This is No. 8S9 of Everyman's Library. A list of authors and their works in this series will be found at the end of this volume. The publishers will be pleased to send freely to all applicants a separate, annotated list of the Library. J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED 10-13 BEDFORD STREET LONDON \V.C.l E. P. DUITON & CO. INC. 186-301 FOURTH AVENUE NEW YORK EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS BIOGRAPHY THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU PREFATORY NOTE BY THl; TRANS-LATOR . IN 2 VOLS. . VOL. I JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU, born at Geneva in 1712, the son of a watchmaker. Attended a seminary at Turin and obtained favour with Madame de Warens, who sup-ported him for ten years. He left her in 1740 and in 1756 went to live in Montmor-ency with Madame d'Epinay. David Hume invited him to England in 1766" and he returned to France in 1710. Died in In8. CONFESSIONS VOLUME ONE JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU LONDON: J. M. DENT &.. SONS LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON &.. CO. INC. TRANSLATOR'S PREFATORY NOTICE THE .. Confessions," which is the principal authority for the first fifty-three years of Rousseau's life, comes to an end with the year 1765. It may be useful to give a succinct biographical sketch of that period, and of the thirteen succeeding years up to the time of his death in 1778. Jean Jacques Rousseau was born at Geneva, on the 28th of June, 1712. He was descended from a Parisian family which had settled there since 1554. His father was a watchmaker, who, in consequence of a quarrel with a captain in the French army, was obliged to leave Geneva, and Jean Jacques was sent by his uncle, together with his cousin, to be educated at the bouse of a Protestant minister named Lambercier. At first he lived there happily enough; but. having been unjustly accused of breaking a comb. he became restless and dissatisfied, and returned to Geneva, where he remained two or three years with his uncle. Even at that early age his morbid fancy for women began to show itself. After lengthy deliberation, it was finally decided to put him with the town-clerk, to be brought up as an attorney; but he was found so stupid that he was sent away in disgrace. He was next apprenticed to an engraver, who treated him with great brutality, and, in spite of his liking for the trade itself, he became utterly disgusted and demoralised. On his return from a walk with his fellow-apprentices, he found the city gates shut. This had happened twice before, and his dread of the punishment that awaited him the third time made him resolve not to return to his master. After wandering about the neighbourhood for some days, he arrived at Confignon. m Savoy, where he called upon the curi/, who gave him a good dinner, and sent him on to Annecy, with a letter of introduction to Madame de Warens, the curious person with whom he afterwards entered upon the extra-ordinary relations fully described in the .. Confessions." In con-sequence of a suggestion made by M. Sabran. who was dining with her, he was sent to the hospice for catechumens at Turin, to be converted to Catholicism. After having publicly abjured the Protestant faith, he was turned out to shift for himself, with twenty francs in his pocket. Through his landlady, a rough but gOod-natured woman, he secured the post of lackey to the Comtessc de Vercellis. but was thrown out of eml?loyment by her death. It was at her house that the well-known mcident of the theft of the ribbon occurred (p. 74). The Comte de lao Roque. Madame de Vercellis's nephew, procured him a similar situation with the Comte de Gouvon, Chief Equerry to the Queen of Sardinia, where he might have improved his position; but, in one of his fits of .. madness," as he himself calls them, he suddenly ran away, intending to lead a vii viii TRANSLATOR'S PREFATORY NOTICE vagabond life with a young Genevese. named BAcle. When their resources were exhausted. they parted. and Rousseau returned to Madame de Warens. who received him kindly. and took him to lodge at her house. He took lessons in LatIn. and studied for the priesthood; but he was sent back to Madame de Warens as not clever enough even for a priest. About this time his passion for music began to develop itself. On his return from Lyons. where he had been sent in the company of M. Ie Mattre. a Parisian organist (whom. by the way. he shamefully deserted in the public streets when attacked by a fit). he found that Madame de Warens had left" Annecy. During her absence. he went to see his father at Nyon. and set up as a teacher of music at Lausanne. the duties of which he was utterly incompetent to perform. Finding himself unable to gain a livelihood, he went to NeufchAtel. where he was more fortunate in the matter of pupils. In the neighbourhood of this place. he made the acquaintance of a Greek prelate. who was collecting funds for the restoration of the Holy Sepulchre. With his usual impetuosity. he engaged himself to him as secretary and inter-preter, and started off on his way to Jerusalem. He did not. however. get beyond Soleure, where he was detained by the French Ambassador, who persuaded him to desert the Archimandrite. and wait and see whether something better could not be found for him. Finding little immediate prospect of advancement. he set out for Paris. the first sight of which greatly disappointed him. Hearing that Madame de Warens was at Chamberi, he returned to her, and for a short time held a Government appointment under the King of Sardinia, which, however. he resigned in order to devote himself to music. After about ten years' intimate relationship with Madame de Warens, who treated him with the greatest kindness, which, in spite of his protestations of affection, he does not seem to have repaid as he should have done, he finally left her, and became tutor at Lyons to the children of M. de Mably. But finding himself, as he confesses, unfit for the post, he made a last attempt to reinstate himself with Madame de Warens, but as this proved unsuccessful. he again went to Paris with a new system of musical notation, which he imagined was going to make his fortune. But it waa unfavourably received by the Academy of Sciences; P-nd, being unable to obtain pupils, he accepted the post of secretary to M. de Montaigu, the French Ambassador at Venice. After about eighteen months. he threw up this post and returned to Paris in 174.5. At the Hotel St. Quentin. where he lived for a time. he formed a connection with a servant named T h e r ~ s e Ie Vasseur. which lasted for the rest of his life. He Ilad five children by her. who were all deposited at the Foundling Hospital. He was for a short time clerk in the office of M. Dupin. Farmer-General of Taxes. In 1748, he became acquainted with Madame d'Epinay. who became one of his best friends, and at her house he became acquainted with d' Alembert, Diderot. and Condillac. who engaged him to write articles for the .. Encyclopedie." In 1749, the Academy of Dijon offered a prize on the question: .. Whether the progress of the Arts and SCiences has contributed mOfe to the deterioration or improvement of Morals?" Rouueaa TRANSLATOR'S PREFATORY NOTICE IX supported the first view, obtained the prize, and became famous. M. de Francueil, Madame Dupin's son-in-law, gave him a post in the Recelver-General's office, which he resigned. He took up music-copying again, and earned a scanty livelihood. An opera composed by him, 1.1 Devin du was played before Louis XV. at Fontainebleau. In 1753, he wrote a letter on" French Music"; his next publication was a letter to d' Alembert, .. Sur les Spectacles," an attack on Voltaire, d' Alembert, and the theatre generally. He also wrote a discourse upon the" Origin of Inequality amongst Man-kind." In 1754, he paid a visit to his old love, Madame de Warens, whom he found in very reduced circumstances. He also turned Protestant again, in order to make himself eligible for the freedom of Geneva. In April, 1756, at the invitation of Madame d'Epinay, he took up his residence at her country-house, called the Hermitage, near Montmorency, where he began to write" Julie, or La Nouvelle which was finished in 1759. This work was inspired by his passion for Madame d'Houdetot, sister-in-law of Madame d'Epinay. Owing to a quarrel between himself, Diderot, and Grimm, he left the Hermitage in the winter, and went to live at Montlouis, in the neighbourhood. .. La Nouvelle HeloiSe" appeared in 1760; the" Contrat Social," and .. Emile," in 1762. Owing to the doctrines contained in his works, he offended the Government, the clerical and philo."Ophical parties. On the lIth of June, 1762, .. Emile" was condemned by the Parliament of Paris, proscribed by the States-General of Holland, and publicly burnt by order of the Council of Geneva. Rousseau was warned by the Prince de Conti and Madame de Luxembourg that his arrest was intended. He, therefore, went to Yverdun, but was ordered by the Senate of Berne to quit the territory of the Republic. He then removed to Motiers 10 NeufchAtel, of which Marshal Keith was governor for Frederick II., King of Prussia, to whom it then be-longed. While at Motiers he wrote his" Lettres de la Montagne," which caused such irritatinn against him that, in alarm, he migrated to the Island of St. Pierre in the Lake of Bienne, where he assumed the Armenian costume. Being again ordered by the Senate of Berne to leave, he accepted an invitation from Hume to go to England, where he arrived in January, 1766. After a stay of two months in the capital-where he was made much of, although men like Johnson entertained but a poor opinion of him-he went to the country-house of Mr. Davenport, at Wootton, in Staffordshire. Here he wrote the first six books of his .. Confessions." But he soon quarrelled with both Hume and Davenport, and suddenly' returned to France. A letter had appeared in the newspapers, with the signature of the King of Prussia, attacking Rousseau's morality. The latter accused Hume of having written it, and, in spite of his denial, accused him of the basest. treachery against him. The letter was really written by Horace Wfllpole, who afterwards acknowledged it. In May, 1767, he visited AIniens, and, in the following month, repaired to the ChAteau of Trye, which belonged to the Prince de Conti, where he lived some time under the name of Renou, and went J-* 859 x TRANSLATOR'S PREFATORY NOTICE on with his II Confessions." From there he went to Grenoble. capital of the ancient province of Dauphine; soon becoming tired of the place and its inhabitants, he went to Bourgoin. It is said that at this time he contemplated returning to Wootton, or a journey to the Balearic Islands. Finding Bourgoin unhealthy, he moved in 1769 to Monquin, where he wrote the tenth book of the .. Confessions." Thence he went to Lyons, where he amused him-self by botanising on the banks of the Sa6ne. At last, he went back to Paris, where permission was granted him to reside, on condition that he wrote nothing against the Government or Religion. He resumed his music-copying, and mixed in the society of people of note, such as Sophie Arnould. Madame de Genlis, Bernardin de St. Pierre, and others. In May, 1778, he removed to a cottage at Ermenonville, belonging to the Comte de Girardin, where he died suddenly on the 3rd of July. Some, amongst them Madame de StaeI, are of opinion that he committed suicide; others believe that he succumbed to a fit of apoplexy. He was buried, by his own request. in the island of poplars in the lake in the park of Ermenonville. In 1794, his body was trans-ported, by decree of the Convention. to the Pantheon at Paris, where also lie the remains of Voltaire. Two streets in Paris preserve his memory: the old Rue afterwards called Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, where he lived on his return from Dauphine, and the Rue du Contrat Social. A bronze statue has been erected by the town of Geneva, on the little island where the Rhone issues from the lake. The best edition of Rousseau's works is that by Musset-Pathay in twenty-three volumes; and the best biography, in English or any other language, that by Mr. John Morley, in two volumes (Macmillan). The present is the only complete and unexpurgated translation into English of the" Confessions." This edition has been translated from the original, and every effort has been made to give faithfully both the letter and the spirit of that original. This step has been rendered necessary by the many inaccuracies and omissions which disfigure all previous English translations of the .. Confessions "--entire paragraphR being struck out at the caprice of the adapter. In the present edition not the slightest abridgment has been permitted, and the attempt is everywhere made to render the thought and the expres-sion of the author as closely as the genius of our language will allow. PRINCIPAL WORKS: Article in the Mere .. " in answer to one entitled Si Ie moude que noU$ habitons est une sphere ou une spherolde. 1738; Le Verger de Mme. d.J Warens, 1739; Sur la musique modeme, 1743; Si Ie retablissement des Seiences et des Arts a contribuc a epurer les M