Book: The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book XII.

J >> Jean Jacques Rousseau >> The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Book XII.




After her departure, Montmollin carried on his manoeuvres with more
vigor, and the populace threw off all restraint. Yet I still continued
to walk quietly amidst the hootings of the vulgar; and a taste for
botany, which I had begun to contract with Doctor d'Ivernois, making my
rambling more amusing, I went through the country herbalising, without
being affected by the clamors of this scum of the earth, whose fury was
still augmented by my calmness. What affected me most was, seeing
families of my friends,

[This fatality had begun with my residence at, Yverdon; the banneret
Roguin dying a year or two after my departure from that city, the
old papa Roguin had the candor to inform me with grief, as he said,
that in he papers of his relation, proofs had been found of his
having been concerned in the conspiracy to expel me from Yverdon and
the state of Berne. This clearly proved the conspiracy not to be,
as some people pretended to believe, an affair of hypocrisy since
the banneret, far from being a devotee, carried materialism and
incredulity to intolerance and fanaticism. Besides, nobody at
Yverdon had shown me more constant attention, nor had so prodigally
bestowed upon me praises and flattery as this banneret. He
faithfully followed the favorite plan of my persecutors.]

or of persons who gave themselves that name, openly join the league of my
persecutors; such as the D'Ivernois, without excepting the father and
brother of my Isabel le Boy de la Tour, a relation to the friend in whose
house I lodged, and Madam Girardier, her sister-in-law. This Peter Boy
was such a brute; so stupid, and behaved so uncouthly, that, to prevent
my mind from being disturbed, I took the liberty to ridicule him; and
after the manner of the 'Petit Prophete', I wrote a pamphlet of a few
pages, entitled, 'la Vision de Pierre de la Montagne dit le Voyant,
--[The vision of Peter of the Mountain called the Seer.]--in which I
found means to be diverting enough on the miracles which then served as
the great pretext for my persecution. Du Peyrou had this scrap printed
at Geneva, but its success in the country was but moderate; the
Neuchatelois with all their wit, taste but weakly attic salt or
pleasantry when these are a little refined.

In the midst of decrees and persecutions, the Genevese had distinguished
themselves by setting up a hue and cry with all their might; and my
friend Vernes amongst others, with an heroical generosity, chose that
moment precisely to publish against me letters in which he pretended to
prove I was not a Christian. These letters, written with an air of
self-sufficiency were not the better for it, although it was positively
said the celebrated Bonnet had given them some correction: for this man,
although a materialist, has an intolerant orthodoxy the moment I am in
question. There certainly was nothing in this work which could tempt me
to answer it; but having an opportunity of saying a few words upon it in
my 'Letters from the Mountain', I inserted in them a short note
sufficiently expressive of disdain to render Vernes furious. He filled
Geneva with his furious exclamations, and D'Ivernois wrote me word he had
quite lost his senses. Sometime afterwards appeared an anonymous sheet,
which instead of ink seemed to be written with water of Phelethon. In
this letter I was accused of having exposed my children in the streets,
of taking about with me a soldier's trull, of being worn out with
debaucheries,....., and other fine things of a like nature. It was not
difficult for me to discover the author. My first idea on reading this
libel, was to reduce to its real value everything the world calls fame
and reputation amongst men; seeing thus a man who was never in a brothel
in his life, and whose greatest defect was in being as timid and shy as a
virgin, treated as a frequenter of places of that description; and in
finding myself charged with being......, I, who not only never had the
least taint of such disorder, but, according to the faculty, was so
constructed as to make it almost impossible for me to contract it.
Everything well considered, I thought I could not better refute this
libel than by having it printed in the city in which I longest resided,
and with this intention I sent it to Duchesne to print it as it was with
an advertisement in which I named M. Vernes and a few short notes by way
of eclaircissement. Not satisfied with printing it only, I sent copies
to several persons, and amongst others one copy to the Prince Louis of
Wirtemberg, who had made me polite advances and with whom I was in
correspondence. The prince, Du Peyrou, and others, seemed to have their
doubts about the author of the libel, and blamed me for having named
Vernes upon so slight a foundation. Their remarks produced in me some
scruples, and I wrote to Duchesne to suppress the paper. Guy wrote to me
he had suppressed it: this may or may not be the case; I have been
deceived on so many occasions that there would be nothing extraordinary
in my being so on this, and from the time of which I speak, was so
enveloped in profound darkness that it was impossible for me to come at
any kind of truth.

M. Vernes bore the imputation with a moderation more than astonishing in
a man who was supposed not to have deserved it, and after the fury with
which he was seized on former occasions. He wrote me two or three
letters in very guarded terms, with a view, as it appeared to me,
to endeavor by my answers to discover how far I was certain of his being
the author of the paper, and whether or not I had any proofs against him.
I wrote him two short answers, severe in the sense, but politely
expressed, and with which he was not displeased. To his third letter,
perceiving he wished to form with me a kind of correspondence, I returned
no answer, and he got D'Ivernois to speak to me. Madam Cramer wrote to
Du Peyrou, telling him she was certain the libel was not by Vernes. This
however, did not make me change my opinion. But as it was possible I
might be deceived, and as it is certain that if I were, I owed Vernes an
explicit reparation, I sent him word by D'Ivernois that I would make him
such a one as he should think proper, provided he would name to me the
real author of the libel, or at least prove that he himself was not so.
I went further: feeling that, after all, were he not culpable, I had no
right to call upon him for proofs of any kind, I stated in a memoir of
considerable length, the reasons whence I had inferred my conclusion, and
determined to submit them to the judgment of an arbitrator, against whom
Vernes could not except. But few people would guess the arbitrator of
whom I made choice. I declared at the end of the memoir, that if, after
having examined it, and made such inquiries as should seem necessary, the
council pronounced M. Vernes not to be the author of the libel, from that
moment I should be fully persuaded he was not, and would immediately go
and throw myself at his feet, and ask his pardon until I had obtained it.
I can say with the greatest truth that my ardent zeal for equity, the
uprightness and generosity of my heart, and my confidence in the love of
justice innate in every mind never appeared more fully and perceptible
than in this wise and interesting memoir, in which I took, without
hesitation, my most implacable enemies for arbitrators between a
calumniator and myself. I read to Du Peyrou what I had written: he
advised me to suppress it, and I did so. He wished me to wait for the
proofs Vernes promised, and I am still waiting for them: he thought it
best that I should in the meantime be silent, and I held my tongue, and
shall do so the rest of my life, censured as I am for having brought
against Vernes a heavy imputation, false and unsupportable by proof,
although I am still fully persuaded, nay, as convinced as I am of my
existence, that he is the author of the libel. My memoir is in the hands
of Du Peyrou. Should it ever be published my reasons will be found in
it, and the heart of Jean Jacques, with which my contemporaries would not
be acquainted, will I hope be known.

I have now to proceed to my catastrophe at Motiers, and to my departure
from Val de Travers, after a residence of two years and a half, and an
eight months suffering with unshaken constancy of the most unworthy
treatment. It is impossible for me clearly to recollect the
circumstances of this disagreeable period, but a detail of them will be
found in a publication to that effect by Du Peyrou, of which I shall
hereafter have occasion to speak.

After the departure of Madam de Verdelin the fermentation increased, and,
notwithstanding the reiterated rescripts of the king, the frequent orders
of the council of state, and the cares of the chatelain and magistrates
of the place, the people, seriously considering me as antichrist, and
perceiving all their clamors to be of no effect, seemed at length
determined to proceed to violence; stones were already thrown after me
in the roads, but I was however in general at too great a distance to
receive any harm from them. At last, in the night of the fair of
Motiers, which is in the beginning of September, I was attacked in my
habitation in such a manner as to endanger the lives of everybody in the
house.

At midnight I heard a great noise in the gallery which ran along the back
part of the house. A shower of stones thrown against the window and the
door which opened to the gallery fell into it with so much noise and
violence, that my dog, which usually slept there, and had begun to bark,
ceased from fright, and ran into a corner gnawing and scratching the
planks to endeavor to make his escape. I immediately rose, and was
preparing to go from my chamber into the kitchen, when a stone thrown by
a vigorous arm crossed the latter, after having broken the window, forced
open the door of my chamber, and fell at my feet, so that had I been a
moment sooner upon the floor I should have had the stone against my
stomach. I judged the noise had been made to bring me to the door, and
the stone thrown to receive me as I went out. I ran into the kitchen,
where I found Theresa, who also had risen, and was tremblingly making her
way to me as fast as she could. We placed ourselves against the wall out
of the direction of the window to avoid the stones, and deliberate upon
what was best to be done; for going out to call assistance was the
certain means of getting ourselves knocked on the head. Fortunately the
maid-servant of an old man who lodged under me was waked by the noise,
and got up and ran to call the chatelain, whose house was next to mine.
He jumped from his bed, put on his robe de chambre, and instantly came to
me with the guard, which, on account of the fair, went the round that
night, and was just at hand. The chatelain was so alarmed at the sight
of the effects of what had happened that he turned pale and on seeing the
stones in the gallery, exclaimed, "Good God! here is a quarry!" On
examining below stairs, a door of a little court was found to have been
forced, and there was an appearance of an attempt having been made to get
into the house by the gallery. On inquiring the reason why the guard had
neither prevented nor perceived the disturbance, it came out that the
guards of Motiers had insisted upon doing duty that night, although it
was the turn of those of another village.

The next day the chatelain sent his report to the council of state, which
two days afterwards sent an order to inquire into the affair, to promise
a reward and secrecy to those who should impeach such as were guilty, and
in the meantime to place, at the expense of the king, guards about my
house, and that of the chatelain, which joined to it. The day after the
disturbance, Colonel Pury, the Attorney-General Meuron, the Chatelain
Martinet, the Receiver Guyenet, the Treasurer d'Ivernois and his father,
in a word, every person of consequence in the country, came to see me,
and united their solicitations to persuade me to yield to the storm and
leave, at least for a time, a place in which I could no longer live in
safety nor with honor. I perceived that even the chatelain was
frightened at the fury of the people, and apprehending it might extend to
himself, would be glad to see me depart as soon as possible, that he
might no longer have the trouble of protecting me there, and be able to
quit the parish, which he did after my departure. I therefore yielded to
their solicitations, and this with but little pain, for the hatred of the
people so afflicted my heart that I was no longer able to support it.

I had a choice of places to retire to. After Madam de Verdelin returned
to Paris, she had, in several letters, mentioned a Mr. Walpole, whom she
called my lord, who, having a strong desire to serve me, proposed to me
an asylum at one of his country houses, of the situation of which she
gave me the most agreeable description; entering, relative to lodging and
subsistence, into a detail which proved she and Lord Walpole had held
particular consultations upon the project. My lord marshal had always
advised me to go to England or Scotland, and in case of my determining
upon the latter, offered me there an asylum. But he offered me another
at Potsdam, near to his person, and which tempted me more than all the
rest.

He had just communicated to me what the king had said to him about my
going there, which was a kind of invitation to me from that monarch, and
the Duchess of Saxe-Gotha depended so much upon my taking the journey
that she wrote to me desiring I should go to see her in my way to the
court of Prussia, and stay some time before I proceeded farther; but I
was so attached to Switzerland that I could not resolve to quit it so
long as it was possible for me to live there, and I seized this
opportunity to execute a project of which I had for several months
conceived the idea, and of which I have deferred speaking, that I might
not interrupt my narrative.

This project consisted in going to reside in the island of St. Peter,
an estate belonging to the Hospital of Berne, in the middle of the lake
of Bienne. In a pedestrian pilgrimage I had made the preceding year with
Du Peyrou we had visited this isle, with which I was so much delighted
that I had since that time incessantly thought of the means of making it
my place of residence. The greatest obstacle to my wishes arose from the
property of the island being vested in the people of Berne, who three
years before had driven me from amongst them; and besides the
mortification of returning to live with people who had given me so
unfavorable a reception, I had reason to fear they would leave me no more
at peace in the island than they had done at Yverdon. I had consulted
the lord marshal upon the subject, who thinking as I did, that the people
of Berne would be glad to see me banished to the island, and to keep me
there as a hostage for the works I might be tempted to write, and sounded
their dispositions by means of M. Sturler, his old neighbor at Colombier.
M. Sturler addressed himself to the chiefs of the state, and, according
to their answer assured the marshal the Bernois, sorry for their past
behavior, wished to see me settled in the island of St. Peter, and to
leave me there at peace. As an additional precaution, before I
determined to reside there, I desired the Colonel Chaillet to make new
inquiries. He confirmed what I had already heard, and the receiver of
the island having obtained from his superiors permission to lodge me in
it, I thought I might without danger go to the house, with the tactic
consent of the sovereign and the proprietors; for I could not expect the
people of Berne would openly acknowledge the injustice they had done me,
and thus act contrary to the most inviolable maxim of all sovereigns.

The island of St. Peter, called at Neuchatel the island of La Motte, in
the middle of the lake of Bienne, is half a league in, circumference; but
in this little space all the chief productions necessary to subsistence
are found. The island has fields, meadows, orchards, woods, and
vineyards, and all these, favored by variegated and mountainous
situations, form a distribution of the more agreeable, as the parts, not
being discovered all at once, are seen successively to advantage, and
make the island appear greater than it really is. A very elevated
terrace forms the western part of it, and commands Gleresse and
Neuverville. This terrace is planted with trees which form a long alley,
interrupted in the middle by a great saloon, in which, during the
vintage, the people from the neighboring shores assemble and divert
themselves. There is but one house in the whole island, but that is very
spacious and convenient, inhabited by the receiver, and situated in a
hollow by which it is sheltered from the winds.

Five or six hundred paces to the south of the island of St. Peter is
another island, considerably less than the former, wild and uncultivated,
which appears to have been detached from the greater island by storms:
its gravelly soil produces nothing but willows and persicaria, but there
is in it a high hill well covered with greensward and very pleasant. The
form of the lake is an almost regular oval. The banks, less rich than
those of the lake of Geneva and Neuchatel, form a beautiful decoration,
especially towards the western part, which is well peopled, and edged
with vineyards at the foot, of a chain of mountains, something like those
of Cote-Rotie, but which produce not such excellent wine. The bailiwick
of St. John, Neuveville, Berne, and Bienne, lie in a line from the south
to the north, to the extremity of the lake, the whole interspersed with
very agreeable villages.

Such was the asylum I had prepared for myself, and to which I was
determined to retire alter quitting Val de Travers.

[It may perhaps be necessary to remark that I left there an enemy in
M. du Teneaux, mayor of Verrieres, not much esteemed in the country,
but who has a brother, said to be an honest man, in the office of M.
de St. Florentin. The mayor had been to see him sometime before my
adventure. Little remarks of this kind, though of no consequence,
in themselves, may lead to the discovery of many underhand
dealings.]

This choice was so agreeable to my peaceful inclinations, and my solitary
and indolent disposition, that I consider it as one of the pleasing
reveries of which I became the most passionately fond. I thought I
should in that island be more separated from men, more sheltered from
their outrages, and sooner forgotten by mankind: in a word, more
abandoned to the delightful pleasures of the inaction of a contemplative
life. I could have wished to have been confined in it in such a manner
as to have had no intercourse with mortals, and I certainly took every
measure I could imagine to relieve me from the necessity of troubling my
head about them.

The great question was that of subsistence, and by the dearness of
provisions, and the difficulty of carriage, this is expensive in the
island; the inhabitants are besides at the mercy of the receiver. This
difficulty was removed by an arrangement which Du Peyrou made with me in
becoming a substitute to the company which had undertaken and abandoned
my general edition. I gave him all the materials necessary, and made the
proper arrangement and distribution. To the engagement between us I
added that of giving him the memoirs of my life, and made him the general
depositary of all my papers, under the express condition of making no use
of them until after my death, having it at heart quietly to end my days
without doing anything which should again bring me back to the
recollection of the public. The life annuity he undertook to pay me was
sufficient to my subsistence. My lord marshal having recovered all his
property, had offered me twelve hundred livres (fifty pounds) a year,
half of which I accepted. He wished to send me the principal, and this I
refused on account of the difficulty of placing it. He then sent the
amount to Du Peyrou, in whose hands it remained, and who pays me the
annuity according to the terms agreed upon with his lordship. Adding
therefore to the result of my agreement with Du Peyrou, the annuity of
the marshal, two-thirds of which were reversible to Theresa after my
death, and the annuity of three hundred livres from Duchesne, I was
assured of a genteel subsistence for myself, and after me for Theresa, to
whom I left seven hundred livres (twenty-nine pounds) a year, from the
annuities paid me by Rey and the lord marshal; I had therefore no longer
to fear a want of bread. But it was ordained that honor should oblige me
to reject all these resources which fortune and my labors placed within
my reach, and that I should die as poor as I had lived. It will be seen
whether or not, without reducing myself to the last degree of infamy, I
could abide by the engagements which care has always taken to render
ignominious, by depriving me of every other resource to force me to
consent to my own dishonor. How was it possible anybody could doubt of
the choice I should make in such an alternative? Others have judged of
my heart by their own.

My mind at ease relative to subsistence was without care upon every other
subject. Although I left in the world the field open to my enemies,
there remained in the noble enthusiasm by which my writings were
dictated, and in the constant uniformity of my principles, an evidence of
the uprightness of my heart which answered to that deducible from my
conduct in favor of my natural disposition. I had no need of any other
defense against my calumniators. They might under my name describe
another man, but it was impossible they should deceive such as were
unwilling to be imposed upon. I could have given them my whole life to
animadvert upon, with a certainty, notwithstanding all my faults and
weaknesses, and my want of aptitude to, support the lightest yoke, of
their finding me in every situation a just and good man, without
bitterness, hatred, or jealousy, ready to acknowledge my errors, and
still more prompt to forget the injuries I received from others; seeking
all my happiness in love, friendship, and affection and in everything
carrying my sincerity even to imprudence and the most incredible
disinterestedness.

I therefore in some measure took leave of the age in which I lived and my
contemporaries, and bade adieu to the world, with an intention to confine
myself for the rest of my days to that island; such was my resolution,
and it was there I hoped to execute the great project of the indolent
life to which I had until then consecrated the little activity with which
Heaven had endowed me. The island was to become to me that of Papimanie,
that happy country where the inhabitants sleep:

Ou l'on fait plus, ou l'on fait nulle chose.

[Where they do more: where they do nothing.]

This more was everything for me, for I never much regretted sleep;
indolence is sufficient to my happiness, and provided I do nothing, I had
rather dream waking than asleep. Being past the age of romantic
projects, and having been more stunned than flattered by the trumpet of
fame, my only hope was that of living at ease, and constantly at leisure.
This is the life of the blessed in the world to come, and for the rest of
mine here below I made it my supreme happiness.

They who reproach me with so many contradictions, will not fail here to
add another to the number. I have observed the indolence of great
companies made them unsupportable to me, and I am now seeking solitude
for the sole purpose of abandoning myself to inaction. This however is
my disposition; if there be in it a contradiction, it proceeds from
nature and not from me; but there is so little that it is precisely on
that account that I am always consistent. The indolence of company is
burdensome because it is forced. That of solitude is charming because it
is free, and depends upon the will. In company I suffer cruelly by
inaction, because this is of necessity. I must there remain nailed to my
chair, or stand upright like a picket, without stirring hand or foot, not
daring to run, jump, sing, exclaim, nor gesticulate when I please, not
allowed even to dream, suffering at the same time the fatigue of inaction
and all the torment of constraint; obliged to pay attention to every
foolish thing uttered, and to all the idle compliments paid, and
constantly to keep my mind upon the rack that I may not fail to introduce
in my turn my jest or my lie. And this is called idleness! It is the
labor of a galley slave.

The indolence I love is not that of a lazy fellow who sits with his arms
across in total inaction, and thinks no more than he acts, but that of a
child which is incessantly in motion doing nothing, and that of a dotard
who wanders from his subject. I love to amuse myself with trifles, by
beginning a hundred things and never finishing one of them, by going or
coming as I take either into my head, by changing my project at every
instant, by following a fly through all its windings, in wishing to
overturn a rock to see what is under it, by undertaking with ardor the
work of ten years, and abandoning it without regret at the end of ten
minutes; finally, in musing from morning until night without order or
coherence, and in following in everything the caprice of a moment.

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