papers. The letter from the chancellor did not absolutely surprise me,
because I agreed with him in opinion, and with many others, that the
declining constitution of France threatened an approaching destruction.
The disasters of an unsuccessful war, all of which proceeded from a fault
in the government; the incredible confusion in the finances; the
perpetual drawings upon the treasury by the administration, which was
then divided between two or three ministers, amongst whom reigned nothing
but discord, and who, to counteract the operations of each other, let the
kingdom go to ruin; the discontent of the people, and of every other rank
of subjects; the obstinacy of a woman who, constantly sacrificing her
judgment, if she indeed possessed any, to her inclinations, kept from
public employment persons capable of discharging the duties of them, to
place in them such as pleased her best; everything occurred in justifying
the foresight of the counsellor, that of the public, and my own. This,
made me several times consider whether or not I myself should seek an
asylum out of the kingdom before it was torn by the dissensions by which
it seemed to be threatened; but relieved from my fears by my
insignificance, and the peacefulness of my disposition, I thought that in
the state of solitude in which I was determined to live, no public
commotion could reach me. I was sorry only that, in this state of
things, M. de Luxembourg should accept commissions which tended to injure
him in the opinion of the persons of the place of which he was governor.
I could have wished he had prepared himself a retreat there, in case the
great machine had fallen in pieces, which seemed much to be apprehended;
and still appears to me beyond a doubt, that if the reins of government
had not fallen into a single hand, the French monarchy would now be at
the last gasp.
Whilst my situation became worse the printing of 'Emilius' went on more
slowly, and was at length suspended without my being able to learn the
reason why; Guy did not deign to answer my letter of inquiry, and I could
obtain no information from any person of what was going forward. M. de
Malesherbes being then in the country. A misfortune never makes me
uneasy provided I know in what it consists; but it is my nature to be
afraid of darkness, I tremble at the appearance of it; mystery always
gives me inquietude, it is too opposite to my natural disposition, in
which there is an openness bordering on imprudence. The sight of the
most hideous monster would, I am of opinion, alarm me but little; but if
by night I were to see a figure in a white sheet I should be afraid of
it. My imagination, wrought upon by this long silence, was now employed
in creating phantoms. I tormented myself the more in endeavoring to
discover the impediment to the printing of my last and best production,
as I had the publication of it much at heart; and as I always carried
everything to an extreme, I imagined that I perceived in the suspension
the suppression of the work. Yet, being unable to discover either the
cause or manner of it, I remained in the most cruel state of suspense.
I wrote letter after letter to Guy, to M. de Malesherbes and to Madam de
Luxembourg, and not receiving answers, at least when I expected them, my
head became so affected that I was not far from a delirium.
I unfortunately heard that Father Griffet, a Jesuit, had spoken of
'Emilius' and repeated from it some passages. My imagination instantly
unveiled to me the mystery of iniquity; I saw the whole progress of it as
clearly as if it had been revealed to me. I figured to myself that the
Jesuits, furious on account of the contemptuous manner in which I had
spoken of colleges, were in possession of my work; that it was they who
had delayed the publication; that, informed by their friend Guerin of my
situation, and foreseeing my approaching dissolution, of which I myself
had no manner of doubt, they wished to delay the appearance of the work
until after that event, with an intention to curtail and mutilate it, and
in favor of their own views, to attribute to me sentiments not my own.
The number of facts and circumstances which occurred to my mind, in
confirmation of this silly proposition, and gave it an appearance of
truth supported by evidence and demonstration, is astonishing. I knew
Guerin to be entirely in the interest of the Jesuits. I attributed to
them all the friendly advances he had made me; I was persuaded he had,
by their entreaties, pressed me to engage with Neaulme, who had given
them the first sheets of my work; that they had afterwards found means to
stop the printing of it by Duchesne, and perhaps to get possession of the
manuscript to make such alterations in it as they should think proper,
that after my death they might publish it disguised in their own manner.
I had always perceived, notwithstanding the wheedling of Father Berthier,
that the Jesuits did not like me, not only as an Encyclopedist, but
because all my principles were more in opposition to their maxims and
influence than the incredulity of my colleagues, since atheistical and
devout fanaticism, approaching each other by their common enmity to
toleration, may become united; a proof of which is seen in China, and in
the cabal against myself; whereas religion, both reasonable and moral,
taking away all power over the conscience, deprives those who assume that
power of every resource. I knew the chancellor was a great friend to the
Jesuits, and I had my fears less the son, intimidated by the father,
should find himself under the necessity of abandoning the work he had
protected. I besides imagined that I perceived this to be the case in
the chicanery employed against me relative to the first two volumes, in
which alterations were required for reasons of which I could not feel the
force; whilst the other two volumes were known to contain things of such
a nature as, had the censor objected to them in the manner he did to the
passages he thought exceptionable in the others, would have required
their being entirely written over again. I also understood, and M. de
Malesherbes himself told me of it, that the Abbe de Grave, whom he had
charged with the inspection of this edition, was another partisan of the
Jesuits. I saw nothing but Jesuits, without considering that, upon the
point of being suppressed, and wholly taken up in making their defence,
they had something which interested them much more than the cavillings
relative to a work in which they were not in question. I am wrong,
however, in saying this did not occur to me; for I really thought of it,
and M. de Malesherbes took care to make the observation to me the moment
he heard of my extravagant suspicions. But by another of those
absurdities of a man, who, from the bosom of obscurity, will absolutely
judge of the secret of great affairs, with which he is totally
unacquainted. I never could bring myself to believe the Jesuits were in
danger, and I considered the rumor of their suppression as an artful
manoeuvre of their own to deceive their adversaries. Their past
successes, which had been uninterrupted, gave me so terrible an idea of
the power, that I already was grieved at the overthrow of the parliament.
I knew M. de Choiseul had prosecuted his studies under the Jesuits, that
Madam de Pompadour was not upon bad terms with them, and that their
league with favorites and ministers had constantly appeared advantageous
to their order against their common enemies. The court seemed to remain
neuter, and persuaded as I was that should the society receive a severe
check it would not come from the parliament, I saw in the inaction of
government the ground of their confidence and the omen of their triumph.
In fine, perceiving in the rumors of the day nothing more than art and
dissimulation on their part, and thinking they, in their state of
security, had time to watch over all their interests, I had had not the
least doubt of their shortly crushing Jansenism, the parliament and the
Encyclopedists, with every other association which should not submit to
their yoke; and that if they ever suffered my work to appear, this would
not happen until it should be so transformed as to favor their
pretensions, and thus make use of my name the better to deceive my
readers.
I felt my health and strength decline; and such was the horror with which
my mind was filled, at the idea of dishonor to my memory in the work most
worthy of myself, that I am surprised so many extravagant ideas did not
occasion a speedy end to my existence. I never was so much afraid of
death as at this time, and had I died with the apprehensions I then had
upon my mind, I should have died in despair. At present, although I
perceived no obstacle to the execution of the blackest and most dreadful
conspiracy ever formed against the memory of a man, I shall die much more
in peace, certain of leaving in my writings a testimony in my favor, and
one which, sooner or later, will triumph over the calumnies of mankind.
M. de Malesherbes, who discovered the agitation of my mind, and to whom I
acknowledged it, used such endeavors to restore me to tranquility as
proved his excessive goodness of heart. Madam de Luxembourg aided him in
his good work, and several times went to Duchesne to know in what state
the edition was. At length the impression was again begun, and the
progress of it became more rapid than ever, without my knowing for what
reason it had been suspended. M. de Malesherbes took the trouble to come
to Montmorency to calm my mind; in this he succeeded, and the full
confidence I had in his uprightness having overcome the derangement of my
poor head, gave efficacy to the endeavors he made to restore it. After
what he had seen of my anguish and delirium, it was natural he should
think I was to be pitied; and he really commiserated my situation. The
expressions, incessantly repeated, of the philosophical cabal by which he
was surrounded, occurred to his memory. When I went to live at the
Hermitage, they, as I have already remarked, said I should not remain
there long. When they saw I persevered, they charged me with obstinacy
and pride, proceeding from a want of courage to retract, and insisted
that my life was there a burden to me; in short, that I was very
wretched. M. de Malesherbes believed this really to be the case, and
wrote to me upon the subject. This error in a man for whom I had so much
esteem gave me some pain, and I wrote to him four letters successively,
in which I stated the real motives of my conduct, and made him fully
acquainted with my taste, inclination and character, and with the most
interior sentiments of my heart. These letters, written hastily, almost
without taking pen from paper, and which I neither copied, corrected,
nor even read, are perhaps the only things I ever wrote with facility,
which, in the midst of my sufferings, was, I think, astonishing.
I sighed, as I felt myself declining, at the thought of leaving in the
midst of honest men an opinion of me so far from truth; and by the sketch
hastily given in my four letters, I endeavored, in some measure, to
substitute them to the memoirs I had proposed to write. They are
expressive of my grief to M. de Malesherbes, who showed them in Paris,
and are, besides, a kind of summary of what I here give in detail, and,
on this account, merit preservation. The copy I begged of them some
years afterwards will be found amongst my papers.
The only thing which continued to give me pain, in the idea of my
approaching dissolution, was my not having a man of letters for a friend,
to whom I could confide my papers, that after my death he might take a
proper choice of such as were worthy of publication.
After my journey to Geneva, I conceived a friendship for Moulton; this
young man pleased me, and I could have wished him to receive my last
breath. I expressed to him this desire, and am of opinion he would
readily have complied with it, had not his affairs prevented him from so
doing. Deprived of this consolation, I still wished to give him a mark
of my confidence by sending him the 'Profession of Faith of the Savoyard
Vicar' before it was published. He was pleased with the work, but did
not in his answer seem so fully to expect from it the effect of which I
had but little doubt. He wished to receive from me some fragment which I
had not given to anybody else. I sent him the funeral oration of the
late Duke of Orleans; this I had written for the Abbe Darty, who had not
pronounced it, because, contrary to his expectation, another person was
appointed to perform that ceremony.
The printing of Emilius, after having been again taken in hand, was
continued and completed without much difficulty; and I remarked this
singularity, that after the curtailings so much insisted upon in the
first two volumes, the last two were passed over without an objection,
and their contents did not delay the publication for a moment. I had,
however, some uneasiness which I must not pass over in silence. After
having been afraid of the Jesuits, I begun to fear the Jansenists and
philosophers. An enemy to party, faction and cabal, I never heard the
least good of parties concerned in them. The gossips had quitted their
old abode and taken up their residence by the side of me, so that in
their chamber, everything said in mine, and upon the terrace, was
distinctly heard; and from their garden it would have been easy to scale
the low wall by which it was separated from my alcove. This was become
my study; my table was covered with proofsheets of Emilius and the Social
Contract and stitching these sheets as they were sent to me, I had all my
volumes a long time before they were published. My negligence and the
confidence I had in M. Mathas, in whose garden I was shut up, frequently
made me forget to lock the door at night, and in the morning I several
times found it wide open; this, however, would not have given me the
least inquietude had I not thought my papers seemed to have been
deranged. After having several times made the same remark, I became more
careful, and locked the door. The lock was a bad one, and the key turned
in it no more than half round. As I became more attentive, I found my
papers in a much greater confusion than they were when I left everything
open. At length I missed one of my volumes without knowing what was
become of it until the morning of the third day, when I again found it
upon the table. I never suspected either M. Mathas or his nephew M. du
Moulin, knowing myself to be beloved by both, and my confidence in them
was unbounded. That I had in the gossips began to diminish. Although
they were Jansenists, I knew them to have some connection with
D' Alembert, and moreover they all three lodged in the same house. This
gave me some uneasiness, and put me more upon my guard. I removed my
papers from the alcove to my chamber, and dropped my acquaintance with
these people, having learned they had shown in several houses the first
volume of 'Emilius', which I had been imprudent enough to lend them.
Although they continued until my departure to be my neighbors I never,
after my first suspicions, had the least communication with them. The
'Social Contract' appeared a month or two before 'Emilius'. Rey, whom I
had desired never secretly to introduce into France any of my books,
applied to the magistrate for leave to send this book by Rouen, to which
place he sent his package by sea. He received no answer, and his bales,
after remaining at Rouen several months, were returned to him, but not
until an attempt had been made to confiscate them; this, probably, would
have been done had not he made a great clamor. Several persons, whose
curiosity the work had excited, sent to Amsterdam for copies, which were
circulated without being much noticed. Maulion, who had heard of this,
and had, I believe, seen the work, spoke to me on the subject with an air
of mystery which surprised me, and would likewise have made me uneasy if,
certain of having conformed to every rule, I had not by virtue of my
grand maxim, kept my mind calm. I moreover had no doubt but M. de
Choiseul, already well disposed towards me, and sensible of the eulogium
of his administration, which my esteem for him had induced me to make in
the work, would support me against the malevolence of Madam de Pompadour.
I certainly had then as much reason as ever to hope for the goodness of
M. de Luxembourg, and even for his assistance in case of need; for he
never at any time had given me more frequent and more pointed marks of
his friendship. At the journey of Easter, my melancholy state no longer
permitting me to go to the castle, he never suffered a day to pass
without coming to see me, and at length, perceiving my sufferings to be
incessant, he prevailed upon me to determine to see Friar Come. He
immediately sent for him, came with him, and had the courage, uncommon to
a man of his rank, to remain with me during the operation which was cruel
and tedious. Upon the first examination, Come thought he found a great
stone, and told me so; at the second, he could not find it again. After
having made a third attempt with so much care and circumspection that I
thought the time long, he declared there was no stone, but that the
prostate gland was schirrous and considerably thickened. He besides
added, that I had a great deal to suffer, and should live a long time.
Should the second prediction be as fully accomplished as the first, my
sufferings are far from being at an end.
It was thus I learned after having been so many years treated for
disorders which I never had, that my incurable disease, without being
mortal, would last as long as myself. My imagination, repressed by this
information, no longer presented to me in prospective a cruel death in
the agonies of the stone.
Delivered from imaginary evils, more cruel to me than those which were
real, I more patiently suffered the latter. It is certain I have since
suffered less from my disorder than I had done before, and every time I
recollect that I owe this alleviation to M. de Luxembourg, his memory
becomes more dear to me.
Restored, as I may say, to life, and more than ever occupied with the
plan according to which I was determined to pass the rest of my days, all
the obstacle to the immediate execution of my design was the publication
of 'Emilius'. I thought of Touraine where I had already been and which
pleased me much, as well on account of the mildness of the climate, as on
that of the character of the inhabitants.
'La terra molle lieta a dilettosa
Simile a se l'habitator produce.'
I had already spoken of my project to M. de Luxembourg, who endeavored to
dissuade me from it; I mentioned it to him a second time as a thing
resolved upon. He then offered me the castle of Merlon, fifteen leagues
from Paris, as an asylum which might be agreeable to me, and where he and
Madam de Luxembourg would have a real pleasure in seeing me settled. The
proposition made a pleasing impression on my mind. But the first thing
necessary was to see the place, and we agreed upon a day when the
marechal was to send his valet de chambre with a carriage to take me to
it. On the day appointed, I was much indisposed; the journey was
postponed, and different circumstances prevented me from ever making it.
I have since learned the estate of Merlou did not belong to the marechal
but to his lady, on which account I was the less sorry I had not gone to
live there.
'Emilius' was at length given to the public, without my having heard
further of retrenchments or difficulties. Previous to the publication,
the marechal asked me for all the letters M. de Malesherbes had written
to me on the subject of the work. My great confidence in both, and the
perfect security in which I felt myself, prevented me from reflecting
upon this extraordinary and even alarming request. I returned all the
letters excepting one or two which, from inattention, were left between
the leaves of a book. A little time before this, M. de Malesherbes told
me he should withdraw the letters I had written to Duchesne during my
alarm relative to the Jesuits, and, it must be confessed, these letters
did no great honor to my reason. But in my answer I assured him I would
not in anything pass for being better than I was, and that he might leave
the letters where they were. I know not what he resolved upon.
The publication of this work was not succeeded by the applause which had
followed that of all my other writings. No work was ever more highly
spoken of in private, nor had any literary production ever had less
public approbation. What was said and written to me upon the subject by
persons most capable of judging, confirmed me in my opinion that it was
the best, as well as the most important of all the works I had produced.
But everything favorable was said with an air of the most extraordinary
mystery, as if there had been a necessity of keeping it a secret. Madam
de Boufflers, who wrote to me that the author of the work merited a
statue, and the homage of mankind, at the end of her letter desired it
might be returned to her. D'Alembert, who in his note said the work gave
me a decided superiority, and ought to place me at the head of men of
letters, did not sign what he wrote, although he had signed every note I
had before received from him. Duclos, a sure friend, a man of veracity,
but circumspect, although he had a good opinion of the work, avoided
mentioning it in his letters to me. La Condomine fell upon the
Confession of Faith, and wandered from the subject. Clairaut confined
himself to the same part; but he was not afraid of expressing to me the
emotion which the reading of it had caused in him, and in the most direct
terms wrote to me that it had warmed his old imagination: of all those to
whom I had sent my book, he was the only person who spoke freely what he
thought of it.
Mathas, to whom I also had given a copy before the publication, lent it
to M. de Blaire, counsellor in the parliament of Strasbourg. M. de
Blaire had a country-house at St. Gratien, and Mathas, his old
acquaintance, sometimes went to see him there. He made him read Emilius
before it was published. When he returned it to him, M. de Blaire
expressed himself in the following terms, which were repeated to me the
same day: "M. Mathas, this is a very fine work, but it will in a short
time be spoken of more than, for the author might be wished." I laughed
at the prediction, and saw in it nothing more than the importance of a
man of the robe, who treats everything with an air of mystery. All the
alarming observations repeated to me made no impression upon my mind,
and, far from foreseeing the catastrophe so near at hand, certain of the
utility and excellence of my work, and that I had in every respect
conformed to established rules; convinced, as I thought I was that I
should be supported by all the credit of M. de Luxembourg and the favor
of the ministry, I was satisfied with myself for the resolution I had
taken to retire in the midst of my triumphs, and at my return to crush
those by whom I was envied.
One thing in the publication of the work alarmed me, less on account of
my safety than for the unburdening of my mind. At the Hermitage and at
Montmorency I had seen with indignation the vexations which the jealous
care of the pleasures of princes causes to be exercised on wretched
peasants, forced to suffer the havoc made by game in their fields,
without daring to take any other measure to prevent this devastation than
that of making a noise, passing the night amongst the beans and peas,
with drums, kettles and bells, to keep off the wild boars. As I had been
a witness to the barbarous cruelty with which the Comte de Charolois
treated these poor people, I had toward the end of Emilius exclaimed
against it. This was another infraction of my maxims, which has not
remained unpunished. I was informed that the people of the Prince of
Conti were but little less severe upon his, estates; I trembled less that
prince, for whom I was penetrated with respect and gratitude, should take
to his own account what shocked humanity had made me say on that of
others, and feel himself offended. Yet, as my conscience fully acquitted
me upon this article, I made myself easy, and by so doing acted wisely:
at least, I have not heard that this great prince took notice of the
passage, which, besides, was written long before I had the honor of being
known to him.