my new profession with great
appearance of success. However, several causes prevented me from
succeeding in it to the same degree I should under any other
circumstances have done. In the first place my ill state of health.
The attack I had just had, brought on consequences which prevented my
ever being so well as I was before; and I am of opinion, the physicians,
to whose care I intrusted myself, did me as much harm as my illness.
I was successively under the hands of Morand, Daran, Helvetius, Malouin,
and Thyerri: men able in their profession, and all of them my friends,
who treated me each according to his own manner, without giving me the
least relief, and weakened me considerably. The more I submitted to
their direction, the yellower, thinner, and weaker I became. My
imagination, which they terrified, judging of my situation by the effect
of their drugs, presented to me, on this side of the tomb, nothing but
continued sufferings from the gravel, stone, and retention of urine.
Everything which gave relief to others, ptisans, baths, and bleeding,
increased my tortures. Perceiving the bougees of Daran, the only ones
that had any favorable effect, and without which I thought I could no
longer exist, to give me a momentary relief, I procured a prodigious
number of them, that, in case of Daran's death, I might never be at a
loss. During the eight or ten years in which I made such frequent use of
these, they must, with what I had left, have cost me fifty louis.
It will easily be judged, that such expensive and painful means did not
permit me to work without interruption; and that a dying man is not
ardently industrious in the business by which he gains his daily bread.
Literary occupations caused another interruption not less prejudicial to
my daily employment. My discourse had no sooner appeared than the
defenders of letters fell upon me as if they had agreed with each to do
it. My indignation was so raised at seeing so many blockheads, who did
not understand the question, attempt to decide upon it imperiously, that
in my answer I gave some of them the worst of it. One M. Gautier, of
Nancy, the first who fell under the lash of my pen, was very roughly
treated in a letter to M. Grimm. The second was King Stanislaus,
himself, who did not disdain to enter the lists with me. The honor he
did me, obliged me to change my manner in combating his opinions; I made
use of a graver style, but not less nervous; and without failing in
respect to the author, I completely refuted his work. I knew a Jesuit,
Father de Menou, had been concerned in it. I depended on my judgment to
distinguish what was written by the prince, from the production of the
monk, and falling without mercy upon all the jesuitical phrases, I
remarked, as I went along, an anachronism which I thought could come from
nobody but the priest. This composition, which, for what reason I knew
not, has been less spoken of than any of my other writings, is the only
one of its kind. I seized the opportunity which offered of showing to
the public in what manner an individual may defend the cause of truth
even against a sovereign. It is difficult to adopt a more dignified and
respectful manner than that in which I answered him. I had the happiness
to have to do with an adversary to whom, without adulation, I could show
every mark of the esteem of which my heart was full; and this I did with
success and a proper dignity. My friends, concerned for my safety,
imagined they already saw me in the Bastile. This apprehension never
once entered my head, and I was right in not being afraid. The good
prince, after reading my answer, said: "I have enough of at; I will not
return to the charge." I have, since that time received from him
different marks of esteem and benevolence, some of which I shall have
occasion to speak of; and what I had written was read in France, and
throughout Europe, without meeting the least censure.
In a little time I had another adversary whom I had not expected; this
was the same M. Bordes, of Lyons, who ten years before had shown me much
friendship, and from whom I had received several services. I had not
forgotten him, but had neglected him from idleness, and had not sent him
my writings for want of an opportunity, without seeking for it, to get
them conveyed to his hands. I was therefore in the wrong, and he
attacked me; this, however, he did politely, and I answered in the same
manner. He replied more decidedly. This produced my last answer; after
which I heard no more from him upon the subject; but he became my most
violent enemy, took the advantage of the time of my misfortunes, to
publish against me the most indecent libels, and made a journey to London
on purpose to do me an injury.
All this controversy employed me a good deal, and caused me a great loss
of my time in my copying, without much contributing to the progress of
truth, or the good of my purse. Pissot, at that time my bookseller, gave
me but little for my pamphlets, frequently nothing at all, and I never
received a farthing for my first discourse. Diderot gave it him. I was
obliged to wait a long time for the little he gave me, and to take it
from him in the most trifling sums. Notwithstanding this, my copying
went on but slowly. I had two things together upon my hands, which was
the most likely means of doing them both ill.
They were very opposite to each other in their effects by the different
manners of living to which they rendered me subject. The success of my
first writings had given me celebrity. My new situation excited
curiosity. Everybody wished to know that whimsical man who sought not
the acquaintance of any one, and whose only desire was to live free and
happy in the manner he had chosen; this was sufficient to make the thing
impossible to me. My apartment was continually full of people, who,
under different pretences, came to take up my time. The women employed a
thousand artifices to engage me to dinner. The more unpolite I was with
people, the more obstinate they became. I could not refuse everybody.
While I made myself a thousand enemies by my refusals, I was incessantly
a slave to my complaisance, and, in whatever manner I made my
engagements, I had not an hour in a day to myself.
I then perceived it was not so easy to be poor and independent, as I had
imagined. I wished to live by my profession: the public would not suffer
me to do it. A thousand means were thought of to indemnify me for the
time I lost. The next thing would have been showing myself like Punch,
at so much each person. I knew no dependence more cruel and degrading
than this. I saw no other method of putting an end to it than refusing
all kinds of presents, great and small, let them come from whom they
would. This had no other effect than to increase the number of givers,
who wished to have the honor of overcoming my resistance, and to force
me, in spite of myself, to be under an obligation to them.
Many, who would not have given me half-a-crown had I asked it from them,
incessantly importuned me with their offers, and, in revenge for my
refusal, taxed me with arrogance and ostentation.
It will naturally be conceived that the resolutions I had taken, and the
system I wished to follow, were not agreeable to Madam le Vasseur. All
the disinterestedness of the daughter did not prevent her from following
the directions of her mother; and the governesses, as Gauffecourt called
them, were not always so steady in their refusals as I was. Although
many things were concealed from me, I perceived so many as were necessary
to enable me to judge that I did not see all, and this tormented me less
by the accusation of connivance, which it was so easy for me to foresee,
than by the cruel idea of never being master in my own apartments, nor
even of my own person. I prayed, conjured, and became angry, all to no
purpose; the mother made me pass for an eternal grumbler, and a man who
was peevish and ungovernable. She held perpetual whisperings with my
friends; everything in my little family was mysterious and a secret to
me; and, that I might not incessantly expose myself to noisy quarrelling,
I no longer dared to take notice of what passed in it. A firmness of
which I was not capable, would have been necessary to withdraw me from
this domestic strife. I knew how to complain, but not how to act: they
suffered me to say what I pleased, and continued to act as they thought
proper.
This constant teasing, and the daily importunities to which I was
subject, rendered the house, and my residence at Paris, disagreeable to
me. When my indisposition permitted me to go out, and I did not suffer
myself to be led by my acquaintance first to one place and then to
another, I took a walk, alone, and reflected on my grand system,
something of which I committed to paper, bound up between two covers,
which, with a pencil, I always had in my pocket. In this manner, the
unforeseen disagreeableness of a situation I had chosen entirely led me
back to literature, to which unsuspectedly I had recourse as a means of
releaving my mind, and thus, in the first works I wrote, I introduced the
peevishness and ill-humor which were the cause of my undertaking them.
There was another circumstance which contributed not a little to this;
thrown into the world despite of myself, without having the manners of
it, or being in a situation to adopt and conform myself to them, I took
it into my head to adopt others of my own, to enable me to dispense with
those of society. My foolish timidity, which I could not conquer, having
for principle the fear of being wanting in the common forms, I took, by
way of encouraging myself, a resolution to tread them under foot. I
became sour and cynic from shame, and affected to despise the politeness
which I knew not how to practice. This austerity, conformable to my new
principles, I must confess, seemed to ennoble itself in my mind; it
assumed in my eyes the form of the intrepidity of virtue, and I dare
assert it to be upon this noble basis, that it supported itself longer
and better than could have been expected from anything so contrary to my
nature. Yet, not withstanding, I had the name of a misanthrope, which my
exterior appearance and some happy expressions had given me in the world:
it is certain I did not support the character well in private, that my
friends and acquaintance led this untractable bear about like a lamb, and
that, confining my sarcasms to severe but general truths, I was never
capable of saying an uncivil thing to any person whatsoever.
The 'Devin du Village' brought me completely into vogue, and presently
after there was not a man in Paris whose company was more sought after
than mine. The history of this piece, which is a kind of era in my life,
is joined with that of the connections I had at that time. I must enter
a little into particulars to make what is to follow the better
understood.
I had a numerous acquaintance, yet no more than two friends: Diderot and
Grimm. By an effect of the desire I have ever felt to unite everything
that is dear to me, I was too much a friend to both not to make them
shortly become so to each other. I connected them: they agreed well
together, and shortly become more intimate with each other than with me.
Diderot had a numerous acquaintance, but Grimm, a stranger and a
new-comer, had his to procure, and with the greatest pleasure I procured
him all I could. I had already given him Diderot. I afterwards brought
him acquainted with Gauffecourt. I introduced him to Madam Chenonceaux,
Madam D'Epinay, and the Baron d'Holbach; with whom I had become
connected almost in spite of myself. All my friends became his: this
was natural: but not one of his ever became mine; which was inclining to
the contrary. Whilst he yet lodged at the house of the Comte de Friese,
he frequently gave us dinners in his apartment, but I never received the
least mark of friendship from the Comte de Friese, Comte de Schomberg,
his relation, very familiar with Grimm, nor from any other person, man
or woman, with whom Grimm, by their means, had any connection. I except
the Abbe Raynal, who, although his friend, gave proofs of his being
mine; and in cases of need, offered me his purse with a generosity not
very common. But I knew the Abbe Raynal long before Grimm had any
acquaintance with him, and had entertained a great regard for him on
account of his delicate and honorable behavior to me upon a slight
occasion, which I shall never forget.
The Abbe Raynal is certainly a warm friend; of this I saw a proof, much
about the time of which I speak, with respect to Grimm himself, with whom
he was very intimate. Grimm, after having been sometime on a footing of
friendship with Mademoiselle Fel, fell violently in love with her, and
wished to supplant Cahusac. The young lady, piquing herself on her
constancy, refused her new admirer. He took this so much to heart, that
the appearance of his affliction became tragical. He suddenly fell into
the strangest state imaginable. He passed days and nights in a continued
lethargy. He lay with his eyes open; and although his pulse continued to
beat regularly, without speaking eating, or stirring, yet sometimes
seeming to hear what was said to him, but never answering, not even by a
sign, and remaining almost as immovable as if he had been dead, yet
without agitation, pain, or fever. The Abbe Raynal and myself watched
over him; the abbe, more robust, and in better health than I was, by
night, and I by day, without ever both being absent at one time. The
Comte de Friese was alarmed, and brought to him Senac, who, after having
examined the state in which he was, said there was nothing to apprehend,
and took his leave without giving a prescription. My fears for my friend
made me carefully observe the countenance of the physician, and I
perceived him smile as he went away. However, the patient remained
several days almost motionless, without taking anything except a few
preserved cherries, which from time to time I put upon his tongue, and
which he swallowed without difficulty. At length he, one morning, rose,
dressed himself, and returned to his usual way of life, without either at
that time or afterwards speaking to me or the Abbe Raynal, at least that
I know of, or to any other person, of this singular lethargy, or the care
we had taken of him during the time it lasted.