In face of this I was left with only one course of action, to demand my work back, since I had been refused the agreed recompense. I wrote to that effect to M. d’Argenson, who was responsible for the Opera, and I appended to my letter an unanswerable statement of my case which, like my letters, received no reply and was of no avail. This injustice and his silence hurt me extremely and did not serve to enhance my very poor opinion of his character and his ability. Thus my piece was kept at the Opera, and I was defrauded of the price for which I had surrendered my rights. Perpetrated by the weak against the strong, this would be a theft; but when the strong treat the weak in that way, it is merely appropriation of another’s property.
As for my monetary profit from the work, although it did not bring me in a quarter of the sum it would have brought to anyone else, it was still large enough to enable me to subsist for several years, and to make up for my copying, which continued to be unremunerative. I received a hundred louis from the King, and fifty from Mme de Pompadour for the Belle-Vue performance, in which she took the part of Colin herself, also fifty from the Opera and five hundred francs from Pissot for the printing rights. So this entertainment, which only cost me five or six weeks’ work, brought me in almost as much money, in spite of my misfortune and stupidities, as Émile has done to this day, though it cost me twenty years of meditation, and three years to write. But I paid dearly for the pecuniary ease I received from this play by the endless troubles it brought down on my head; it sowed the seed of those secret jealousies which did not break out till long afterwards. After this success I no longer found in Grimm or Diderot or – with a few exceptions – in the other literary men of my acquaintance, the cordiality, the sincerity, and the pleasure in my company that I had hitherto believed them to feel. The moment I appeared at the Baron’s general conversation ceased, people gathered in little knots, whispering into each other’s ears, and I was left alone, at a loss for anyone to speak to. For a long time I endured these painful slights and, finding that Mme d’Holbach, a gentle and charming woman, always received me kindly, I put up with her husband’s rudeness for so long as I could stand it. But one day he attacked me so violently without cause or excuse, in front of Diderot, who did not say a word, and of Margency, who has often told me since of his wonder at the mildness and moderation of my replies, that I was finally driven from his house by this disgraceful treatment. And when I left I decided never to return again. This did not prevent me from always speaking respectfully of him and his house, whereas he never referred to me in other than insulting and scornful terms. The only name he had for me was that little pedant, and yet he could not point to a single wrong of any kind that I had ever done to him or to anyone in whom he was interested. So it was that he finally fulfilled my predictions and my fears. My own opinion is that my so-called friends would have forgiven my writing books, and very good books, because such glory was not out of their own reach; but they could not forgive me for having composed an opera, nor for the work’s brilliant success, because not one of them was in the position to pursue such a course or to aspire to the same honours. Duclos alone, who was superior to such jealousy, seemed even to feel a warmer friendship for me, and introduced me to Mlle Quinault, in whose house I was treated with all the attentions, civilities, and favours that I had found lacking at Mme d’Holbach’s.
Whilst The Village Soothsayer was being performed at the Opera, its author was also under discussion, though somewhat less fruitful discussion, at the Comédie Française. After trying in vain for seven or eight years to get my Narcissus staged by the Italians, I had grown disgusted with their theatre owing to the poor performances of its actors in French plays. In fact I would rather have had my piece performed at the Comédie Française than by them, and mentioned this wish to La Noue, the actor, whose acquaintance I had made and who is, as is well known, a distinguished man and an author. He liked Narcissus and undertook to get it put on anonymously, and in the meantime he got me a free pass, which was a great pleasure to me, since I have always preferred the French theatre to the other two. The piece was received with applause and played without mention of the author’s name; but I have reason to believe that the actors and many others were not ignorant of it. Mlle Gaussin and Mlle Grandval played the parts of the female lovers; and although, in my opinion, the point of the whole thing was missed, it could not be called a really bad performance. However, I was surprised and touched by the indulgence of the public, who had the patience to listen quietly from beginning to end and even to allow of its being played a second time without showing the least signs of restlessness. As for me, I was so bored at the first performance that I could not stay to the end. On leaving the theatre I went into the Café de Procope, where I found Boissy and a few others, who had probably been as bored as I. There I said my peccavi aloud, humbly or proudly confessing myself the author of the play and saying of it what every one, else was thinking. This public confession by the author of a poor piece and a failure was much admired, though I did not find it very painful. I even discovered some satisfaction for my self-esteem in the courage with which I made it. Indeed I think that on this occasion my pride in speaking was greater than my foolish shame would have been if I had kept quiet. However, as it was certain that although the play was wooden when performed it would bear reading, I had it printed, and in the preface, which is one of my best pieces of writing, I began to set out my principles a little more fully than I had done hitherto.
I had soon the opportunity to develop them completely in a work of the greatest importance. For it was in that year, I think, of 1753, that the Dijon Academy proposed ‘The Inequality of Mankind’ as a subject for discussion. I was struck by this great question and surprised at the Academy’s daring to propose it. But since they had the courage, I thought that I might be bold enough to discuss it, and set about the task.
In order to think this great matter out at my leisure, I went to Saint-Germain for some seven or eight days with Thérèse, and our landlady, who was a decent woman, and a woman friend of hers. I think of this trip as one of the most pleasant in my life. The weather was very fine; those good women undertook all the trouble and expense; Thérèse amused herself in their company, and I, without a care in the world, came in at meal-times and was unrestrainedly gay over table. For all the rest of the day, wandering deep into the forest, I sought and I found the vision of those primitive times, the history of which I proudly traced. I demolished the petty lies of mankind; I dared to strip man’s nature naked, to follow the progress of time, and trace the things which have distorted it; and by comparing man as he had made himself with man as he is by nature I showed him in his pretended perfection the true source of his misery. Exalted by these sublime meditations, my soul soared towards the Divinity; and from that height I looked down on my fellow men pursuing the blind path of their prejudices, of their errors, of their misfortunes and their crimes. Then I cried to them in a feeble voice which they could not hear, ‘Madmen who ceaselessly complain of Nature, learn that all your misfortunes arise from yourselves!’
The outcome of these meditations was the Essay upon Inequality,* which Diderot preferred to all my other works. His advice was most useful to me in the writing of it.† But nowhere in Europe did it find more than a few readers who understood it, and not one of them chose to speak of it. It had been written to compete for the prize. I sent it in, therefore, though I was certain beforehand that it would not win, for I knew very well that it is not for work of this kind that Academy prizes are founded.
The trip and the occupation improved my health and my humour. Several years before I had been so tortured by my retention of urine that I had put myself entirely into the doctors’ hands. They had not alleviated my complaint, but had exhausted my strength and ruined my constitution. On returning from Saint-Germain I found that I had more strength and felt a great deal better. I acted on this discovery and decided to recover or the without physicians or drugs. So I said goodbye to them for ever, and started to live
from day to day, staying quiet when I could not move and walking as soon as I had the strength. Paris life among pretentious people was so little to my taste; the cabals of men of letters, their shameful quarrels, the lack of honesty in their books, and the important airs they assumed in the world were so disgusting and antipathetic to me; I found so little gentleness, open-heartedness, or sincerity even in the company of my friends, that in my disgust for that turbulent life I began to long ardently to live in the country and, seeing that my profession did not allow me to settle there, I hastened at least to spend the few hours that I had free away from the town. For some months, immediately after my dinner, I would go and walk alone in the Bois de Boulogne, thinking over subjects for works to be written and not returning till night.
1754–1756 Gauffecourt, with whom I was then extremely intimate, found himself obliged to make a business journey to Geneva, and proposed that I should go with him. I agreed. As I was not well enough to do without the care of my boss it was decided that she should accompany us, and that her mother should look after the house. When all our arrangements were made we three set out together, on the 1st June 1754.
I must mention this journey as the occasion when for the first time in my forty-two years – for that was then my age – I sustained a shock to my naturally confiding nature which had been mine since birth and in which I had always trusted unreservedly, with no unhappy results. We had a hired carriage, which took us by very short stages without changing horses, and we were barely half-way when Thérèse showed the greatest repugnance to remaining alone in the carriage with Gauffecourt. At such times as, in spite of her entreaties, I insisted on getting out she would also get out and walk with me. For some time I scolded her for this whim, even going so far as positively to protest against it, to such effect that she found herself finally compelled to tell me her reason. I thought that I was dreaming. But I was rudely disillusioned when I heard that my friend M. de Gauffecourt, a gouty old man of more than sixty, impotent and worn out by his pleasures and dissipations, had been trying ever since we had set out to corrupt a person no longer young or beautiful, who belonged to his friend, and this in the lowest, the most shameful way. For he had gone so far as to offer her his purse, and to try and excite her by reading her a filthy book and showing her obscene pictures in it. Thérèse, in her indignation, had once thrown his beastly book out of the window; and she told me that on the very first day, when I had gone to bed before supper with a violent headache, he had spent the whole time they had been alone together in attempts and behaviour worthier of a satyr or a he-goat than of a decent man to whose care I had confided my companion and myself. What a surprise! What a fresh grief to me! Until then I had believed that friendship inevitably carries with it those pleasant and noble feelings that lend it all its charm. But now for the first time in my life I found myself compelled to associate it with contempt, and to withdraw my confidence and respect from a man whom I loved and who, I believed, loved me. The wretch concealed his vileness from me and, in order not to betray. Thérèse, I found myself compelled not to reveal my scorn and to hide in the depths of my heart those feelings that he was not to know. Sweet and holy illusion of friendship! Gauffecourt was the first to lift your veil from my eyes. How many cruel hands have prevented its ever falling again!
At Lyons I left Gauffecourt, to make my way through Savoy. For I could not bring myself to pass so near to Mamma and not see her again. I saw her. In what a state, oh God! How low she had fallen! What was left to her of her former virtue? Was this the same Mme de Warens who had once been so brilliant, and to whom M. Pontverre, the priest, had introduced me? How it wrung my heart! I could see no resource left to her but to leave the country. I repeated, earnestly and in vain, the entreaties I had several times sent her in my letters, to come and live quietly with me, and I would devote my days and Thérèse’s to making her life happy. But she clung to her pension, of which, punctually though it was paid, she had long since ceased to draw a penny herself, and would not listen to me. I gave her once more a small part of my money, much less than I ought to have done, much less than I should have done if I had not been perfectly certain that she would not be a penny the better off for it. During my stay in Geneva she took a journey through the Chablais and came to meet me at Grange-Canal. She had not enough money to complete her trip, and I had not as much on me as she needed; I sent it after her an hour later by Thérèse. Poor Mamma! I must give one more proof of her goodness of heart. She had no other jewel left but one last little ring, and this she took from her finger to put on Thérèse’s, who immediately replaced it upon Mamma’s, at the same time kissing that noble hand and moistening it with her tears. Ah, that was the moment in which I should have paid my debt. I should have abandoned everything to follow her, to attach myself to her till her last hour, and share her fate, whatever it might be. I did nothing of the kind. Taken up with another attachment, I felt the tie which bound me to her loosening. For I had no hope of being able to turn my affection for her to any good purpose. I sighed over her but did not follow her. Of all the remorse I have suffered in my life this was the bitterest and the most enduring. By my conduct I earned all the terrible punishments which have never since ceased to fall on my head. I hope they may have atoned for my ingratitude. For there was ingratitude in my conduct, but my heart was too deeply wounded for it ever to have been the heart of an ungrateful man.
Before leaving Paris I had outlined the dedication of my Essay upon Inequality. I had finished it at Chambéry and dated it from that place, considering it better, in order to avoid all controversy, not to date it from France or Geneva. On my arrival in that city I gave myself up to the republican enthusiasm that had led me there, and that enthusiasm was increased by the welcome I received. Féted and made much of by all classes, I surrendered entirely to patriotic zeal and, ashamed of being excluded from my rights as a citizen by my profession of a faith different from that of my fathers, I decided publicly to return to Protestantism. The Gospel being, in my opinion, the same for all Christians, and the fundamentals of dogma only differing over points that men attempted to explain but were unable to understand, it seemed to me to rest with the Sovereign alone in each country to settle the form of worship and the unintelligible dogma as well. It was therefore, I thought, the citizens’ duty to accept the dogma and follow the cult of their country, both as prescribed by law. My association with the Encyclopaedists, far from shaking my faith, had strengthened it because of my natural aversion for quarrelling and for parties. My study of man and the Universe had shown me everywhere final causes and the intelligence which directed them. My reading of the Bible, particularly of the Gospels, to which I had applied myself for some years, had led me to despise the base and foolish interpretations given to the words of Jesus Christ by persons quite unworthy of understanding them. In a word, philosophy, whilst attaching me to what was essential in religion, had freed me from the host of petty forms with which men have obscured it. Considering that for a reasonable man there were no two ways of being a Christian, I considered also that everything to do with form and discipline in each country belonged to the province of the law. It followed from this most sensible, social, and peaceable principle, which has brought such cruel persecutions upon me, that since I wished to be a citizen I must become a Protestant and return to the established faith of my country. I made up my mind, and went so far as to submit myself to the instructions of the minister in the parish where I was staying, which was outside the town. I only wished not to be obliged to appear before the consistory. Ecclesiastical law, however, was definite on this point; but it was agreed to make an exception in my favour, and a commission of five or six members was nominated to receive my profession of faith in private. Unfortunately Perdriau, the minister, a mild and pleasant man with whom I was on close terms, took it into his head to tell me that they were delighted at the prospect of hearing me speak in their small assembly. This expectation so alarmed me that, after having studied the little speech I had
prepared night and day for three weeks, I got so confused when it came to reciting it that I could not bring out a single word, and behaved at that interview like the stupidest of schoolboys. The commission spoke on my behalf, and I like a fool replied ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. I was then admitted to communion, reinstated in my rights as a citizen and enrolled as such in the list book of guards, who are paid by citizens and full burgesses only. I also attended an extraordinary general council to receive the oath from the syndic* Mussard. I was so touched by the kindnesses shown me on this occasion by the council and the consistory, and by the courteous and obliging behaviour of all the magistrates, ministers, and citizens that I gave in to the continual persuasions of the excellent Deluc, considerably reinforced by my own inclinations, and decided that I would return to Paris for the sole purpose of breaking up my household, putting my modest affairs in order, and finding Mme Le Vasseur and her husband a situation or providing for their subsistence, and then return with Thérèse and establish myself at Geneva for the rest of my days.
Once I had taken this resolution, I suspended all serious business in order to amuse myself with my friends till the time of my departure; and my favourite pastime was to row round the lake with Deluc, his daughter-in-law, his two sons, and my Thérèse. We spent seven days making the circuit in the finest possible weather. I retained the clearest memories of these spots at the other end of the lake which had formerly delighted me and which I described some years afterwards in The New Héloïse*