When my first burst of indignation allowed me to write I hurriedly penned the following reply, and immediately took it from the Hermitage, where I then was, to La Chevrette, to show it to Mme d’Épinay, to whom in my blind anger I wanted to read it aloud, together with Diderot’s letter.
My dear friend, you cannot know either the magnitude of my obligations to Mme d’Épinay, or the extent to which I am bound by them, or whether she really needs my company on her journey, or if she seriously wants me to go with her, or if it is possible for me to do so, or any reasons I may have for not doing so. I do not object to discussing all these points with you; but in the meanwhile, you must agree, my dear philosopher, that it is the height of rashness to prescribe so positively what I ought to do, without putting yourself in the position to judge. But what is still worse, as I see it, is that the advice you offer me is not your own. Not only am I very little disposed to let myself be led by some third or fourth party speaking in your name, but I detect in this tortuous procedure some underhand dealings that do not suit your frank nature and which you would do well, both for your own sake and mine, to avoid in future.
You are afraid that my conduct may be misinterpreted, but I defy a heart like yours to be so bold as to think ill of mine. Other people might perhaps speak better of me if I were more like them. God forbid that I should ever go out for their approval! The wicked may watch me and interpret my actions, but Rousseau was not born to fear them nor Diderot to listen to them.
You tell me to throw your letter in the fire, if it displeases me, and pay no more attention to it. Do you think that anything coming from you is so easy to forget? My dear Diderot, you care as little about my tears when you cause me such pain, as about my life and health when you recommend me to undertake such an exhausting task. If you could correct this fault in yourself your friendship would be sweeter to me, and I should be a less pitiable person.
When I entered Mme d’Épinay’s room I found Grimm with her, and I was delighted. I read my two letters aloud to them in clear tones and with a boldness of which I should never have thought myself capable; and I added some words in conclusion which did not belie that boldness. I saw them both astounded and flabbergasted by this unexpected audacity in one who was usually so timid. They did not answer a word. I saw that arrogant man lower his gaze, lacking the courage to meet the fire in my eyes. But at the same time, in his secret heart he swore my undoing, and I am sure that they plotted it together before they parted.
It was at about this time that I received through Mme d’Houdetot, Saint-Lambert’s letter (Packet A, No. 57) dated from Wolfenbüttel a few days after his accident, replying to mine, which had been long delayed on the road. His answer brought me some consolation, which I greatly needed at that moment, for it was full of tokens of esteem and friendship which gave me the strength and courage to deserve them. From that time onwards I behaved correctly. But it is certain that if Saint-Lambert had been less sensible and generous, if he had been a less honourable man, I should have been irretrievably lost.
The bad weather was setting in, and people were beginning to leave the country for the town. Mme d’Houdetot gave me the date on which she intended to come and say good-bye to the valley, and made an appointment to see me at Eaubonne. This chanced to be the same day on which Mme d’Épinay was leaving La Chevrette to go to Paris and complete her preparations for her journey. Fortunately she departed in the morning, and I had still time after I had left her to go and dine with her sister-in-law. I had Saint-Lambert’s letter in my pocket, and I read it several times as I walked. It served me as a protection against my weakness. I made and kept my resolution to see nothing more in Mme d’Houdetot than a friend and the mistress of a friend, and I spent five or six hours alone with her in a calm delight infinitely preferable, even sensuously, to those paroxysms of burning fever from which I had hitherto suffered in her company. As she was well aware that my feelings had not changed she appreciated the efforts I had made to conquer myself and they raised me in her esteem. I was delighted to see that her friendship for me was not dead. She told me that Saint-Lambert would soon be returning. For although he had made a fairly complete recovery from his attack, he was no longer strong enough to bear the fatigues of war, and was leaving the army to come and live quietly beside her. We made a charming plan for an intimate society of three, and we had reason to hope that, once formed, it would be lasting. For it would have been based on all those feelings that unite sensitive and honest people, and we had amongst the three of us sufficient talents and sufficient knowledge to stand in need of no help from outside. Alas, when I surrendered to the hope of so charming a life, I had no suspicion of what awaited me.
We afterwards spoke of my present relations with Mme d’Épinay. I showed her Diderot’s letter together with my reply. I gave her all the details of what had transpired, and declared that I had resolved to leave the Hermitage. She opposed me vigorously, using arguments which had an all-powerful effect on my heart. She told me how much she would have liked me to make the Geneva journey, for she saw that she would inevitably be compromised by my refusal. Indeed Diderot’s letter seemed to announce this in advance. However, as she knew my reasons as well as I did myself, she did not insist on the point, but implored me to avoid scandal at all cost, and to palliate my refusal by offering excuses sufficiently convincing to dispel the unjust suspicion that she could have any part in it. I replied that she was giving me no easy task; but that since I was resolved to atone for my ill-doing even at the price of my reputation, I would put hers before my own and endure everything that I honourably could. It will soon be seen whether I was able to keep my promise.
I can affirm that, far from my unhappy passion having lost any of its strength, I never loved my Sophie so keenly and so tenderly as I did that day. But such was the effect upon me of Saint-Lambert’s letter, my feeling of duty, and my horror of treachery that diroughout our conversation my senses left me in complete peace beside her, and I was not even tempted to kiss her hand. When I left she embraced me before the servants. This kiss, which was so different from those which I had sometimes stolen from her beneath the trees, proved to me that I had regained command over myself. I am almost positive that if my heart had had the time peacefully to regain its strength, it would not have taken me three months to be radically cured.
Here end my personal relations with Mme d’Houdetot: relations which everyone has been able to judge superficially according to the nature of his own heart. Yet the passion inspired in me by this lovable woman, a passion perhaps stronger than any man has ever felt before, will always be honourable, in Heaven’s eyes and our own, by reason of the rare and painful sacrifices made by us both to duty, honour, love, and friendship. We had too high an opinion of each other to be able easily to degrade ourselves. We should need to have been unworthy of all esteem to have been prepared to lose a mutual respect of such high value; and the very strength of the feelings which might have made us guilty was the reason for our remaining innocent.
In this way, after a long friendship for one of these two women and a violent affection for the other, I bade them my separate farewells on the same day. One of them I was never to see again in all my life, and the other only twice, on occasions which I shall describe hereafter.
After their departure I found myself somewhat at a loss how to fulfil so many urgent and contradictory duties, the consequences of my imprudence. If I had been in my normal position after the Geneva journey had been proposed and I had declined it, I should only have had to stay quiet, and there would have been no more to say. But I had foolishly made it into an affair that could not rest as it was, and I could only avoid further explanations by leaving the Hermitage, which I had just promised Mme d’Houdetiot not to do, at least for the present. What is more, she had insisted on my making excuses to my so-called friends for having declined to go, so that she should not be blamed for my refusal. However, I could not adduce my real reason without insulting Mme d’Épinay, to whom I ce
rtainly owed some gratitude after all that she had done for me. All things considered, I found myself with the hard but unavoidable alternative of failing Mme d’Épinay, Mme d’Houdetot, or myself, and I chose the last. I chose it boldly, unreservedly, and unswervingly, and with a disinterestedness which surely deserved to blot out the faults which had reduced me to this extremity. This sacrifice, which my enemies knew how to turn to their advantage, and which they perhaps expected, has brought on the ruin of my reputation and, thanks to their efforts, it has robbed me of public esteem. But it has restored my self-respect, and consoled me in my misfortunes. This was not the last time, as will be seen, that I made such sacrifices, nor the last either that they have been used as a means of bringing me down.
Grimm was the only one who appeared to have taken no part in that affair and it was to him that I decided to turn. I wrote him a long letter in which I explained the absurdity of their attempting to turn the journey to Geneva into a matter of duty for me; also how useless, how much of a burden indeed, I should have been to Mme d’Épinay, and what inconveniences would have resulted for myself. I did not resist the temptation in that letter of letting him see that I was not in the dark, and found it strange that the journey should be supposed to be a duty for me, whilst he was excused from it and his name not even mentioned in the matter. But being debarred from clearly stating my reasons, I was forced to wander frequently from the point in this letter, which would have made me seem guilty of many crimes in the public eye. But it was a model of discretion and reserve for those who, like Grimm, were aware of the facts which I did not mention, and which fully justified my conduct. I did not even hesitate to arouse a further prejudice against me, by attributing Diderot’s opinion to my other friends, in order to insinuate that Mme d’Houdetot had shared it also, which was true, and by failing to mention that in face of my argument she had changed her mind. I knew no better way of exonerating her from any suspicion of having connived with me than that of appearing to be displeased with her on the subject.
The letter ended with a demonstration of confidence which would have moved any other man. For in begging Grimm to weigh my reasons and then to give me his opinion, I assured him that his advice would be followed, whatever it might be; and this was my intention even if he had pronounced that I ought to set out. For now that M. d’Épinay had undertaken to be his wife’s escort, my going took on quite a différent aspect, whereas in the first place it had been I who was to be entrusted with that duty and there had been no question of him till I had refused.
Grimm kept me waiting for his reply, which was a strange one; and I will transcribe it here. (See Packet A, No. 59.)
Mme d’Épinay’s departure has been postponed; her son is ill and she must wait till he has recovered. I will think about your letter. Stay quietly at your Hermitage. I will send you my opinion in time. But as she is certainly not leaving for some days there is no hurry. In the meantime, if you think fit, you can make your proposals to her, although this does not seem to me a matter of any consequence. For as I know your position as well as you do yourself I have no doubt that she will answer your proposals as she should. So all that I think you can gain by them is to be able to say to anyone who taxes you that if you did not go it was not for want of having offered. For the rest, I do not see why you insist that a philosopher should be the public’s speaking-trumpet, or why you imagine that because he advises you to go all your friends are of the same opinion. If you write to Mme d’Épinay her reply may serve you as an answer to all those friends, since you are so very anxious to give them an answer. Good-bye: my regards to Mme Le Vasseur and the ‘Judge’.*
I was quite astounded as I read this letter, and anxiously tried to imagine what it could mean; but in vain. Why instead of simply replying to mine must he take time to think about it, as if the time he had already taken had not been enough? He even informs me of the state of suspense in which he wishes to keep me, as if there were some deep problem to be solved, or as if it were his purpose to make it quite impossible for me to discover his feelings until the moment when he decides to reveal them to me! What is the significance of all these precautions, these delays, and mysteries? Is this the way to respond to a man’s confidence? Is this the behaviour of an upright and loyal friend? I tried in vain to find some favourable interpretation of his conduct; I could find none. Whatever his purpose might be, if it was hostile his position made it easier for him to carry it out without its being possible for me in mine to put any obstacle in its way. Being a favourite in a great prince’s house, with a wide circle of acquaintances, and setting the tone of the society to which we both belonged and of which he was the oracle, he could with his habitual skill easily deploy all his weapons; whilst I, alone in my Hermitage, far away from everything and with no one to advise me or any communication with the world, had no alternative but to wait and remain quiet. All I did was to write to Mme d’Épinay a studiously courteous letter on the subject of her son’s illness. But I did not fall into the trap of offering to go with her to Geneva.
After waiting for ages in the cruel anxiety into which that barbarous man had plunged me I heard after eight or ten days that Mme d’Épinay had departed, and received a second letter from him. It was only seven or eight lines long, and I did not read it to the end. It announced a break, but in terms such as could be dictated only by the most infernal hatred, terms that by his endeavour to make them as offensive as possible seemed downright stupid. He forbade me his presence, as if he were banishing me from his kingdom. If only I could have read the letter rather more calmly I should have laughed aloud. Without copying it or even reading it to the end I returned it to him immediately, accompanied by this:
I refused to listen to my just suspicions. At last I know you, but too late.
Here is the letter that took you so long to think out. I return it to you; it is not for me. You can show mine to every living soul, and hate me quite openly. That will be one falsehood the less on your part.
My telling him that he could show my previous letter related to a sentence in his which will reveal the deep cunning with which he acted throughout this affair.
I have said that in the eyes of the ill-informed my letter might lay me open to a good deal of reproach. This he saw with delight. But how could he avail himself of this advantage without compromising himself? If he showed that letter, he would expose himself to the accusation of abusing a friend’s confidence.
To get himself out of that dilemma he decided to break with me in the most violent way possible, and make me conscious by his letter of the favour he did me in not showing mine. He was quite certain that in my furious indignation I should refuse his pretended discretion, and let him show my letter to everybody. That is precisely what he wanted. Everything fell out as he had arranged. He circulated my letter all round Paris with a commentary of his own devising which, however, did not prove as successful as he had expected. People did not consider that the permission he had extorted from me, to show my letter, exempted him from blame for having lightly taken me at my word in order to injure me. People continually asked what personal wrongs I had done him to justify such violent hatred. At last they came to the conclusion that even if I had done him such wrongs as compelled him to break with me, friendship, even though extinct, had still rights which he should have respected. But unfortunately Paris is a frivolous place; these judgements of the moment are quickly forgotten. The unfortunate are neglected when they are not at hand; the prosperous inspire respect by their mere presence. The game of abuse and intrigue is kept up and played afresh, and soon its effects, by their continuous novelty, efface all that has gone before.
Thus, after having deceived me for so long, that man finally threw off his mask, in the certainty that he had now carried things so far that he had no longer any need of it. Relieved of my fear of being unjust to the wretch, I left him to his own reflections, and gave him no more thought. A week after the reception of his letter I received an answer from Mme d’Épinay, in Ge
neva, to my last letter. (Packet B, No. 10.) From its tone, which was one she had never used to me in all her life, I understood that the two of them were counting on the success of their manoeuvres, and working together. I saw that they looked on me as a lost man with no resources, and that they would devote themselves thenceforth to the safe pleasure of completing my discomfiture.
My condition was, indeed, as deplorable as could be. I saw all my friends desert me, and could not find out how or why. Diderot, who boasted of remaining faithful to me and of being the only one to do so, had been promising me a visit for three months, but did not come. Winter was beginning to set in, and with it came attacks of my usual complaints. My constitution, although vigorous, had not been able to withstand the onslaughts of so many conflicting passions, and I was in a state of collapse which left me neither the strength nor-the courage to stand up to anything. Even if my promises, even if the continual remonstrances of Diderot and Mme d’Houdetot had allowed of my leaving the Hermitage at that moment, I did not know where to go or how to drag myself there. I remained stunned and motionless, unable either to act or to think. The mere idea of something to be done, of a letter to be written, of something to be said, set me trembling. I could not, however, leave Mme d’Épinay’s letter unanswered, for that would be to acknowledge that I deserved the devastating treatment I was receiving from her and her friend. I made up my mind to inform her of my state of mind and my decisions, not doubting for a moment that out of humanity, generosity, and decency, and out of the good feeling that I believed I had seen in her, notwithstanding the bad – she would hasten to agree with me. Here is my letter:
The Hermitage, 23 November 1757
If it were possible to the of grief, I should no longer be alive. But at last I have made up my mind. Friendship between us is dead, Madame; but even a dead friendship has still some rights, which I know how to respect. I have not forgotten your kindnesses to me, and you can count on me for all the gratitude which it is possible for a man to feel towards one whom he can no longer love. Any further explanations would be useless; my conscience is on my side, and I leave you to yours.