Rousseau

Front matter

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EDITED BY

MRS OLIPHANT

Preface

Materials for a biography of Rousseau are ample among the minute, if not always trustworthy, personal details in his Confessions, Dialogues, Reveries, and correspondence, and in information which abounds in the literature of the most memoir- writing age of France. It is, however, not easy to discover the truth or to get an impartial statement regarding many disputed passages of Jean Jacques’ life; for each contemporary writes either as an admirer, passionately to defend him, or as if he were a personal enemy, bitterly to attack him. He has quoted with approval a wise saying of Montesquieu, when the baron had a quarrel — “ Listen neither to P&re Tournemine nor to me when we speak of each other, for we are no longer friends.” If this advice, however, were to be followed in the case of the author of ‘ Emile,’ it would be impossible to learn very much about him, seeing that he quarrelled with almost every one who knew him best, and regarded as foes those who have told us most about him, and those about whom he has himself spoken most freely. I have not thought it necessary to burden the pages with references to every source from which facts have been gained ; but

VI

PKEFACE.

no student of Rousseau’s writings can omit to own specially his obligations to the studies of St Marc Girardin, and the masterly work of Mu Morley. Some recent publications have thrown further light on the life of Rousseau, and of these I have made use. A brochure , edited by Professor E. Ritter (‘ La Famille de Jean Jacques: Documents inedits.’ Geneva, 1878), supplies several details of family history, and corrects several errors in the earliest part of the ‘Confessions,’ which was written from memory not unaided by imagination. M. Albert Jansen’s recent tractate (‘ J. J. Rousseau: Recherches Biographiques et Litteraires.’ Berlin, 1882), traces with admirable care the history of the origin and composition of the ‘ Confessions,’ which, having arisen out of sketches for his autobiography which Rousseau began at Motiers in 1763, under the title of Mon Portrait, were not finished till 1770. When David Hume and Jean Jacques had their deadly quarrel, the historian deposited the various letters connected with it in the Royal Society of Edinburgh (after they were declined by the British Museum), fearing lest Rousseau in his forthcoming Memoirs would accuse him of garbling them, or would himself give a false version of the dispute. Although J. Hill Burton has published most of the letters connected with Rousseau, there are still some gleanings to be got ; and I thank the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for their kindness and courtesy in allowing me to examine the Hume Papers, so full of interest and literary importance. I only regret that the limited space at my disposal has forced me to make so limited a use of those valuable manuscripts.

CONTENTS,

CHAP.

PAGE

I. EARLY LIFE AND ADVENTURES, .

II. IN PARIS, ......

III. LITERARY SUCCESS, .

IV. DISCOURSE ON INEQUALITY,

V. THE HERMITAGE, .

VI. MONTMORENCY, .

VII. THE ‘ NEW IIELOISE,’ OR ‘ JULIE,’

VIII. ‘the social contract; or, PRINCIPLES

OF PUBLIC RIGHTS,’ .

IX. ‘EMILE, OR EDUCATION/ .

X.

CONFESSION OF

THE

SAVOYARD

VICAR

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XI.

PERSECUTION, .

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XII.

IN ENGLAND, .

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XIII.

LAST YEARS, .

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66 vx

Chapter I. Early Life And Adventures

About 1550 there settled in Geneva, Didier Rousseau, who had been a bookseller in Paris, hut who was obliged to leave his country owing to his Protestant views. In 1555 he was enrolled as a citizen of the town, and three generations of his descendants pass by, occupying the rank of tradesmen. Although not known to the world, they seem, however, not to have been quite unknown to the society of that little city of 20,000 people, with its keen Puritan - eyes and its inquisitorial officials of the Consistory. Under date October 1699 1 there may still be read the judgment of the council against Isaac Rousseau (father of Jean Jacques) and Dthers for assault on some English officers as they passed along the street one night “ without candles ” — the prisoners to be severely censured, made to ask pardon,

1 La Famille de Jean Jacques : Documents ir.^dits, 1878.

F.C. XVII. A o

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and Rousseau (then nineteen years old) sentenced to pay twenty-five florins. A few years further on, and the curious, on turning now to the registry of the Consistory under August 1702, may find that daughters of Sieur David Rousseau (the grandfather of Jean Jacques) have been cited because of complaints that they have been seen playing cards on the Sunday evening near the door of their house ; and then it is afterwards recorded that one daughter came forward and stated that they were not playing with cards, but only guessing fortunes, upon which she is ordered to appear before the pastor and elder of the district. Such are the meagre details that eager investigators have discovered of the family of the great writer of the eighteenth century.

On June 28, 1712, Jean Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva. His father Isaac, of whose youth we have found one characteristic detail, was a watchmaker, and was also for some time a dancing-master. Soon after Jean Jacques’ birth he lost his mother, Susanne, who was niece of Samuel Bernard, a Genevese minister. “ I was born weak and sickly,” he says ; “ I cost my mother her life, and my birth was the first of my misfortunes/ An aunt nursed and tended the child with a care and tenderness which he never forgot ; and neighbours and relations dealt kindly with the motherless lad. Often he sat beside his aunt watching her as she knitted, listening to her as she sang the simple songs that delighted him : and long years after, when he was an old sad man, lie remembered lovingly and vividly the good woman — her little ways, the manner of her dress, the fashion of her hair, with the two black locks on her forehead ; and as the old songs came to memory, the

ISAAC ROUSSEAU.

tears filled his eyes, while he tried with feeble broken voice to sing them over again. His father was his chief companion — a frivolous, impulsive man, with an excitable disposition, a selfish nature, and a sentimental heart. His son, however, thought him possessed of every virtue, regarded him as “the best of fathers,” and revered alike his principles, which were certainly very admirable, and his practice of them, which was singularly deficient. He seems to have neglected his elder son, who, after learning the trade of watchmaking with his father, disappeared after a scampish youth, and never was seen again. He never troubled himself to train his younger son, soon left him entirely to his relations, and finally to look after himself, keeping for his own use the money which Jean Jacques inherited from his mother. He taught his child, however, to read, and some romances belonging to his wife were the books they studied together. When supper was over they would sit together reading aloud by turns far into the night. Sometimes in their excitement the day had dawned, and the birds had begun to sing, before they were recalled to the world ; and as they heard the twitter of the swallows, the father would say, “ Let us be off to bed ; why, I am more a child than yourself.” In this close companionship during pensive moods, his father would often plaintively say, “ Jean Jacques, let us talk of your mother;” and his son would answer, “ Yes, father, but then we shall cry.” His father, who J enjoyed being inconsolable, thereupon always wept. While the already too impulsiveand imaginative nature of Jean Jacques was in this way being dangerously fostered, — as he says, “ feeling everything and knowing nothing,”

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— the stock of romances was at last finished ; and when winter came, a collection of hooks, which had belonged to his granduncle Bernard, was ransacked. There were Bossuet’s ‘ Discourse on Universal History,’ Fontenelle’s ‘ Dialogues of the Dead,’ Ovid’s 1 Metamorphoses,’ Le Sueur’s 1 History of the Church and Empire,’ and above all, Plutarch’s ‘Lives,’ which he continued to love when an old man. These books this boy of seven years old read aloud during the day, while his father was busy with his watches ; and soon the feats of Brutus, Scaevola, Agesilaus, and Juba, with the conversation of his father, full of patriotic sentiment, fired his heart, and produced, he says, “ that republican spirit and love of liberty which made him impatient of restraint or servitude ” all his life after. As he read his eyes would glisten at the heroic deeds ; and he tells how “one day, as I related at table the adventure of Scaevola, they were startled to see me advance and hold my hand over the chafing-dish to represent the action.”

These pleasant days came to an abrupt conclusion. One day, in 1722, his father quarrelled with an officer in Geneva, and, according to Jean Jacques, he fled rather than compromise his honour and his sense of justice, because, contrary to the law, he was going to be put into the prison alone during the trial, instead of his accuser being put there also, as the law required. This is the filial view of the case, which, however, is hardly borne out by evidence, 1 which shows that he had assaulted this gentleman with his sword, and two days afterwards unheroically fled from the town to escape the consequences. For a month his return was awaited, and then 1 La Famille de Jean Jacques, p. 25.

SCHOOL DAYS.

te Isaac Rousseau, fils, mciUre de danse,” was sentenced in his absence to ask pardon on his knees from God, from the Seignory, and from the said M. Gautier, for assault (exces) committed by him, and to three months’ imprisonment, with fifty crowns’ fine, and expenses. Isaac, however, never returned, but established himself at Nyon, where, three years afterwards, he married again and spent the rest of his life.

On the flight of his father, Jean Jacques was taken under the charge of his uncle Bernard, an engineer, who soon sent him and his own son to M. Lainbercier, a minister, at Bossey, a village in the neighbourhood, where he learned Latin, and “ that poor rubbish which accompanies it under the name of education.” For two years he remained there ; and during that time one or two incidents occurred which, slight as they seem, he believed to have influenced his whole character. One day he was accused unjustly of breaking the teeth of a comb, and notwithstanding all his protestations he was treated as guilty. Such a trouble most boys would feel deeply at the time, and forget soon after in the crowd of little cares and pleasures that occupy their minds. Not so, however, with Jean Jacques; and when he wrote nearly fifty years afterwards the story of his life, the injury, the shame, the sense of humiliation and injustice, remained as intense as on the day the charge was made ; — as keen as on the night when the two cousins in their little bed embraced each other convulsively, and to relieve their passion sat up in the darkness and cried time after time as loud as they could, “ Carnifex ! carnifex / carnifex / ” Speaking of the incident, he says

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“ I feel, in writing this, my pulse rise still : these moments will he always with me, although I were to live a hundred thousand years. This first experience of violence and injustice has remained so deeply graven on my mind, that every idea connected with it brings back my first emotion ; and this feeling has taken such a hold upon me, that my heart fires at the sight or recital of any unjust act, whatever may be its object, and wheresoever it may be committed, as if I myself were the victim. When I read the cruelties of some ferocious tyrant or the cunning atrocities of some rogue of a priest, 1 could start off to stab the wretches, although I were to die a hundred deaths.”

From that day he felt that the delightfulness of childhood had gone, and all its simple innocence was over. It seems absurd to attribute so great an effect to so slight a cause ; but probably in such an excitable and morbidly acute nature as his, so quick to feel, so slow to forget, there is no great exaggeration in his words.

Six months after, in 1724, Jean Jacques was back in his uncle’s house ; and he fell under the immediate charge of Madame Bernard, an austere pietist, who made religion a business for herself, and certainly no unmitigated pleasure to others. He was treated kindly, however, and only a few months 1 passed by before his future profession was decided ; and when he was thirteen years old, he was apprenticed to a notary, much against his will. He entered on his work with distaste, and he pursued it with increasing hatred, while his master’s contempt for his apprentice increased in the same proportion. He called the boy stupid, taunted him that while his uncle had promised him

1 Not “two or three years,” as the Confessions say. — La Famille de Jean Jacques, p. 29.

engraver’s apprentice.

a smart lad, lie had only sent him an ass, and then Jean Jacques was sent ignominiously hack as utterly incapable, — an opinion in which his fellow-clerks thoroughly acquiesced. Much humbled, he was content to become apprentice (April 26, 1725) to an engraver, — a coarse, violent man, who ill-treated the hoy, and by his blows and his tyranny thoroughly stupefied and demoralised him. He pilfered, told lies, became cowardly and cunning, for terror of his employer had made him so. He liked the engraver’s delicate art, but his life was miserable in a service he loathed under a master he hated. When he was sixteen years old (1728), one Sunday he was outside the city walls on a ramble with some companions. Twice before, on similar occasion he had gone so far and stayed so long that the gates were shut upon him, and when he returned next day his master’s reception seemed too cruel to bear repetition. This night the gates were shut earlier than usual, and as the lads were returning they heard the retreat sounded. With all his strength poor Jean Jacques ran as the drum beat, terror giving swiftness to his steps. In vain he cried with choking voice to the soldiers : when he was twenty paces from the gate the fatal drawbridge was raised. Years after he shuddered to think of his position, for he was in abject terror at the idea of facing his brutal master the next day. However, he made his determination never to return, and he bade farewell to his companions.

The horror of the evening gave way to delight in the morning, as Jean Jacques found himself free, with the world ready to open for him, and as he thought of a brilliant life before him with all the bright audacity of youth. For some d&ys he wandered near the town,

ROUSSEAU.

lodging with peasants whom he knew, and one day he went to Confignon in Savoy. The priests of Savoy, in their intense Catholic fervour, were always in religious competition with ministers of Geneva, each party trying to save heretics from perdition, and to make proselytes to what each reckoned the only saving faith. Of these zealous priests none were more zealous than M. Pontverre, the Cure of Confignon. He received Jean Jacques warmly, gave him food to eat and orthodox arguments to digest, — for he saw in this Protestant lad excellent spoil from the enemy. “ I was certainly more learned than M. Pontverre,” says Rousseau, “hut I was too good a guest to he a good theologian; and his Frangi wine, which seemed excellent, argued so triumphantly for him, that I should have blushed to shut the mouth of so good a host.” Jean Jacques, therefore, listened with obsequious attention to the worthy father’s exposition, professed himself deeply impressed by all that he said, and pretended to be exceedingly desirous to learn more about the Catholic faith. The result of the interview was that, with the priest’s parting words — “God calls you” — ringing in his ears, Jean Jacques was sent to Annecy, to be placed under the orthodox care of Madame de Warens, who should help him to enter the true Church. He walked away with a sinking heart, expecting to be relegated to the instruction of some old pietist, who, having so great a reputation for good works, could have none whatever for good looks. To his surprise he found that Madame de Warens was a lovely young lady, who, with a charming smile, took the letter of introduction from his trembling hand. “ Child,” said she, in a voice that made every nerve thrill, “ you are very young to be

GOES TO TURIN.

thus wandering about. Go indoors, bid them give you breakfast, and I’ll speak with you after Mass.” Now he felt certain that a “religion preached by such missionaries could not fail to lead to paradise.”

What was he now to do 1 He did not know his own trade, and even if he did, there was no scope to exercise it. At dinner some one gave advice, which he pronounced as “ coining direct from heaven,” but Avhich Jean Jacques afterwards thought, to judge from the results, came from the opposite quarter. This advice was, that the lad should go to Turin and enter *a hospice for catechumens, where he would be sustained temporally and spiritually till he entered the fold of the Church. This suggestion was adopted, much to Rousseau’s disgust at lirst, and in a few days he started off. Jean Jacques’ imaginative heart was soon elated at the prospect of seeing the world. “ I walked with light steps,” lie says ; “ young desires, enchanting hope, brilliant projects, filled my soul. Every object seemed to insure some approaching happiness. I fancied in the houses rustic festivals ; in the meadows madcap sports; upon the trees delicious fruits; under the shades voluptuous interviews; on the mountains pails of milk and cream; a charming idleness, peace, simplicity, the pleasure of going without knowing where.” After some days’ travelling on foot he reached Turin, and was received into the hospice. The huge gate with iron bars clanged behind him, and he discovered himself amongst companions certainly not congenial to a soul so fresh as his. He found, in fact, four or five scoundrels as his fellow-catechumens. These swarthy blackguards went from monastery to monastery in Spain and Italy, calling themselves Jews or Moors,

EOUSSEAU.

and pretending at each place to be new zealous converts, in order to get food and lodging; and in the hospice they alternated the holy instructions from the priests with foul vice and vile talk amongst themselves in their rooms. Jean Jacques was put through a course of tuition; and, taking advantage of his previous knowledge and reading, especially of Le Sueur’s * History,’ he gravely quoted the Fathers, and argued each point with his instructor in mock solemnity and fervour, but judiciously always allowed himself to be convinced at the proper time. At the end of nine days — though he says it was a month — he was ready to profess his conversion, and was led in procession to the church of St John to make solemn abjuration of his heresy. Dressed in a grey robe, he walked with one man before and another behind him, each bearing a brass basin on which he clinked with a key, to call charitable spectators to put in alms for the glory of God and the help of the poor convert. Having been baptised, and admitted into the bosom of the Church, he was sent to the hospital gate, presented with about twenty francs, which the collection produced, and recommended to be a good Christian ; after which he was wished good speed, the door was closed, and he was left alone on the streets of Turin. It is impossible to pity the lad who was thus cast adrift after a course of hypocrisy, and who, instead of an easy future won by the good favour of priests, found himself reduced to sleep on the pavement.

However, he professes not to have felt crushed, but to have been filled with delight at his regained freedom, — with a great city to see, with hosts of people who would soon recognise his talent, and with an inexhaustible

BECOMES A FOOTMAN.

treasure of twenty francs in his pocket. He found a lodging in the house of a woman who gave accommodation to servants out of place at a sou a night. She, her family of six children, and the lodgers, slept in the same room ; she was dirty, rough, swore like a carter, hut she was kind-hearted and honest. Having nothing to do, Bousseau wandered about the streets visiting the sights, and every morning listening to the music in the royal chapel; but he found that although his money went, his appetite remained. In vain he went from shop to shop, offering to engrave ciphers and arms on plate. But one day he saw through a window a pretty young woman in a shop, and he went in to offer his work. Madame Basile took pity on him, and gave him employment, for which he was paid in food and clothing ; while Bousseau on his side did his best to make himself agreeable to her. This went on till the husband, who had been from home, re turned, and finding this foreign lad about the place, very properly turned him out of doors with scanty ceremony. The worthy lodging-keeper, however, found for Bousseau the situation of lackey to Madame de Vercellis, a lady of position, but three months afterwards his mistress died, and he was dismissed with thirty livres in his pocket and his livery on his back. An incident occurred before he left, which he relates in his ‘ Confessions ’ with sincere shame. He stole a ribbon, and it having been found upon him, he accused a fellow-servant, a simple, modest girl, of having given it to him. Marion was brought before the household and confronted with her accuser, who boldly maintained his story. She remained at first speechless, casting a sad look on him, while he with effrontery repeated the false charge which she had

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denied. “Ah, Rousseau, I believed you were goodhearted • you have made me very unhappy, hut I would not he in your place,” she cried, bursting into tears. Writing forty years after, he owns —

“ This cruel recollection troubles me at times, and overwhelms me so that, in my sleepless nights I see this poor girl come to reproach me with my crime as if it were yesterday. ... At the sight of Marion my heart was torn, but the presence of so many persons was stronger than the compunction. I feared the punishment little, I feared only the shame, — I feared it more than death, more than crime, more than anything. I saw only the horror of being detected, and declared publicly, in my own presence, thief, liar, calumniator.”

Bitter as his remorse was, however, he tells, with the marvellous frankness of a man possessed of remarkable self-unrighteousness, how he has since consoled himself with the selfish reflection that the agony of this sin preserved him through life from any criminal act, and that his aversion to lying proceeded from his having been guilty of so black and dastardly a falsehood. Whether his consequent aversion to falsehoods kept him from uttering them, the reader will soon be able to judge.

Rousseau was now without a situation, and he went back to his dirty lodgings with the old landlady, where he remained for six weeks, spending the tedious days in prowling about the streets. At length another place was found for him, and he entered the service of the Comte de Gouvon as footman, although this time he was spared the indignity of a livery. He had, however, to wait at table, and do the customary menial work. With his chronic infatuation, he fell in love with his masters daughter, and showed his dumb adoration by

LEAVES TURIN.

waiting upon her with assiduous attention. If her servant quitted her chair for an instant, Jean Jacques at once darted into his place : lie would post himself opposite to her to observe everything she did and needed, and to spy the moments to change her plate. He believed he had made a deep impression on her heart, although not a look or word did she vouchsafe the amorous lackey ; and as he hovered about her room one day, she dismissed him sharply' from the chamber. His talents and education could not, however, be overlooked by the household, and the Abbe de Gouvon, his master’s son, who was a man of letters, taught him some Latin, used him as a secretary, and made him a fair Italian scholar. His attention, while it served to improve Jean Jacques as a scholar, spoiled him as a footman ; and while he was made a favourite of the family, he became an object of dislike and jealousy to his fellowservants. He became careless, he neglected his work, and being in vain reprimanded time after time, he was at last one day taken by the shoulders, ignominiously shoved out of his master’s house, and the door was shut upon him.

This new freedom, instead of filling Rousseau with dismay, filled him with delight, for he had formed the desire of travelling with a Genevese lad in Turin back to Switzerland. He and his friend Bade had conceived a brilliant plan for paying their way. The Abbe de Gouvon had given him a pretty toy fountain, and the lads imagined that by making a show of it at work to the peasants, they would get good cheer and shelter at the villages. They set out with gay spirits and magnificent expectations, but they soon found their fountain was not

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a pecuniary success and it began to bore them; so when one fine day it broke, they marched on merrily with hands as light as their hearts. At length they reached Annecy, and with beating heart and trembling limbs Eousseau knocked at Madame de Warens’s door. He was kindly received by the hospitable widow as he kneeled at her feet and kissed her hand rapturously, and soon settled in this house as his home.

Madame de Warens was a widow of about twenty-eight. She was rather short and stout, but with a well-made figure, features more beautiful in expression than in form, with soft blue eyes, a dazzling complexion, exquisite ashcoloured hair arranged with piquant carelessness, a winning smile, and a bust, hands, and arms, which seemed to Eousseau matchless for beauty. The Laron de Warens had been much older than herself, but she did not live with him, and had taken up her residence at Evian, on Lake Leman. On one occasion, when the King of Sardinia was there, she allowed herself to be converted to Catholicism; and pleased at this conversion, and probably also personally pleased with so amiable a convert, the king settled on her a pension of 2000 francs. Although Madame de Warens had changed her religion, in reality she had very little religion to change ; and although Eousseau calls her a true Catholic, she was much such a Catholic as his Savoyard vicar, who held a sentimental deism and solemnly conformed to Eomish worship. While she was still under her husband’s roof a tutor had basely undermined her principles, and used only too successful sophistry to prove that morality was a mere form, and that womanly virtue need only be kept in appearance. Her volatile mind and passionless

MADAME DE WAKENS.

heart adopted these notions to her cost Yet although without any principle, she was full of good impulses ; she was kindly, good-tempered, and charitable. She was a clever woman, with philosophical views of the broadest type, which she had abundant talent to understand and to support ; hut all her ability did not prevent her trustful nature from being the dupe of knaves, who took advantage of her crotchets to further their own ends. Having inherited from her father a fancy for alchemy, she spent much of her time, and still more of her money, on drugs, furnaces, chemicals, and on charlatans who, / without a crown in their own pockets, professed their power of making boundless fortunes for other people.

In the old house at Annecy, where Jean Jacques in 1731 was installed, he was supremely happy in his nondescript position of pupil, servant, and lover. His work consisted in transcribing receipts, sorting herbs which Claude Anet the steward had collected, and in pounding drugs. Numbers of people came to the house — beggars and visitors — and all were treated with hospitality, to Rousseau’s intense disgust ; for he wished to monopolise the whole of his mistress’s attention, and he would murmur petulantly when they came, and curse them after they went, till the tears of laughter rolled down Madame de Warens’s cheeks. Jean Jacques was only at rest when she was near; and though he was silent and slow in society, with her he never wearied, never ceased talking. To read with her the ‘Spectator’ or Voltaire’s ‘Henriade,’ to listen while she sang or played upon the harpsichord in the evenings, to walk among the woods or sit in the arbour, — she calling him “ child,” he calling her “ mamma,” — was perfect happiness.