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.
Botany, such as I have always considered it, and of which after my own
manner I began to become passionately fond, was precisely an idle study,
proper to fill up the void of my leisure, without leaving room for the
delirium of imagination or the weariness of total inaction. Carelessly
wandering in the woods and the country, mechanically gathering here a
flower and there a branch; eating my morsel almost by chance, observing a
thousand and a thousand times the same things, and always with the same
interest, because I always forgot them, were to me the means of passing
an eternity without a weary moment. However elegant, admirable, and
variegated the structure of plants may be, it does not strike an ignorant
eye sufficiently to fix the attention. The constant analogy, with, at
the same time, the prodigious variety which reigns in their conformation,
gives pleasure to those only who have already some idea of the vegetable
system. Others at the sight of these treasures of nature feel nothing
more than a stupid and monotonous admiration. They see nothing in detail
because they know not for what to look, nor do they perceive the whole,
having no idea of the chain of connection and combinations which
overwhelms with its wonders the mind of the observer. I was arrived at
that happy point of knowledge, and my want of memory was such as
constantly to keep me there, that I knew little enough to make the whole
new to me, and yet everything that was necessary to make me sensible to
the beauties of all the parts. The different soils into which the
island, although little, was divided, offered a sufficient variety of
plants, for the study and amusement of my whole life. I was determined
not to leave a blade of grass without analyzing it, and I began already
to take measures for making, with an immense collection of observations,
the 'Flora Petrinsularis'.
I sent for Theresa, who brought with her my books and effects. We
boarded with the receiver of the island. His wife had sisters at Nidau,
who by turns came to see her, and were company for Theresa. I here made
the experiment of the agreeable life which I could have wished to
continue to the end of my days, and the pleasure I found in it only
served to make me feel to a greater degree the bitterness of that by
which it was shortly to be succeeded.
I have ever been passionately fond of water, and the sight of it throws
me into a delightful reverie, although frequently without a determinate
object.
Immediately after I rose from my bed I never failed, if the weather was
fine, to run to the terrace to respire the fresh and salubrious air of
the morning, and glide my eye over the horizon of the lake, bounded by
banks and mountains, delightful to the view. I know no homage more
worthy of the divinity than the silent admiration excited by the
contemplation of his works, and which is not externally expressed.
I can easily comprehend the reason why the inhabitants of great cities,
who see nothing but walls, and streets, have but little faith; but not
whence it happens that people in the country, and especially such as live
in solitude, can possibly be without it. How comes it to pass that these
do not a hundred times a day elevate their minds in ecstasy to the Author
of the wonders which strike their senses. For my part, it is especially
at rising, wearied by a want of sleep, that long habit inclines me to
this elevation which imposes not the fatigue of thinking. But to this
effect my eyes must be struck with the ravishing beauties of nature. In
my chamber I pray less frequently, and not so fervently; but at the view
of a fine landscape I feel myself moved, but by what I am unable to tell.
I have somewhere read of a wise bishop who in a visit to his diocese
found an old woman whose only prayer consisted in the single interjection
"Oh!"--"Good mother," said he to her, "continue to pray in this manner;
your prayer is better than ours." This better prayer is mine also.
After breakfast, I hastened, with a frown on my brow, to write a few
pitiful letters, longing ardently for the moment after which I should
have no more to write. I busied myself for a few minutes about my books
and papers, to unpack and arrange them, rather than to read what they
contained; and this arrangement, which to me became the work of Penelope,
gave me the pleasure of musing for a while. I then grew weary, and
quitted my books to spend the three or four hours which remained to me of
the morning in the study of botany, and especially of the system of
Linnaeus, of which I became so passionately fond, that, after having felt
how useless my attachment to it was, I yet could not entirely shake it
off. This great observer is, in my opinion, the only one who, with
Ludwig, has hitherto considered botany as a naturalist, and a
philosopher; but he has too much studied it in herbals and gardens, and
not sufficiently in nature herself. For my part, whose garden was always
the whole island, the moment I wanted to make or verify an observation,
I ran into the woods or meadows with my book under my arm, and there laid
myself upon the ground near the plant in question, to examine it at my
ease as it stood. This method was of great service to me in gaining a
knowledge of vegetables in their natural state, before they had been
cultivated and changed in their nature by the hands of men. Fagon, first
physician to Louis XIV., and who named and perfectly knew all the plants
in the royal garden, is said to have been so ignorant in the country as
not to know how to distinguish the same plants. I am precisely the
contrary. I know something of the work of nature, but nothing of that of
the gardener.
I gave every afternoon totally up to my indolent and careless
disposition, and to following without regularity the impulse of the
moment. When the weather was calm, I frequently went immediately after
I rose from dinner, and alone got into the boat. The receiver had taught
me to row with one oar; I rowed out into the middle of the lake. The
moment I withdrew from the bank, I felt a secret joy which almost made me
leap, and of which it is impossible for me to tell or even comprehend the
cause, if it were not a secret congratulation on my being out of the
reach of the wicked. I afterwards rowed about the lake, sometimes
approaching the opposite bank, but never touching at it. I often let my
boat float at the mercy of the wind and water, abandoning myself to
reveries without object, and which were not the less agreeable for their
stupidity. I sometimes exclaimed, "O nature! O my mother! I am here
under thy guardianship alone; here is no deceitful and cunning mortal to
interfere between thee and me." In this manner I withdrew half a league
from land; I could have wished the lake had been the ocean. However, to
please my poor dog, who was not so fond as I was of such a long stay on
the water, I commonly followed one constant course; this was going to
land at the little island where I walked an hour or two, or laid myself
down on the grass on the summit of the hill, there to satiate myself with
the pleasure of admiring the lake and its environs, to examine and
dissect all the herbs within my reach, and, like another Robinson Crusoe,
built myself an imaginary place of residence in the island. I became
very much attached to this eminence. When I brought Theresa, with the
wife of the receiver and her sisters, to walk there, how proud was I to
be their pilot and guide! We took there rabbits to stock it. This was
another source of pleasure to Jean Jacques. These animals rendered the
island still more interesting to me. I afterwards went to it more
frequently, and with greater pleasure to observe the progress of the new
inhabitants.
To these amusements I added one which recalled to my recollection the
delightful life I led at the Charmettes, and to which the season
particularly invited me. This was assisting in the rustic labors of
gathering of roots and fruits, of which Theresa and I made it a pleasure
to partake with the wife of the receiver and his family. I remember a
Bernois, one M. Kirkeberguer, coming to see me, found me perched upon a
tree with a sack fastened to my waist, and already so full of apples that
I could not stir from the branch on which I stood. I was not sorry to be
caught in this and similar situations. I hoped the people of Berne,
witnesses to the employment of my leisure, would no longer think of
disturbing my tranquillity but leave me at peace in my solitude. I
should have preferred being confined there by their desire: this would
have rendered the continuation of my repose more certain.
This is another declaration upon which I am previously certain of the
incredulity of many of my readers, who obstinately continue to judge me
by themselves, although they cannot but have seen, in the course of my
life, a thousand internal affections which bore no resemblance to any of
theirs. But what is still more extraordinary is, that they refuse me
every sentiment, good or indifferent, which they have not, and are
constantly ready to attribute to me such bad ones as cannot enter into
the heart of man: in this case they find it easy to set me in opposition
to nature, and to make of me such a monster as cannot in reality exist.
Nothing absurd appears to them incredible, the moment it has a tendency
to blacken me, and nothing in the least extraordinary seems to them
possible, if it tends to do me honor.
But, notwithstanding what they may think or say, I will still continue
faithfully to state what J. J. Rousseau was, did, and thought; without
explaining, or justifying, the singularity of his sentiments and ideas,
or endeavoring to discover whether or not others have thought as he did.
I became so delighted with the island of St. Peter, and my residence
there was so agreeable to me that, by concentrating all my desires within
it, I formed the wish that I might stay there to the end of my life. The
visits I had to return in the neighborhood, the journeys I should be
under the necessity of making to Neuchatel, Bienne, Yverdon, and Nidau,
already fatigued my imagination. A day passed out of the island, seemed
to me a loss of so much happiness, and to go beyond the bounds of the
lake was to go out of my element. Past experience had besides rendered
me apprehensive. The very satisfaction that I received from anything
whatever was sufficient to make me fear the loss of it, and the ardent
desire I had to end my days in that island, was inseparable from the
apprehension of being obliged to leave it. I had contracted a habit of
going in the evening to sit upon the sandy shore, especially when the
lake was agitated. I felt a singular pleasure in seeing the waves break
at my feet. I formed of them in my imagination the image of the tumult
of the world contrasted with the peace of my habitation; and this
pleasing idea sometimes softened me even to tears. The repose I enjoyed
with ecstasy was disturbed by nothing but the fear of being deprived of
it, and this inquietude was accompanied with some bitterness. I felt my
situation so precarious as not to dare to depend upon its continuance.
"Ah! how willingly," said I to myself, "would I renounce the liberty of
quitting this place, for which I have no desire, for the assurance of
always remaining in it. Instead of being permitted to stay here by
favor, why am I not detained by force! They who suffer me to remain may
in a moment drive me away, and can I hope my persecutors, seeing me
happy, will leave me here to continue to be so? Permitting me to live in
the island is but a trifling favor. I could wish to be condemned to do
it, and constrained to remain here that I may not be obliged to go
elsewhere." I cast an envious eye upon Micheli du Cret, who, quiet in
the castle of Arbourg, had only to determine to be happy to become so.
In fine, by abandoning myself to these reflections, and the alarming
apprehensions of new storms always ready to break over my head, I wished
for them with an incredible ardor, and that instead of suffering me to
reside in the island, the Bernois would give it me for a perpetual
prison; and I can assert that had it depended upon me to get myself
condemned to this, I would most joyfully have done it, preferring a
thousand times the necessity of passing my life there to the danger of
being driven to another place.
This fear did not long remain on my mind. When I least expected what was
to happen, I received a letter from the bailiff of Nidau, within whose
jurisdiction the island of St. Peter was; by his letter he announced to
me from their excellencies an order to quit the island and their states.
I thought myself in a dream. Nothing could be less natural, reasonable,
or foreseen than such an order: for I considered my apprehensions as the
result of inquietude in a man whose imagination was disturbed by his
misfortunes, and not to proceed from a foresight which could have the
least foundation. The measures I had taken to insure myself the tacit
consent of the sovereign, the tranquillity with which I had been left to
make my establishment, the visits of several people from Berne, and that
of the bailiff himself, who had shown me such friendship and attention,
and the rigor of the season in which it was barbarous to expel a man who
was sickly and infirm, all these circumstances made me and many people
believe that there was some mistake in the order and that ill-disposed
people had purposely chosen the time of the vintage and the vacation of
the senate suddenly to do me an injury.
Had I yielded to the first impulse of my indignation, I should
immediately have departed. But to what place was I to go? What was to
become of me at the beginning of the winter, without object, preparation,
guide or carriage? Not to leave my papers and effects at the mercy of
the first comer, time was necessary to make proper arrangements, and it
was not stated in the order whether or not this would be granted me.
The continuance of misfortune began to weigh down my courage. For the
first time in my life I felt my natural haughtiness stoop to the yoke of
necessity, and, notwithstanding the murmurs of my heart, I was obliged to
demean myself by asking for a delay. I applied to M. de Graffenried, who
had sent me the order, for an explanation of it. His letter, conceived
in the strongest terms of disapprobation of the step that had been taken,
assured me it was with the greatest regret he communicated to me the
nature of it, and the expressions of grief and esteem it contained seemed
so many gentle invitations to open to him my heart: I did so. I had no
doubt but my letter would open the eyes of my persecutors, and that if so
cruel an order was not revoked, at least a reasonable delay, perhaps the
whole winter, to make the necessary preparations for my retreat, and to
choose a place of abode, would be granted me.
Whilst I waited for an answer, I reflected upon my situation, and
deliberated upon the steps I had to take. I perceived so many
difficulties on all sides, the vexation I had suffered had so strongly
affected me, and my health was then in such a bad state, that I was quite
overcome, and the effect of my discouragement was to deprive me of the
little resource which remained in my mind, by which I might, as well as
it was possible to do it, have withdrawn myself from my melancholy
situation. In whatever asylum I should take refuge, it appeared
impossible to avoid either of the two means made use of to expel me.
One of which was to stir up against me the populace by secret manoeuvres;
and the other to drive me away by open force, without giving a reason for
so doing. I could not, therefore, depend upon a safe retreat, unless I
went in search of it farther than my strength and the season seemed
likely to permit. These circumstances again bringing to my recollection
the ideas which had lately occurred to me, I wished my persecutors to
condemn me to perpetual imprisonment rather than oblige me incessantly to
wander upon the earth, by successively expelling me from the asylums of
which I should make choice: and to this effect I made them a proposal.
Two days after my first letter to M. de Graffenried, I wrote him a
second, desiring he would state what I had proposed to their
excellencies. The answer from Berne to both was an order, conceived in
the most formal and severe terms, to go out of the island, and leave
every territory, mediate and immediate of the republic, within the space
of twenty-four hours, and never to enter them again under the most
grievous penalties.
This was a terrible moment. I have since that time felt greater anguish,
but never have I been more embarrassed. What afflicted me most was being
forced to abandon the project which had made me desirous to pass the
winter in the island. It is now time I should relate the fatal anecdote
which completed my disasters, and involved in my ruin an unfortunate
people, whose rising virtues already promised to equal those of Rome and
Sparta, I had spoken of the Corsicans in the 'Social Contract' as a new
people, the only nation in Europe not too worn out for legislation,
and had expressed the great hope there was of such a people, if it were
fortunate enough to have a wise legislator. My work was read by some of
the Corsicans, who were sensible of the honorable manner in which I had
spoken of them; and the necessity under which they found themselves of
endeavoring to establish their republic, made their chiefs think of
asking me for my ideas upon the subject. M. Buttafuoco, of one of the
first families in the country, and captain in France, in the Royal
Italians, wrote to me to that effect, and sent me several papers for
which I had asked to make myself acquainted with the history of the
nation and the state of the country. M. Paoli, also, wrote to me several
times, and although I felt such an undertaking to be superior to my
abilities; I thought I could not refuse to give my assistance to so great
and noble a work, the moment I should have acquired all the necessary
information. It was to this effect I answered both these gentlemen, and
the correspondence lasted until my departure.