The Confessions

  When the Marshal had visited me at Mont-Louis, I had received him and his suite in my single living-room with some embarrassment, not on account of being obliged to offer them seats amongst my dirty plates and broken pots, but because my rotten floor was falling to pieces and I was afraid that the weight of them all would completely bring it down. Less concerned with my own danger than with the risk to which that kind gentleman’s condescension exposed him, I hastened to save him from it and lead him, cold though it still was, to my turret, which was fireless and open to the sky. Once he was there I told him my reasons for having brought him out. These he repeated to Mme de Luxembourg, and they both pressed me to accept accommodation in the Château until my floor should be repaired or, if I preferred it, in an isolated building in the middle of the park, which was called the Little Château. This enchanting abode deserves some special description.

  The park or garden of Montmorency is not level, like that of La Chevrette. It is rugged and uneven and full of eminences and depressions, of which the skilled landscape gardener has made good use as a contrast to his groves and ornamental features, his ponds and vistas; in that way extending, one might say, by the use of art and genius, a space somewhat constricted in itself. This park rises at one end to the terrace and Château which overlook it, and falls at the other into a gorge which opens out broadly towards the valley, the re-entrant angle being filled by a large sheet of water. Between the orangery, which lies at the point where the gorge broadens, and this sheet of water, enclosed by hills planted with groves and trees, stands the Little Château I have mentioned. The building, with the surrounding land, had once been the property of the famous de Brun, who had taken delight in building and decorating it according to that taste in architecture and ornament which that great painter had absorbed with his mother’s milk. This Château has been rebuilt since his time, but still according to its original owner’s plan. It is small and simple, but elegant. As it is in a hollow, between the orangery pond and that large sheet of water, and therefore liable to be damp, it has been pierced by a central court surrounded by rows of columns, through which the air can blow into the whole building and so keep it dry despite its situation. Viewed from the opposite hill, which forms the prospect from its windows, it appears to be completely surrounded by water, and looks like some enchanted island, or the prettiest of the three in the Borromean group in Lake Maggiore, Isola Bella.

  I was offered the choice of any one of the four complete apartments which this building contains, in addition to a ground floor, which is given up to a ballroom, a billiard room, and a kitchen. I chose the smallest and simplest, above the kitchen, of which I also had the use. It was neat and charming, and furnished in blue and white. And there in that deep and delightful solitude, amongst the woods and the waters, to the sounds of birds of every kind, and amidst the perfume of orange blossom, in a continuous ecstasy I composed the fifth book of Émile, the fresh colouring of which I to a large extent owed to the sharp impact of the locality in which I wrote it.

  How eagerly I ran every morning at sunrise to breathe in the balmy air in the colonnade! What good creamy coffee I took there alone with my Thérèse! My cat and dog kept us company. Such a retinue would have sufficed me for the rest of my life. I should never have felt a moment’s boredom. There I was in an earthly paradise. I lived in paradisal innocence and tasted something of the pleasures that go with it.

  On their July visit M. and Mme de Luxembourg paid me such attentions and plied me with such favours that, since I was their guest and overwhelmed by their kindnesses, I could not do less than respond by visiting them assiduously. I dined with them; I went for a walk with the Marshal in the afternoons; but I did not take supper with them, because of the grand company, and because they supped too late for me. Up to this point everything was in order, and there would have been no trouble if I had known how to stop there. But I have never been capable of moderation in my relationships, or of simply fulfilling the duties of society. It has always been all or nothing with me. Soon it was all; and finding myself made much of and spoilt by people of their importance, I overstepped the limits and conceived a friendship for them, of a kind only permissible between equals. I expressed it by complete familiarity of manners, while they continued to treat me with the courtesy and politeness to which I had grown accustomed. I was never, however, very comfortable with Mme de Luxembourg. Although I was not absolutely reassured as to her character, I feared it less than her tongue. For it was principally her wit of which I was in awe. I knew that she was exacting in conversation and had a right to be. I knew that women, and particularly great ladies, absolutely require to be kept amused, and that it is better to offend them than to bore them; and I judged from her comments on the conversation of her guests after their departure what she must have thought of my nonsense. An expedient occurred to me for saving myself the embarrassment of talking to her; and that was to read aloud. She had heard about Julie, and knew that it was at the printer’s. She showed some eagerness to see the work. I offered to read it to her, and she accepted my offer. Every morning I went to her room at ten o’clock, M. de Luxembourg came in, and the door was shut. I read beside her bed, and I managed my readings so well that they would have lasted for the whole visit, even if it had not been cut short.* The success of this stratagem exceeded my expectations. Mme de Luxembourg was crazy about Julie and its author. She talked of nothing but me, showed no other interest, paid me compliments all day long and embraced me ten times a day. She insisted that I should always sit beside her at table; and when some nobleman wanted to take the seat, she always said that it was mine and made him sit elsewhere. It can be imagined what impression such charming treatment made upon me, who am enslaved by the least mark of affection. I grew genuinely attached to her in proportion to the attachment she showed me. My only fear on seeing her infatuation and feeling myself too devoid of wit and charm to sustain it, was that it might turn to revulsion; and unfortunately for me this fear was only too well founded.

  There must have been a natural antipathy between her mind and mine because, besides the innumerable stupidities which escaped me every moment in conversation, even in my letters and when I was on the best footing with her, there were other things which displeased her, I could not imagine why. I will give only one example, though I could give a hundred. She knew that I was making a copy of Héloïse for Mme d’Houdetot at so much a page. She wanted one for herself on the same terms. I promised her one and, enrolling her, therefore, among my customers, I wrote her a letter of polite thanks on the subject; at least such was my intention. Here is her reply, which brought me down out of the clouds (Packet C, No. 43):

  Versailles, Tuesday

  I am delighted and most satisfied; your letter has given me infinite pleasure. I hasten to tell you so, and to thank you for it.

  Here are the exact words which you wrote: ‘Although you are certainly a very good customer, I find it difficult to take your money. Really it is I who should be paying you for the pleasure of working for you.’ I will say no more on the subject. I am sorry that you never tell me of the state of your health. Nothing is of greater interest to me. I love you with all my heart; and it grieves me, I assure you, to tell you so on paper, for I should very much like to tell you so by word of mouth. M. de Luxembourg loves you also and embraces you with all his heart.

  When I received this letter I hurriedly replied to it without examining it more fully, in order to protest against any awkward misinterpretations; and after spending several days on a closer examination with a feeling of uneasiness which can well be imagined, and still without being able to understand it, I wrote my final answer on the subject as follows:

  Montmorency, 8 December 1759

  Since my last letter I have examined the passage in question hundreds and hundreds of times. I have considered it in its own natural meaning, and have considered every interpretation that can be put on it; and I assure you, Madame, that I do not yet know whether I owe you an apology or y
ou owe me one.

  It is now ten years since those letters were written. I have often thought of them since then; and so obtuse am I on this point to this very day that I have never succeeded in understanding what she could have found in that passage, I will not say offensive, but even to displease her.

  While on the subject of this manuscript copy of Héloïse which Mme de Luxembourg asked me for, I should mention the way in which I had intended to make it superior to all others. I had written the adventures of Lord Edward separately and had for a long time been undecided whether to include them, complete or in part, in this book, where they seemed to me out of place. I decided in the end to omit them entirely, since they were out of keeping with the tone of the rest, and would have spoiled the book’s touching simplicity. I had another much stronger reason when I made Mme de Luxembourg’s acquaintance. There was a Roman marchioness in the story, an odious character, some of whose features, although not applicable to the Marshal’s wife, might have been applied to her by people who only knew her by reputation. I more than congratulated myself therefore on my decision, and decided to adhere to it. But in my burning desire to embellish her copy with something that was not in any other I foolishly thought of these wretched adventures, and made up my mind to take a selection from them and append it to the work. A crazy plan, the extravagance of which can only be explained by the blind fatality which was dragging me to my destruction.

  Quos vult perdere Jupiter, dementat.*

  I was stupid enough to make this extract with great care and much labour, and to send it to her as if it were the loveliest thing in the world, informing her at the same time that I had burned the original, that the selection was for her eyes alone and would never be seen by anyone else unless she showed it herself. But this, far from acting as a proof of my prudence and discretion, as I had supposed it would, only conveyed to her my own view of the applicability of those features in my Roman marchioness which might have offended her. Such was my imbecility that I had no doubt of her being delighted by what I had done. She did not pay me the great compliments on it that I had expected nor, to my great surprise, did she ever speak to me of the manuscript I had sent her. Being myself still charmed by my conduct of the matter, it was not till long afterwards that I suspected, from other indications, the effect that it had produced.

  I had another, more sensible idea for imporving her manuscript, which in its remoter results was hardly less harmful to me; for everything assists the work of destiny when it summons a man to his doom. It occurred to me to ornament the manuscript with the drawings for the engravings of Julie, which were of the same size as the manuscript paper. I asked Coindet for them, since I had every claim to them, particularly because I had let him take the profit of the plates, which had a great sale. But he is as cunning as I am the reverse. My frequent requests for them gave him some idea of my intentions regarding them. So on the excuse that he would like to add a few embellishments, he got me to leave them with him, and finally presented them himself.

  Ego versiculosfeci: alter tulit honores.*

  This acted as his introduction to the Hôtel de Luxembourg, and gave him a certain standing there. After I had moved to the Little Château he often came to see me there, and always in the mornings, particularly when M. and Mme de Luxembourg were at Montmorency. The consequence was that I spent the day with him, and did not get to the Château at all. When scolded for staying away, I explained my reason. They urged me to bring M. Coindet and I did so. That was what the sly fellow had been after. So, thanks to their excessive kindness to me, a clerk of M. Thélusson’s, whom his master sometimes invited to dinner when there were no guests, suddenly found himself welcomed at the table of a Marshal of France with princes, duchesses, and the greatest figures at Court. I shall never forget how one day, when he was compelled to return to Paris early, the Marshal said to his guests after dinner: ‘Let us take a walk along the road to Saint-Denis, and we can accompany M. Coindet.’ The poor fellow could not stand up to it; he lost his head completely. For my part, I was so affected that I could not say a word. I followed behind, weeping like a child, and longing to kiss the good old marshal’s footprints. But this sequel to the story of my manuscript copy has made me anticipate events. Let us take them in their proper order, in so far as my memory will permit.

  As soon as the little house at Mont-Louis was ready, I had it neatly and simply furnished, and returned there to live. For I could not break the resolution I had made on leaving the Hermitage, always to have a place of my own. But neither could I make up my mind to give up my apartment in the Little Château. I kept the key and, being so fond of those little breakfasts in the colonnade, I often slept there, and sometimes spent two or three days there, as if it were my country house. I had then perhaps the best and most comfortable apartments of any private individual in Europe. My landlord, M. Mathas, who was the best fellow in the world, had left the direction of the repairs at Mont-Louis to me, allowing me to direct his workmen without any interference from him. I found means of making a complete apartment, consisting of a bedroom, an ante-chamber, and a closet, out of a single room. On the ground floor were Thérèse’s room and the kitchen. The turret served me as a study, after a good glazed partition and a fireplace had been put in. I amused myself when I was there by improving the terrace, which was already shaded by two rows of young limes. I planted another two rows to make an arbour. I had a table put there and stone benches, and I planted lilac, syringa, and iioneysuckle all around. I had a fine flower border made parallel to the two rows of trees, and this terrace – which was higher than the Château terrace, and had quite as fine a view – was visited by swarms of birds which I had tamed, and served me as a reception room in which to receive M. and Mme de Luxembourg, the Duke de Villeroy, the Prince de Tingry, the Marquis d’Armentières, the Duchess de Montmorency, the Duchess de Boufflers, the Countess de Valentinois, the Countess de Boufflers, and other people of that condition, who condescended to face a very tiring climb in making the pilgrimage to Mont-Louis. I owed all these visits to the kindness of M. and Mme de Luxembourg; I was grateful to them, and my heart rendered them homage for it. It was in one of these transports of emotion that I once said as I embraced M. de Luxembourg: ‘Ah, Marshal, before I knew you I used to hate the great, and I hate them still more now that you have shown me how easy it would be for them to make themselves adored.’

  What is more, I categorically demand of all those who knew me during that period whether they ever noticed me to be even momentarily dazzled by the brilliance or saw the fumes of that incense rise to my head; whether they found me less consistent in my behaviour, less simple in my manners, less familiar and affable towards the people, less familiar with my neighbours, less prompt to do everyone a service when I could, without ever jibbing at the numberless and often unreasonable importunities to which I was continuously subjected. If my heart drew me to the castle of Montmorency out of sincere affection for its master and mistress, it took me also among my neighbours to enjoy the mild pleasures of that equable and simple life, without which there is no happiness for me. Thérèse had made friends with the daughter of a mason named Pilleu, who was my neighbour; I became friendly with Pilleu himself; and after having dined at the castle in the morning, not without some reluctance and in order to please Mme de Luxembourg, how eagerly would I hurry back in the evening to take supper with the good fellow and his family, sometimes at his house, and sometimes at mine!

  In addition to these two lodgings I had soon a third, at the Hôtel de Luxembourg, whose owners urged me so forcefully to visit them there sometimes that I consented, despite my dislike for Paris, where I had not been since I moved to the Hermitage except on the two occasions I have mentioned. Even now I only went on the days fixed beforehand, merely to sup there and return next morning. I entered and left through the garden which adjoins the boulevard; so that I could say with perfect truth that I had never set foot on the pavement of Paris.

  In the midst of this temporary
prosperity a catastrophe was preparing afar off which was to signalize its end. A short while after my return to Mont-Louis, unwillingly as usual, I made a new acquaintance which marks another period in my history: whether for good or for ill will be seen hereafter. This was the Marchioness de Verdelin, my neighbour, whose husband had just bought a country house at Soisy, near Montmorency. Mlle d’Ars, the daughter of Count d’Ars – a man of rank, although poor – had married M. de Verdelin, who was old and ugly, deaf, harsh, brutal, and jealous, scarred and blind in one eye, but in other respects a good enough fellow when one knew how to deal with him, and with an income of fifteen to twenty thousand livres, to which her parents married her. This charming fellow, who swore and shouted, grumbled and stormed, and made his wife cry all day long, always ended by doing as she wanted, and doing it to spite her, since she knew how to persuade him that it was he who wanted it and she who did not. M. de Margency, whom I have already mentioned, was Madame’s friend and became her husband’s. Some years before, he had let them his castle at Margency, near Eaubonne and Andilly; and that had been at precisely the time of my passion for Mme d’Houdetot. Mme d’Houdetot and Mme de Verdelin became acquainted through Mme d’Aubeterre, their mutual friend; and the Margency gardens being on the road which Mme d’Houdetot took to Mount Olympus, her favourite walk, Mme de Verdelin gave her a key, so that she could go through. Thanks to that key, I often went through with her. But I disliked unexpected encounters, and when Mme de Verdelin chanced to meet us on our way I did not greet her but left them together, and walked on ahead. This ungallant behaviour could not have given her a very good opinion of me. Nevertheless when she was at Soisy she always sought my company. She came to see me several times at Mont-Louis, but did not find me at home; and, seeing that I did not return her visits, she took it into her head to send me pots of flowers for my terrace, in order to force me to do so. I simply had to go and thank her, and that was sufficient. We were then acquainted.