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

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[Remark the perseverance of this blind and stupid confidence in the
midst of all the treatment which should soonest have undeceived me.
It continued until my return to Paris in 1770.]

My apartments at Mont Louis being small, and the situation of the alcove
charming, I conducted the prince to it, where, to complete the
condescension he was pleased to show me, he chose I should have the honor
of playing with him a game of chess. I knew he beat the Chevalier de
Lorenzy, who played better than I did. However, notwithstanding the
signs and grimace of the chevalier and the spectators, which I feigned
not to see, I won the two games we played: When they were ended, I said
to him in a respectful but very grave manner: "My lord, I honor your
serene highness too much not to beat you always at chess." This great
prince, who had real wit, sense, and knowledge, and so was worthy not to
be treated with mean adulation, felt in fact, at least I think so, that I
was the only person present who treated him like a man, and I have every
reason to believe he was not displeased with me for it.

Had this even been the case, I should not have reproached myself with
having been unwilling to deceive him in anything, and I certainly cannot
do it with having in my heart made an ill return for his goodness, but
solely with having sometimes done it with an ill grace, whilst he himself
accompanied with infinite gracefulness the manner in which he showed me
the marks of it. A few days afterwards he ordered a hamper of game to be
sent me, which I received as I ought. This in a little time was
succeeded by another, and one of his gamekeepers wrote me, by order of
his highness, that the game it contained had been shot by the prince
himself. I received this second hamper, but I wrote to Madam de
Boufflers that I would not receive a third. This letter was generally
blamed, and deservedly so. Refusing to accept presents of game from a
prince of the blood, who moreover sends it in so polite a manner, is less
the delicacy of a haughty man, who wishes to preserve his independence,
than the rusticity of a clown, who does not know himself. I have never
read this letter in my collection without blushing and reproaching myself
for having written it. But I have not undertaken my Confession with an
intention of concealing my faults, and that of which I have just spoken
is too shocking in my own eyes to suffer me to pass it over in silence.

If I were not guilty of the offence of becoming his rival I was very near
doing it; for Madam de Boufflers was still his mistress, and I knew
nothing of the matter. She came rather frequently to see me with the
Chevalier de Lorenzy. She was yet young and beautiful, affected to be
whimsical, and my mind was always romantic, which was much of the same
nature. I was near being laid hold of; I believe she perceived it; the
chevalier saw it also, at least he spoke to me upon the subject, and in a
manner not discouraging. But I was this time reasonable, and at the age
of fifty it was time I should be so. Full of the doctrine I had just
preached to graybeards in my letter to D'Alembert, I should have been
ashamed of not profiting by it myself; besides, coming to the knowledge
of that of which I had been ignorant, I must have been mad to have
carried my pretensions so far as to expose myself to such an illustrious
rivalry. Finally, ill cured perhaps of my passion for Madam de Houdetot,
I felt nothing could replace it in my heart, and I bade adieu to love for
the rest of my life. I have this moment just withstood the dangerous
allurements of a young woman who had her views; and if she feigned to
forget my twelve lustres I remember them. After having thus withdrawn
myself from danger, I am no longer afraid of a fall, and I answer for
myself for the rest of my days.

Madam de Boufflers, perceiving the emotion she caused in me, might also
observe I had triumphed over it. I am neither mad nor vain enough to
believe I was at my age capable of inspiring her with the same feelings;
but, from certain words which she let drop to Theresa, I thought I had
inspired her with a curiosity; if this be the case, and that she has not
forgiven me the disappointment she met with, it must be confessed I was
born to be the victim of my weaknesses, since triumphant love was so
prejudicial to me, and love triumphed over not less so.

Here finishes the collection of letters which has served me as a guide in
the last two books. My steps will in future be directed by memory only;
but this is of such a nature, relative to the period to which I am now
come, and the strong impression of objects has remained so perfectly upon
my mind, that lost in the immense sea of my misfortunes, I cannot forget
the detail of my first shipwreck, although the consequences present to me
but a confused remembrance. I therefore shall be able to proceed in the
succeeding book with sufficient confidence. If I go further it will be
groping in the dark.





THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
(In 12 books)

Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society

London, 1903



BOOK XI.


Although Eloisa, which for a long time had been in the press, did not
yet, at the end of the year, 1760, appear, the work already began to make
a great noise. Madam de Luxembourg had spoken of it at court, and Madam
de Houdetot at Paris. The latter had obtained from me permission for
Saint Lambert to read the manuscript to the King of Poland, who had been
delighted with it. Duclos, to whom I had also given the perusal of the
work, had spoken of it at the academy. All Paris was impatient to see
the novel; the booksellers of the Rue Saint Jacques, and that of the
Palais Royal, were beset with people who came to inquire when it was to
be published. It was at length brought out, and the success it had,
answered, contrary to custom, to the impatience with which it had been
expected. The dauphiness, who was one of the first who read it, spoke of
it to, M. de Luxembourg as a ravishing performance. The opinions of men
of letters differed from each other, but in those of any other class
approbation was general, especially with the women, who became so
intoxicated with the book and the author, that there was not one in high
life with whom I might not have succeeded had I undertaken to do it.
Of this I have such proofs as I will not commit to paper, and which
without the aid of experience, authorized my opinion. It is singular
that the book should have succeeded better in France than in the rest of
Europe, although the French, both men and women, are severely treated in
it. Contrary to my expectation it was least successful in Switzerland,
and most so in Paris. Do friendship, love and virtue reign in this
capital more than elsewhere? Certainly not; but there reigns in it an
exquisite sensibility which transports the heart to their image, and
makes us cherish in others the pure, tender and virtuous sentiments we no
longer possess. Corruption is everywhere the same; virtue and morality
no longer exist in Europe; but if the least love of them still remains,
it is in Paris that this will be found.--[I wrote this in 1769.]

In the midst of so many prejudices and feigned passions, the real
sentiments of nature are not to be distinguished from others, unless we
well know to analyze the human heart. A very nice discrimination, not to
be acquired except by the education of the world, is necessary to feel
the finesses of the heart, if I dare use the expression, with which this
work abounds. I do not hesitate to place the fourth part of it upon an
equality with the Princess of Cleves; nor to assert that had these two
works been read nowhere but in the provinces, their merit would never
have been discovered. It must not, therefore, be considered as a matter
of astonishment, that the greatest success of my work was at court. It
abounds with lively but veiled touches of the pencil, which could not but
give pleasure there, because the persons who frequent it are more
accustomed than others to discover them. A distinction must, however, be
made. The work is by no means proper for the species of men of wit who
have nothing but cunning, who possess no other kind of discernment than
that which penetrates evil, and see nothing where good only is to be
found. If, for instance, Eloisa had been published in a certain country,
I am convinced it would not have been read through by a single person,
and the work would have been stifled in its birth.

I have collected most of the letters written to me on the subject of this
publication, and deposited them, tied up together, in the hands of Madam
de Nadillac. Should this collection ever be given to the world, very
singular things will be seen, and an opposition of opinion, which shows
what it is to have to do with the public. The thing least kept in view,
and which will ever distinguish it from every other work, is the
simplicity of the subject and the continuation of the interest, which,
confined to three persons, is kept up throughout six volumes, without
episode, romantic adventure, or anything malicious either in the persons
or actions. Diderot complimented Richardson on the prodigious variety of
his portraits and the multiplicity of his persons. In fact, Richardson
has the merit of having well characterized them all; but with respect to
their number, he has that in common with the most insipid writers of
novels who attempt to make up for the sterility of their ideas by
multiplying persons and adventures. It is easy to awaken the attention
by incessantly presenting unheard of adventures and new faces, which pass
before the imagination as the figures in a magic lanthorn do before the
eye; but to keep up that attention to the same objects, and without the
aid of the wonderful, is certainly more difficult; and if, everything
else being equal, the simplicity of the subject adds to the beauty of the
work, the novels of Richardson, superior in so many other respects,
cannot in this be compared to mine. I know it is already forgotten,
and the cause of its being so; but it will be taken up again. All my
fear was that, by an extreme simplicity, the narrative would be
fatiguing, and that it was not sufficiently interesting to engage the
attention throughout the whole. I was relieved from this apprehension by
a circumstance which alone was more flattering to my pride than all the
compliments made me upon the work.

It appeared at the beginning of the carnival; a hawker carried it to the
Princess of Talmont--[It was not the princess, but some other lady,
whose name I do not know.]--on the evening of a ball night at the opera.
After supper the Princess dressed herself for the ball, and until the
hour of going there, took up the new novel. At midnight she ordered the
horses to be put into the carriage, and continued to read. The servant
returned to tell her the horses were put to; she made no answer. Her
people perceiving she forgot herself, came to tell her it was two
o'clock. "There is yet no hurry," replied the princess, still reading
on. Some time afterwards, her watch having stopped, she rang to know the
hour. She was told it was four o'clock. "That being the case," she
said, "it is too late to go to the ball; let the horses be taken off."
She undressed herself and passed the rest of the night in reading.

Ever since I came to the knowledge of this circumstance, I have had a
constant desire to see the lady, not only to know from herself whether or
not what I have related be exactly true, but because I have always
thought it impossible to be interested in so lively a manner in the
happiness of Julia, without having that sixth and moral sense with which
so few hearts are endowed, and without which no person whatever can
understand the sentiments of mine.

What rendered the women so favorable to me was, their being persuaded
that I had written my own history, and was myself the hero of the
romance. This opinion was so firmly established, that Madam de Polignac
wrote to Madam de Verdelin, begging she would prevail upon me to show her
the portrait of Julia. Everybody thought it was impossible so strongly
to express sentiments without having felt them, or thus to describe the
transports of love, unless immediately from the feelings of the heart.
This was true, and I certainly wrote the novel during the time my
imagination was inflamed to ecstasy; but they who thought real objects
necessary to this effect were deceived, and far from conceiving to what
a degree I can at will produce it for imaginary beings. Without Madam
d'Houdetot, and the recollection of a few circumstances in my youth,
the amours I have felt and described would have been with fairy nymphs.
I was unwilling either to confirm or destroy an error which was
advantageous to me. The reader may see in the preface a dialogue, which
I had printed separately, in what manner I left the public in suspense.
Rigorous people say, I ought to have explicity declared the truth. For
my part I see no reason for this, nor anything that could oblige me to
it, and am of opinion there would have been more folly than candor in the
declaration without necessity.

Much about the same time the 'Paix Perpetuelle' made its appearance,
of this I had the year before given the manuscript to a certain M. de
Bastide, the author of a journal called Le Monde, into which he would at
all events cram all my manuscripts. He was known to M. Duclos, and came
in his name to beg I would help him to fill the Monde. He had heard
speak of Eloisa, and would have me put this into his journal; he was also
desirous of making the same use of Emilius; he would have asked me for
the Social Contract for the same purpose, had he suspected it to be
written. At length, fatigued with his importunities, I resolved upon
letting him have the Paix Perpetuelle, which I gave him for twelve louis.
Our agreement was, that he should print it in his journal; but as soon as
he became the proprietor of the manuscript, he thought proper to print it
separately, with a few retrenchments, which the censor required him to
make. What would have happened had I joined to the work my opinion of
it, which fortunately I did not communicate to M. de Bastide, nor was it
comprehended in our agreement? This remains still in manuscript amongst
my papers. If ever it be made public, the world will see how much the
pleasantries and self-sufficient manner of M. de Voltaire on the subject
must have made me, who was so well acquainted with the short-sightedness
of this poor man in political matters, of which he took it into his head
to speak, shake my sides with laughter.

In the midst of my success with the women and the public, I felt I lost
ground at the Hotel de Luxembourg, not with the marechal, whose goodness
to me seemed daily to increase, but with his lady. Since I had had
nothing more to read to her, the door of her apartment was not so
frequently open to me, and during her stay at Montmorency, although I
regularly presented myself, I seldom saw her except at table. My place
even there was not distinctly marked out as usual. As she no longer
offered me that by her side, and spoke to me but seldom, not having on my
part much to say to her, I was well satisfied with another, where I was
more at my ease, especially in the evening; for I mechanically contracted
the habit of placing myself nearer and nearer to the marechal.

Apropos of the evening: I recollect having said I did not sup at the
castle, and this was true, at the beginning of my acquaintance there; but
as M. de Luxembourg did not dine, nor even sit down to table, it happened
that I was for several months, and already very familiar in the family,
without ever having eaten with him. This he had the goodness to remark,
upon which I determined to sup there from time to time, when the company
was not numerous; I did so, and found the suppers very agreeable, as the
dinners were taken almost standing; whereas the former were long,
everybody remaining seated with pleasure after a long walk; and very good
and agreeable, because M. de Luxembourg loved good eating, and the honors
of them were done in a charming manner by madam de marechale. Without
this explanation it would be difficult to understand the end of a letter
from M. de Luxembourg, in which he says he recollects our walks with the
greatest pleasure; especially, adds he, when in the evening we entered
the court and did not find there the traces of carriages. The rake being
every morning drawn over the gravel to efface the marks left by the coach
wheels, I judged by the number of ruts of that of the persons who had
arrived in the afternoon.

This year, 1761, completed the heavy losses this good man had suffered
since I had had the honor of being known to him. As if it had been
ordained that the evils prepared for me by destiny should begin by the
man to whom I was most attached, and who was the most worthy of esteem.
The first year he lost his sister, the Duchess of Villeroy; the second,
his daughter, the Princess of Robeck; the third, he lost in the Duke of
Montmorency his only son; and in the Comte de Luxembourg, his grandson,
the last two supporters of the branch of which he was, and of his name.
He supported all these losses with apparent courage, but his heart
incessantly bled in secret during the rest of his life, and his health
was ever after upon the decline. The unexpected and tragical death of
his son must have afflicted him the more, as it happened immediately
after the king had granted him for his child, and given him the promise
for his grandson, the reversion of the commission he himself then held of
the captain of the Gardes de Corps. He had the mortification to see the
last, a most promising young man, perish by degrees from the blind
confidence of the mother in the physician, who giving the unhappy youth
medicines for food, suffered him to die of inanition. Alas! had my
advice been taken, the grandfather and the grandson would both still have
been alive. What did not I say and write to the marechal, what
remonstrances did I make to Madam de Montmorency, upon the more than
severe regimen, which, upon the faith of physicians, she made her son
observe! Madam de Luxembourg, who thought as I did, would not usurp the
authority of the mother; M. de Luxembourg, a man of mild and easy
character, did not like to contradict her. Madam de Montmorency had in
Borden a confidence to which her son at length became a victim. How
delighted was the poor creature when he could obtain permission to come
to Mont Louis with Madam de Boufflers, to ask Theresa for some victuals
for his famished stomach! How did I secretly deplore the miseries of
greatness in seeing this only heir to a immense fortune, a great name,
and so many dignified titles, devour with the greediness of a beggar a
wretched morsel of bread! At length, notwithstanding all I could say and
do, the physician triumphed, and the child died of hunger.

The same confidence in quacks, which destroyed the grandson, hastened the
dissolution of the grandfather, and to this he added the pusillanimity of
wishing to dissimulate the infirmities of age. M. de Luxembourg had at
intervals a pain in the great toe; he was seized with it at Montmorency,
which deprived him of sleep, and brought on slight fever. I had courage
enough to pronounce the word gout. Madam de Luxembourg gave me a
reprimand. The surgeon, valet de chambre of the marechal, maintained it
was not the gout, and dressed the suffering part with beaume tranquille.
Unfortunately the pain subsided, and when it returned the same remedy was
had recourse to. The constitution of the marechal was weakened, and his
disorder increased, as did his remedies in the same proportion. Madam de
Luxembourg, who at length perceived the primary disorder to be the gout,
objected to the dangerous manner of treating it. Things were afterwards
concealed from her, and M. de Luxembourg in a few years lost his life in
consequence of his obstinate adherence to what he imagined to be a method
of cure. But let me not anticipate misfortune: how many others have I to
relate before I come to this!

It is singular with what fatality everything I could say and do seemed of
a nature to displease Madam de Luxembourg, even when I had it most at
heart to preserve her friendship. The repeated afflictions which fell
upon M. de Luxembourg still attached me to him the more, and consequently
to Madam de Luxembourg; for they always seemed to me to be so sincerely
united, that the sentiments in favor of the one necessarily extended to
the other. The marechal grew old. His assiduity at court, the cares
this brought on, continually hunting, fatigue, and especially that of the
service during the quarter he was in waiting, required the vigor of a
young man, and I did not perceive anything that could support his in that
course of life; since, besides after his death, his dignities were to be
dispersed and his name extinct, it was by no means necessary for him to
continue a laborious life of which the principal object had been to
dispose the prince favorably to his children. One day when we three were
together, and he complained of the fatigues of the court, as a man who
had been discouraged by his losses, I took the liberty to speak of
retirement, and to give him the advice Cyneas gave to Pyrrhus. He
sighed, and returned no positive answer. But the moment Madam de
Luxembourg found me alone she reprimanded me severely for what I had
said, at which she seemed to be alarmed. She made a remark of which I so
strongly felt the justness that I determined never again to touch upon
the subject: this was, that the long habit of living at court made that
life necessary, that it was become a matter of amusement for M. de
Luxembourg, and that the retirement I proposed to him would be less a
relaxation from care than an exile, in which inactivity, weariness and
melancholy would soon put an end to his existence. Although she must
have perceived I was convinced, and ought to have relied upon the promise
I made her, and which I faithfully kept, she still seemed to doubt of it;
and I recollect that the conversations I afterwards had with the marechal
were less frequent and almost always interrupted.

Whilst my stupidity and awkwardness injured me in her opinion, persons
whom she frequently saw and most loved, were far from being disposed to
aid me in gaining what I had lost. The Abbe de Boufflers especially, a
young man as lofty as it was possible for a man to be, never seemed well
disposed towards me; and besides his being the only person of the society
of Madam de Luxembourg who never showed me the least attention, I thought
I perceived I lost something with her every time he came to the castle.
It is true that without his wishing this to be the case, his presence
alone was sufficient to produce the effect; so much did his graceful and
elegant manner render still more dull my stupid propositi. During the
first two years he seldom came to Montmorency, and by the indulgence of
Madam de Luxembourg I had tolerably supported myself, but as soon as his
visits began to be regular I was irretrievably lost. I wished to take
refuge under his wing, and gain his friendship; but the same awkwardness
which made it necessary I should please him prevented me from succeeding
in the attempt I made to do it, and what I did with that intention
entirely lost me with Madam de Luxembourg, without being of the least
service to me with the abbe. With his understanding he might have
succeeded in anything, but the impossibility of applying himself, and his
turn for dissipation, prevented his acquiring a perfect knowledge of any
subject. His talents are however various, and this is sufficient for the
circles in which he wishes to distinguish himself. He writes light
poetry and fashionable letters, strums on the cithern, and pretends to
draw with crayon. He took it into his head to attempt the portrait of
Madam de Luxembourg; the sketch he produced was horrid. She said it did
not in the least resemble her and this was true. The traitorous abbe
consulted me, and I like a fool and a liar, said there was a likeness.
I wished to flatter the abbe, but I did not please the lady who noted
down what I had said, and the abbe, having obtained what he wanted,
laughed at me in his turn. I perceived by the ill success of this my
late beginning the necessity of making another attempt to flatter 'invita
Minerva'.

My talent was that of telling men useful but severe truths with energy
and courage; to this it was necessary to confine myself. Not only I was
not born to flatter, but I knew not how to commend. The awkwardness of
the manner in which I have sometimes bestowed eulogium has done me more
harm than the severity of my censure. Of this I have to adduce one
terrible instance, the consequences of which have not only fixed my fate
for the rest of my life, but will perhaps decide on my reputation
throughout all posterity.

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