He consoled himself with intense reading of books borrowed from a nearby library, and with Sunday excursions into the countryside. On two occasions he dallied so long in the fields that he found the city gates closed when he tried to return; he spent the night in the open, reported for work half dazed, and received a special thrashing. On a third such occasion the memory of these beatings made him resolve not to return at all. Not yet sixteen (March 15, 1728), without money, and with nothing but the clothes on his back, he marched on to Confignon in Catholic Savoy, some six miles away.
There he knocked at the door of the village priest, Père Benoît de Pontverre. Perhaps he had been told that the old curé was so anxious to convert stray Genevans that he fed them well on the theory that a full stomach makes for an orthodox mind. He gave Jean-Jacques a good dinner, and bade him “go to Annecy, where you will find a good and charitable lady whom the bounty of the king enables to turn souls from those errors she has happily renounced.”16 This, Rousseau adds, was “Mme. de Warens, a new convert, to whom the priests contrived to send those wretches who were disposed to sell their faith; and with these she was in a manner constrained to share a pension of two thousand francs bestowed upon her by the King of Sardinia.” The homeless youth thought a part of that pension might be worth a Mass. Three days later, at Annecy, he presented himself to Mme. Françoise-Louise de La Tour, Baronne de Warens.
She was twenty-nine, pretty, gracious, gentle, generous, charmingly dressed; “there could not be a more lovely face, a finer neck, or handsome arms more exquisitely formed”;17 altogether she was the best argument for Catholicism that Rousseau had ever seen. Born in Vevey of good family, she had been married, quite young, to M. (later Baron) de Warens of Lausanne. After some years of painful incompatibility she left him, crossed the lake into Savoy, and won the protection of King Victor Amadeus, then at Evian. Domiciled at Annecy, she accepted conversion to Catholicism, with the conviction that if her religious ritual were correct God would pardon her an occasional amour; besides, she could not believe that the gentle Jesus would send men—surely not a beautiful woman—to everlasting hell.18
Jean-Jacques would gladly have stayed with her, but she was occupied; she gave him money, and bade him go to Turin and receive instruction in the Hospice of the Holy Spirit. He was received there on April 12, 1728, and on April 21 he was baptized into the Roman Catholic faith. Writing thirty-four years later—eight years after his return to Protestantism—he described with horror his experience in the hospice, including an attempt upon his virtue by a Moorish fellow catechumen; he imagined that he had approached conversion with revulsion, shame, and long delays. But apparently he adjusted himself to the conditions that he found in the hospice, for he remained there, uncompelled, over two months after being received into the Church of Rome.19
He left the hospice in July, armed with twenty-six francs. After a few days of sightseeing he found work in a store to which he had been drawn by the good looks of the lady behind the counter. He fell in love with her at once; soon he knelt before her and offered her a lifetime of devotion. Mme. Basile smiled, but let him go no further than her hand; besides, her husband was expected at any minute. “My want of success with women,” says Rousseau, “has ever proceeded from my having loved them too well”;20 but it was his nature to find greater ecstasy in contemplation than in fulfillment. He relieved his tumescence by “that dangerous supplement which deceives nature, and saves young men of my temperament from many disorders, but at the expense of their health, their vigor, and sometimes their life.”21 This practice, made hectic by terrifying prohibitions, may have played a secret role in promoting his irritability, his romantic fancies, his discomfort in society, his love of solitude. Here the Confessions are frank beyond precedent:
My thoughts were incessantly occupied with girls and women, but in a manner peculiar to myself. These ideas kept my senses in a perpetual and disagreeable activity. … My agitation rose to the point where, unable to satisfy my desires, I inflamed them with the most extravagant maneuvers. I went about seeking dark alleys, hidden retreats, where I might expose myself at a distance to persons of the [other] sex in the state wherein I would have wished to be near them. That which they saw was not the obscene object—I did not dream of that; it was the ridiculous object [the buttocks]. The foolish pleasure which I had in displaying it before their eyes cannot be described. From this there was but a step to the desired treatment [whipping]; and I do not doubt that some resolute woman, in passing, would have given me the amusement, if I had had the audacity to continue. . . .
One day I went to place myself at the back of a court in which was a well where the young women of the house often came to fetch water…. I offered to the girls … a spectacle more laughable than seductive. The wisest among them pretended to see nothing; others began to laugh; others felt insulted, and raised an alarm.
Alas, no girl offered to beat him; instead a guardsman came, with heavy sword and frightful mustache, followed by four or five old women armed with brooms. Rousseau saved himself by explaining that he was “a young stranger of high lineage, whose mind was deranged,” but whose means might enable him later to reward their forgiveness. The “terrible man was touched,” and let him go, much to the discontent of the old women.22
Meanwhile he had found employment as a liveried footman in the service of Mme. de Vercellis, a Turinese lady of some culture. There he committed a crime which weighed on his conscience through the rest of his life. He stole one of Madame’s colorful ribbons; when charged with the theft he pretended that another servant had given it to him. Marion, who was quite innocent of the theft, reproached him prophetically: “Ah, Rousseau, I thought you were of a good disposition. You render me very unhappy, but I would not be in your situation.”23 Both were dismissed. The Confessions adds:
I do not know what became of the victim of my calumny, but there is little probability of her having been able to place herself agreeably after this, as she labored under an imputation cruel to her character in every respect. … The painful remembrance of this transaction … has remained heavy on my conscience to this day; and I can truly say that the desire to relieve myself in some measure from it has contributed greatly to the resolve to write my Confessions.24
Those six months as a footman left a mark on his character; with all his consciousness of genius he never achieved self-respect. A young priest whom he met while serving Mme. de Vercellis encouraged him to believe that his faults could be overcome if he would sincerely seek to approach the ethics of Christ. Any religion, said “M. Gaime,” is good if it spreads Christian conduct; hence he suggested that Jean-Jacques would be happier if he returned to his native habitat and faith. These views of “one of the best men I ever knew” lingered in Rousseau’s memory, and inspired famous pages in Émile. A year later, in the Seminary of St.-Lazare, he met another priest, Abbé Gâtier, a “very tender heart,” who missed advancement because he had conferred pregnancy upon a maiden in his parish. “This,” remarks Rousseau, “was a dreadful scandal in a diocese severely good, where the priests (being under good regulation) ought never to have children—except by married women.”25 From “these two worthy priests I formed the character of the Savoyard Vicar.”
Early in the summer of 1729 Rousseau, now seventeen, felt again the call of the open road; moreover, he hoped that with Mme. de Warens he might find some employment less galling to his pride. Along with a jolly Genevan lad named Bâcle, he marched from Turin to and through the Mont Cenis pass of the Alps to Chambéry and Annecy. His romantic pen colored the emotions with which he approached Mme. de Warens’ dwelling. “My legs trembled under me, my eyes were clouded with a mist, I neither saw, heard, nor recollected anyone, and was obliged frequently to stop that I might draw breath and recall my bewildered senses.”26 Doubtless he was uncertain of his reception. How could he explain to her all his vicissitudes since leaving her? “Her first glance banished all my fears. My heart leaped at the sound of her voice. I threw myself at
her feet, and in transports of the most lively joy I pressed my lips upon her hand.”27 She did not resent adoration. She found a room for him in her house; and when some eyebrows rose she said, “They may talk as they please, but since Providence has sent him back, I am determined not to abandon him.”
III. MAMAN: 1729-40
He was intensely attracted to her, like any youth in proximity with a femme de trente ans. He furtively kissed the bed on which she had slept, the chair she had sat on, “nay, the floor itself when I considered she had walked there”28 (here we suspect that romance got the better of history); and he was furiously jealous of all who competed with him for her time. She let him purr, and called him petit chat (little cat) and enfant; gradually he resigned himself to calling her Maman. She employed him to write letters, keep her accounts, gather herbs, and help in her alchemical experiments. She gave him books to read—The Spectator, Pufendorf, Saint-Évremond, Voltaire’s Henriade. She herself liked to browse in Bayle’s Dictionnaire historique et critique. She did not let her theology discommode her; and if she enjoyed the company of Father Gros, superior of the local seminary, it might be because he helped to lace her stays. “While he was thus employed she would run about the room, this way or that as occasion happened to call her. Drawn by the laces, M. le Supérieur followed grumbling, repeating at every moment, Tray, Madame, do stand still’; the whole forming a scene truly diverting.”29
It was perhaps this jolly priest who suggested that though Jean-Jacques gave every sign of stupidity he might digest enough education to make him a village curé. Mme. de Warens, glad to find a career for him, agreed. So in the fall of 1729 Rousseau entered the Seminary of St.-Lazare, and prepared for priesthood. By this time he had become accustomed to Catholicism, even fond of it;30 he loved its solemn ritual, its processions, music, and incense, its bells that seemed to proclaim, every day, that God was in his heaven, and that all was—or would be—right with the world; besides, no religion could be bad that charmed and forgave Mme. de Warens. But he had received so little formal education that he was first subjected to a concentrated course in the Latin language. He could not suffer its declensions, conjugations, and exceptions patiently; after five months of effort, his teachers sent him back to Mme. de Warens with the report that he was “a tolerably good lad,” but not fit for holy orders.
She tried again. Having observed his flair for music, she introduced him to Nicoloz Le Maître, organist at the Annecy cathedral. Jean-Jacques went to live with him through the winter of 1729-30, consoled by being only twenty paces from Maman. He sang in the choir and played the flute; he loved the Catholic hymns; he was well fed, and happy. All went well except that M. Le Maître drank too much. One day the little choirmaster quarreled with his employers, gathered his music in a box, and left Annecy. Mme. de Warens bade Rousseau accompany him as far as Lyons. There Le Maître, overcome with delirium tremens, fell senseless in the street. Frightened, Jean-Jacques called the passers-by to his aid. He gave them the address which the music master was seeking, and then fled back to Annecy and Maman. “The tenderness and truth of my attachment to her had uprooted from my heart every imaginable project, and all the follies of ambition. I conceived no happiness but in living near her, nor could I take a step without feeling that the distance between us was increased.”31 We must remember that he was still only eighteen years old.
When he reached Annecy he found that Madame had left for Paris, and no one knew when she would return. He was desolate. Day after day he walked aimlessly into the countryside, comforting himself with the colors of spring and the pretty chatter of doubtless amorous birds. Above all he loved to rise early and watch the sun lifting itself triumphantly above the horizon. On one of these rambles he saw two damsels on horseback, urging their reluctant mounts to ford a stream. In a burst of heroism he caught one horse by the bridle and led it across, while the other followed. He was about to go on his way, but the girls insisted upon his accompanying them to a cottage where he might dry his shoes and stockings. At their invitation he leaped up behind Mlle. G. “When it became necessary to clasp her in order to hold myself on, my heart beat so violently that she perceived it”;32 at that moment he began to outgrow his infatuation for Mme. de Warens. The three youngsters spent the day picnicking together; Rousseau progressed to kissing one girl’s hand; then they left him. He returned to Annecy exalted, and hardly minded that Maman was not there. He tried to find those mademoiselles again, but failed.
Soon he was on the road once more, this time accompanying Mme. de Warens’ maid to Fribourg. Passing through Geneva “I found myself so affected that I could scarcely proceed, … the image of [republican] liberty so elevated my soul.”33 From Fribourg he walked to Lausanne. Of all writers known to history he was the most devoted walker. From Geneva to Turin to Annecy to Lausanne to Neuchâtel to Bern to Chambéry to Lyons he knew the road and drank in gratefully the sights, odors, and sounds.
I love to walk at my ease, and stop at leisure; a strolling life is necessary for me. Traveling on foot, in a fine country, with fine weather, and having an agreeable object to terminate my journey, is the manner of living most suited to my taste.34
Uncomfortable in the society of educated men, shy and wordless before beautiful women, he was happy when alone with woods and fields, water and sky. He made Nature his confidante, and in silent speech told her his loves and dreams. He imagined that the moods of Nature entered at times into a mystic accord with his own. Though he was not the first to make men feel the loveliness of Nature, he was her most fervent and effective apostle; half the nature poetry since Rousseau is part of his lineage. Haller had felt and described the majesty of the Alps, but Rousseau made the slopes of Switzerland along the northern shore of the Lake of Geneva his special realm, and he sent down through the centuries the fragrance of their terraced vines. When he came to choose a site for the home of his Julie and Wolmar he placed them here, at Clarens between Vevey and Montreux, in a terrestrial paradise mingling mountains, verdure, water, sun, and snow.
Unsuccessful in Lausanne, Rousseau moved to Neuchâtel: “Here, … by teaching music, I insensibly gained some knowledge of it.”35 At nearby Boudry he met a Greek prelate who was soliciting funds for restoring the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem; Rousseau joined him as interpreter, but at Soleure he left him and walked out of Switzerland into France. On this walk he entered a cottage and asked might he buy some dinner; the peasant offered him barley bread and milk, saying this was all he had; but when he saw that Jean-Jacques was not a tax collector he opened a trapdoor, descended, and came up with wheat bread, ham, eggs, and wine. Rousseau offered to pay; the peasant refused, and explained that he had to hide his better food lest he suffer additional taxation. “What he said to me … made an impression on my mind that can never be effaced, sowing seeds of that inextinguishable hatred which has since grown up in my heart against the vexations these unhappy people bear, and against their oppressors.”36
At Lyons he spent homeless days, sleeping on park benches or the ground. For a time he was engaged to copy music. Then, hearing that Mme. de Warens was living at Chambéry (fifty-four miles to the east), he set out to rejoin her. She found work for him as secretary to the local intendant (1732-34). Meanwhile he lived under her roof, his happiness only moderately lessened by the discovery that her business manager, Claude Anet, was also her lover. That his own passion had subsided appears from a unique passage in the Confessions:
I could not learn, without pain, that she lived in greater intimacy with another than with myself. … Nevertheless, instead of feeling any aversion to the person who had this advantage over me, I found the attachment I felt for her actually extended to him. I desired her happiness above all things, and since he was concerned in her plan of felicity, I was content he should be happy likewise. Meantime he entered perfectly into the views of his mistress; he conceived a sincere friendship for me; and thus … we lived in a union which rendered us mutually happy, and which death alone could dissolve. One proo
f of the excellence of this amiable woman’s character is that all who loved her loved each other, even jealousy and rivalry submitting to the more powerful sentiment with which she inspired them; and I never saw any of those who surrounded her entertain the least ill will among themselves. Let the reader pause a moment in this encomium, and if he can recollect any other woman who deserves it, let him attach himself to her if he would obtain happiness.37
The next step in this polygonal romance was just as contrary to all the rules of adultery. When she perceived that a neighbor, Mme. de Menthon, aspired to be the first to teach Jean-Jacques the art of love, Mme. de Warens, refusing to surrender this distinction, or desiring to keep the youth from less tender arms, offered herself to him as mistress, without prejudice to her similar services for Anet. Jean-Jacques took eight days to think it over; long acquaintance with her had made him filial rather than sensual in his thoughts of her; “I loved her too much to desire her.”38 He was already suffering from the ailments that were to pursue him to the end—inflammation of the bladder and stricture of the urethra. Finally, with all due modesty, he agreed to her proposal.
The day, more dreaded than hoped for, at length arrived. … My heart confirmed my engagements without desiring the prize. I obtained it nevertheless. I saw myself for the first time in the arms of a woman, and a woman whom I adored. Was I happy? No. I tasted pleasure, but I know not what invincible sadness poisoned the charm. I felt as if I had committed incest. Two or three times, while pressing her with transport in my arms, I deluged her bosom with my tears. As for her, she was neither sad nor gay; she was caressingly tranquil. Since she was hardly at all sensual, and had not at all sought pleasure, she had in this no ecstasy, and she never felt remorse.39