Rousseau

The Child of Nature

John Charpentier

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429639944
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

This book, first published in 1931, provides a valuable account of Rousseau's early years, giving an insight into his later philosophies, as well as showing the development of his thought.

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

JEAN-JACQUES’S FIRST CONFESSION

IT was Sunday, March 14, 1728. Jean-Jacques had run out into the field immediately after the sermon to romp with other young ragamuffins like himself from the poorer quarters of Geneva, and at nightfall he got back to the gate of the Calvinist town just in time to see the soldiers pull up the outer drawbridge. Twice before, after lingering along the banks of the Rhone or the Leman, he had found the gates closed and had perforce slept out of doors, only to be well thrashed next morning by his master, the engraver Abel Ducommun. His back had smarted cruelly from the beating, but his pride had smarted still more, and to himself he had vowed that he would rather die than submit again to such punishment. Yet here he was caught by a cursed captain whose habit it was to close the entrance where he stood guard some time before the inner gates were shut. Jean-Jacques had heard retreat being sounded and the drum being rolled when he was still half a league outside the walls. The best speed he could get out of his sixteen-year-old legs had not got him back in time. Panting heavily, he threw himself at full length on the sloping outworks, groveled in despair, and fiercely resolved never to go back to his master.

The next morning, after his absence had been discovered, he tearfully said good-bye to his comrades as they were preparing to return to work, not forgetting to ask them to inform his cousin Bernard in secret of his decision and to tell him where he could meet him for a final farewell. Cousin Bernard, who had seen nothing of Jean-Jacques since the latter had begun his apprenticeship, and who lived in the aristocratic quarter of Geneva, met him, indeed, in answer to his plea, but made no attempt to persuade him to reconsider. The young blade’s policy was modeled on that of his mother, who had been hoping for some time to alienate her own child from this impoverished orphan of questionable reputation. Bernard gave him a little money, and among other gifts a small sword with which the silly lad bedecked himself like a young noble. Then he turned on his heel and left Jean-Jacques to go adventuring. Jean-Jacques started off with a firm step but a catch in his throat. He was already under the domination of that pride which makes a man carry on, even if it costs him dear, the part he has elected in a rash moment to play. He thought with anguish of the uncertainty of his future, for he was timid, even weak, in spite of his vanity. Perhaps in his secret heart he had hoped Cousin Bernard would beg him to stay at home.

But before long a glorious sense of freedom, borne to him on the wind from the mountains, filled his soul. It is easy to imagine the boy’s elation. His fears were no sooner dissipated than he gave free play to his eager imagination, enhancing his good opinion of himself. He was now his own master, and he felt capable of undertaking anything or everything. Needless to say, the picture of his future which he painted to himself was colored by his natural indolence and his self-indulgence. He looked forward to a long succession of banquets, for he was greedy; to handsome possessions, for he loved display; to devoted friends, for he craved affection; to mistresses striving to please him, for he was exceedingly susceptible to feminine attraction. No noble ambition and no desire to play an important rôle entered into his scheme of life. He was without religious or moral principles, aspired to no kind of greatness, and was importuned by no ideal. The quality in him which he himself euphemistically termed “moderation” confined him to a sphere of action limited in area “but deliciously choice.” There he felt he could exercise his sway undisputed. “My ambition soared only to a single château, where I might be the favorite of both the lord and the lady, the lover of the daughter of the house, the friend of her brother, and the patron of the neighbors.”

For a day or two he delighted in the countryside, still wrapped in winter chill but warmed between showers by the sun, and spent his time wandering about the outskirts of the town. He slept and ate in the homes of peasants whom he knew. But he quickly tired of their hospitality, simple folk that they were, and too familiar to him to be interesting. In quest of a change, he turned southward, outside the boundaries of French Geneva into the Savoy region, and curiosity led him to the house of Monsieur de Pontverre, the village priest of Confignon. This ecclesiastic carried on the tradition of the Gentilhommes de la Cuiller, the Catholic subjects of the duke of Savoy, who in the sixteenth century had waged fanatical war on the Huguenots. He never for a moment thought of sending Jean-Jacques back to his master nor of advising him to seek his father, Isaac Rousseau, who was living in exile in Nyon in the Vaux region. He saw in the wandering boy only a Huguenot whom Heaven had sent him to convert. He welcomed him cordially, discoursed to him about the Geneva heresy and the “authority of the holy Mother Church,” and during the process of serving him an excellent dinner washed down with plenty of good local wine, he persuaded him to change his religion.

Jean-Jacques boasts that he was able to carry on a profound discussion with his host, and that of the two he showed himself to be the better grounded in theology, but under the influence of the white wine he gave free play to his fancy and to his craving for approbation, a craving which he compares to the instinctive coquetry of loyal wives who know how to stir hopes which they will never fulfill. He let himself be easily convinced that he should renounce his faith.

“God calls you,” said Monsieur de Pontverre. “Go to Annecy. There you will find a kind and very charitable lady so situated, through the king’s good will, that she can save others from the error which she has herself abjured.”

“I felt deeply humiliated,” Jean-Jacques assures us, “that I was in a position to need ‘a kind and very charitable lady.’ “ He honestly believed that she must be an elderly individual completely absorbed in her religion, the very sight of whom would make him wish to sink into the earth. But one motive or another, indifference or a wish for some pretext to go on, perhaps faith in his lucky star, turned his steps over the highlands of Neydens, where the fresh green of the new grass tinged the last of the melting snows, towards the home of Monsieur de Pontverre’s ally.

Between Confignon and Annecy there are only ten leagues, but Jean-Jacques took three days to cover the distance. His progress was like that of a schoolboy, or a minstrel, whose talent he believed he shared. Always hopeful of finding the happiness about which his imagination was playing, he passed no country estate without stopping, and when courage failed him to knock at the door, standing under the most likely window and singing. He kept on with his serenades until he was hoarse, amazed that no lady nor damsel was lured out by the charm of his voice or the piquancy of his songs. At last, at daybreak on March 21st, which happened to be Palm Sunday, he reached Annecy, the native town of Saint Francis of Sales. Instead of setting out at once for the home of Madame de Warens, he began to ponder on his chances of being welcomed or turned away by the noble lady. Confronted with a concrete situation, he felt overcome by shyness. He had never been out into the world, and distrusted the ways of society. Although he had, or thought he had, a pretty wit, he dreaded making an ass of himself in a thousand matters, knowing just enough to realize the depths of his ignorance. But he overlooked the main point, namely, that his physique was in his favor. I believe he is sincere when he assures us that he did not know he was well set up, bore himself with easy grace, had slender legs, an animated and attractive expression, a charming mouth (although his teeth were unsightly), fine eyebrows and hair—which was chestnut, not black—and eyes which, though small and deep-set, sparkled brilliantly with the inner fire which burned within him. If a boy of his age knows that he has a pretty face, it is because he has heard it talked about, and in the circle where he had grown up, no one had ever complimented him on his personal charms. Fearing that his appearance would not predispose the lady in his favor, he decided to try to make a good impression by other means, and he composed a fine letter “in oratorical style,” in which, “stringing together sentences quoted from books with schoolboy phrases,” he employed all his eloquence to captivate Madame de Warens.

He did not find her at home, for she had just left to go to mass. He was shown the way she had taken, raced after her, and caught up with her near the Church of the Cordeliers on a little square near a white stone fountain which still exists, at the end of a narrow street bordered by gardens from which one steps out over plank foot-bridges across the Canal de Chion. He accosted her, waving the letter from Monsieur de Pontverre, which he had folded in with his own epistle. She turned, and the sight of her filled him with such emotion that he felt faint.

Imagine his delight, for no such elderly lady as he had feared stood there before him! Madame de Warens was then a woman of twenty-nine, in the full bloom of her beauty, a little too short, it must be admitted, and already plump, if not roly-poly, but with a dazzlingly fresh complexion set off by ashen hair which she dressed in a simple coil to emphasize the piquancy of her face; with blue eyes full of sweetness, and an angelic smile, adding its gracious charm to that of her silvery voice. His first glance told him how wholly attractive she was, and his eyes missed none of her allurement. He admired “the curves of a delicious bosom,” framed by her dress, and while she was looking over the papers which he handed her, he gazed greedily at her white, dimpled hand.

She did no more than run through Monsieur Pontverre’s letter of introduction, but she spent some time on Jean-Jacques’s own. His conceit led him to suppose that she would have reread it all through had not her lackey warned her that it was time to enter the church.

“Well, child,” she said, “you are full young to be running about the country. It is really too bad. Go back to my house and wait for me. Tell them to give you something to eat, and I will come and talk to you when mass is over.”

If we inquire into the facts about Madame de Warens, we find, first, that she was a missionary of a sort, her chief duty being to bring about conversions. Second, she was a kind of spy, or official diplomatic agent, of the king of Sardinia. As Lady Louise-Françoise-Éléonore de la Tour de Chailly, at that time a Protestant, she had been married at the age of fourteen to Baron de Warens, of the house of Loys, a man twenty years older than herself. At Vevey, where her husband filled a municipal office, she had established a silk-stocking factory in the hope of making a fortune, but had ended by running into bankruptcy. As a child, badly brought up by her aunts after the death of her mother, which occurred when she was only thirteen months old, she had been willful in the extreme. She had always looked forward to accumulating enormous wealth for herself by some means or other, not only from ambition, but from the desire to keep herself occupied as well. For she was a steady worker, as well as a thoroughly worldly woman, as fond of directing enterprises as of shining in society, of supervising numerous assistants as of being the center of a group of flatterers. She was not only a natural adept in intrigue, but was also capable of real sympathy with intellectual pursuits. Though she was unprincipled and impractical, if not a little unbalanced, she could conduct herself with dignity, and when circumstances dictated, she could assume an elegant manner. She had had several lovers, one of whom was a certain Colonel de Tavel, a man of position, of taste, and of wide acquaintance, though an incorrigible cynic. He had established a little court of literary people about her, and had directed her reading. The works of Bayle and of Saint-Evremond were to be found on her bedside table, together with La Bruyère, whom she liked better than La Rochefoucauld. On the other hand, she knew little or nothing of the Greek and Roman classics. Her name appears in the old quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns, as having taken the side of the latter. Like most of her contemporaries, she was keenly interested in science, particularly in the occult branches, that is, in quack medicine and alchemy. She had a laboratory, furnaces, and alembics; she mixed and brewed herbs; distilled elixirs; manufactured dyes, balms, opiates, and other chemical compounds, and pretended to know secret formulae. In short, she was typical of her age. However, having run into debt just at the time when the notorious François Magny was initiating her into Pietism, which, though a Protestant sect, was tinged with mysticism and was not in the least hostile to Catholicism, she heard the divine call at the height of her difficulties, when all her property was being confiscated. On July 14, 1726, on the pretext that she must take the waters of Amphion for her health, she deserted Vaux and her husband, crossed the lake to Evian, where Victor Amadeus and his entire suite were in residence, and cast herself on the mercy of the king. She first promised to abjure the Calvinist religion, then begged for his protection and for her daily bread. The monarch let himself be persuaded that she could be of practical use to him, and sent her in his own litter with an escort of four bodyguards to the Convent of the Visitation at Annecy. The supervision of her religious education was entrusted to the bishop of the town, Monsignor de Rossillon de Bernex, who was so well pleased with his proselyte that he was willing to add to the allowance of fifteen hundred livres granted her by the king a pension of five hundred livres to carry on the Catholic propaganda which she undertook and to which she promised to devote her best efforts. On September 8, after having solemnly disavowed her former faith, she settled in the Rue Saint-François in a house called “de la Monnaie,” the smaller of two buildings owned by Monsieur de Boöge Conflans, very near the cathedral. She called herself a baroness, which was the least she could do under the circumstances, and from that time on she labored under the auspices of Monsieur de Bernex to recall strayed sheep into the fold of the Roman Church.

She was bound to do her duty by Jean-Jacques. He had been sent to her to convert; she was paid to work conversions. Thus she resisted her first impulse, which was to advise him to go back to Geneva. But it was not long before she had to struggle against the temptation to keep him by her side, for he appealed to her almost from the first. A woman of her worldly wisdom makes no mistake in regard to the impression she makes on other people, especially on a still inexperienced youth. Jean-Jacques, whether because she won his confidence or because he sensed, with the unerring instinct of his kind, that his best chance with her was in revealing his true self, made no effort to conceal his feelings. Neither then nor at any later time could this feeling be called love, nor yet passion in the full sense of either word. But it was enough that his affection for her was spiced with longing, enough for him as well as for Madame de Warens herself, who was not inclined to fine discrimination and never troubled to analyze the exact nature of her sentiments towards her protégé.

The surprising thing in the whole affair is the ease, one might almost say impudence, with which Jean-Jacques at once threw off all reserve with a lady whose position, as he must have felt, was so infinitely higher than his. Not only was he free from all shyness with her, but he even adopted in his speech the familiar tone which he afterwards always employed with her. She scarcely had to question him before he confided everything to her. A single word from her sufficed to start him on one train of thought or to throw him off onto another, delving into the depths of his soul to express his true self. He explored every corner of his past into which her voice or her smile encouraged him to penetrate, in order to reveal to her all the details which he felt she relished.

She was touched to hear that he, like herself, had been left in infancy without his mother, who had died of a puerperal fever in giving him birth. Women who seek to know us intimately learn, as a rule, what they can about our mothers, and seek to find out not only what they felt and thought, but also how they looked, or at least how they have impressed us. Jean-Jacques, although he could tell of his mother only what he knew of her from his father’s memories, shared so ardently in the admiration of her by the latter, who had worshiped her and who had represented her to him as beautiful, vivacious, fond of approbation, and much sought after, that Madame de Warens felt something like jealousy of her, and had perhaps from the beginning an inclination to substitute herself for this idealized vision in the heart of the young man.

“My father,” said Jean-Jacques, “never recovered from her loss. He felt that in me he saw her alive again, yet he could not forget that it was I who had deprived him of her. With every embrace he gave me, I felt from his sighs that his affection was tinged with regret. Whenever he said to me, ‘We will talk about your mother,’ I answered, ‘Very well, Father, then we shall shed tears!’ “ His father had been a clockmaker and a dancing master, of unsteady and self-indulgent character, hot-tempered and quarrelsome, egotistical no doubt, and restless or fickle by nature. In spite of his ardent love for his wife, he had married again. Always ready to seek his fortune in some new field, and to pull up stakes, he had proved quite incompetent to give his children a proper training. The elder boy, François, ran wild and then disappeared, and his family heard no more of him; and when Jean-Jacques was nearing the age of ten, the father himself had fled from the Helvetic Republic after quarreling with a captain of the guard attached to the king of Poland.

The parentless boy, who had had little education and up to that time had done nothing more useful than play about his father’s shop, was taken in charge by an uncle. He had read voraciously, for his mother had left a number of seventeenth-century books, and he had first learned to read in the novels of La Calprenède and of Mademoiselle de Scudéry, rather than from the works of Bossuet, La Bruyère, and Fontenelle, which were mixed in with them, because the former appealed to him as more entertaining. He had spent whole evenings and even nights reading, his father as deeply engrossed as he in the same occupation. Occasionally they had been recalled to earth only by the morning twitter of the swallows. Then, shamefacedly, the irresponsible parent would say to Jean-Jacques: “We must get to bed, my boy. I am even more of a child than you.” Doubtless he had felt less ashamed when they had been devouring Plutarch, Tacitus, or Grotius, considering that they had been nourishing their souls on “the noblest and highest truths.” Jean-Jacques wrote later: “I felt before I thought. When I had still no idea of realities, I was familiar with every shade of emotion.” Discounting his obvious exaggeration, we are still struck by the truth that he mingled emotion with everything in his life, particularly with the republicanism which fired him with enthusiasm when he read the “Lives of Famous Men,” even though the book drew from him “buckets of tears.” Perhaps he did not, as he says, prefer Agesilaus, Brutus, and Aristides to Onondatus, Artamène, and Juba, but the heroes of antiquity were jostled in his mind by imaginary characters from heroic novels, or were confused with them. Cyrus, whose character was founded on that of the Grand Condé, seemed to him to be as great a hero as Mucius Scaevola, whose courage so excited him that he could not tell the story without acting it out, and one day actually held his hand on a hot stove to illustrate Scsevola’s exploit.

To return to Jean-Jacques’s recital: “My uncle sent me away with my cousin Bernard to live in the house of Dr. Lambercier, the pastor at Bossey, below Mont Salève. There the country was such a revelation to me that I never grew tired of my delight in it. I loved the simple rural life; and the pastor, who was unmarried and who lived in sage fashion with his sister, treated me very kindly. He could be severe with me when it was necessary, but as he was just, I never felt ill used. Besides, it was Mademoiselle Lambercier who undertook to punish me when I had done wrong. As long as she merely threatened to whip me, I feared the punishment. Once it was done, I considered it less terrible in actuality than the expectation of it had been.”

“Did she take a stick to you?”

“She spanked me, and I know very well that the same kind of beating from her brother would have hurt far less.”

Madame de Warens forced a laugh. “That was an amusing point of superiority.” But her blue eyes glowed and she added, as she drew the youth close to her: “But a whipping is always a whipping, isn’t it?”

“No, for I actually took pleasure in the pain, even in the shame, of the whippings Mademoiselle Lambercier gave me....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• PART ONE
• PART TWO