After she had left Montmollin continued his intrigues, and the populace abandoned all restraint. I continued, however, quietly to take my walks to the accompaniment of their hooting; and my taste for botany, which I had begun to acquire from Doctor d’lvernois, gave these walks a new interest. They sent me wandering the country in search of plants, unworried by the shouts of all that mob, who became even more infuriated by my coolness. One of the things which most affected me was to see the families of my friends* or of people who claimed to be so, quite openly joining the ranks of my persecutors: among them the d’lvernois, including even my dear Isabelle’s father and brother; Boy de La Tour, a relation of the friend with whom I lodged; and Mme Girardier, her sister-in-law. This Pierre Boy was such an idiot, so stupid and so brutal in his behaviour that to save myself from flying out in a fury I took the liberty of ridiculing him, and wrote in the style of the Little Prophet, a small pamphlet of a few pages entitled The Vision of Pierre of the Mountain, called the Seer, in which I took the opportunity of light-heartedly attacking the miracles which at that time were the great pretext for my persecution. Du Peyrou had this trifle printed at Geneva, but it met with only moderate success in the district, the people of Neuchâtel, for all their intelligence, having little appreciation of Attic salt or humour, once it becomes at all subtle.
I devoted rather more care to another composition of this period, the manuscript of which will be found among my papers, and the subject of which I must here describe.
When the fury of decrees and persecutions was in full spate, the Genevese had particularly distinguished themselves by whooping in with all their strength; and my friend Vernes, among others, with a truly theological generosity chose this precise moment to publish some letters against me in which he claimed to prove that I was no Christian. These letters were none the better for the inflated style in which they were written, although it was definitely stated that Bonnet, the naturalist, had helped in their writing. For the said Bonnet, although a materialist, becomes nevertheless most intolerant in his orthodoxy the moment it has anything to do with me. I was most certainly not tempted to answer this work. But the occasion presenting itself to say a few words about it in my Letters written from the Mountain, I inserted a short and somewhat contemptuous note which put Vernes into a fury. His shouts of rage filled all Geneva, and d’lvernois informed me that he was quite out of his mind. Some time later there appeared an anonymous pamphlet which seemed to have been written not in ink but in Phlegethon* water. In it I was accused of having exposed my children in the streets, of dragging a common whore around with me, of being worn out by debauchery and rotten with pox, and treated with other similar politenesses. I did not find it difficult to recognize my man. My first reaction to this libellous document was to value all that men call renown and reputation at its true price. For here I saw one treated as a brothel-haunter who had never been inside a house of ill-fame in his life, and whose greatest fault had always been his virginal timidity and bashfulness; I was accused of being eaten up with pox when not only had I never in my life had the slightest attack of any such malady, but physicians even believed me to be so made as to be incapable of contracting it. After careful consideration I decided that I could not refute this libel better than by having it printed in the town in which I had lived longest. So I sent it to Duchesne to be published just as it was, with a foreword in which I mentioned M. Vernes, and with some short notes to explain the facts. Not content with having this pamphlet printed, however, I sent it to several people, among others to Prince Louis of Wurtemberg, who had made most courteous approaches to me and with whom I was then in correspondence. The Prince, Du Peyrou, and others seemed to doubt whether Vernes was the author of the libel and blamed me for having too frivolously introduced his name. Their remonstrances aroused scruples in me, and I wrote to Duchesne to suppress the pamphlet. Guy wrote to tell me that this had been done. But I do not know whether it was true, since I have found him lying on so many occasions that one more would not be surprising; and from that moment I was shrouded in darkness so profound and impenetrable that it is impossible for me to get at any sort of truth.
M. Vernes bore my imputation with an equanimity which would have been more than astonishing in a man who did not deserve it, especially considering the fury he had displayed hitherto. He wrote me two or three very carefully worded letters whose purpose, as it seemed to me, was to discover from my answers just how much I knew, and whether I had any proofs against him. I wrote him two short and cold replies, severely phrased but perfectly polite in their language, and he did not get at all annoyed. When his third letter arrived I saw that he was trying to start some kind of correspondence and did not reply to it. He then asked d’lvernois to speak to me. Mme Cramer wrote to Du Peyrou that she was sure the pamphlet was not by Vernes. None of this shook my conviction. But as, after all, I could be mistaken, and as in that case I owed Vernes an explicit apology, I sent him a message by d’lvernois that I would make him one which would amply satisfy him, if he could tell me the real author of the libel, or at least prove to me that it was not he. I went further; conscious that, after all, if he was not guilty I had no right to require of him that he should prove anything, I resolved to set out in a far longer memoir the reasons for my belief and to submit them to the decision of an umpire to whom Vernes could not take exception. No one would guess the umpire I chose: it was the Council of Geneva. I declared at the end of this memoir that if, after having examined it and made such inquiries as it should think necessary – which it was in a good position to do with success – the Council should declare that Vernes was not the author of the libel, from that moment I would sincerely renounce my belief that he was, would go and throw myself at his feet, and continue to beg for his pardon until I received it. I dare affirm that never did my burning desire for impartiality, never did uprightness or the generosity of my soul, never did my confidence in that spirit of justice innate in every heart, show themselves more plainly, more palpably than in that wise and affecting memoir in which I unhesitatingly chose my most implacable enemies as arbitrators between my libeller and myself. I read this composition to Du Peyrou, who advised me to suppress it, and I did so. He counselled me to wait for the proofs that Vernes promised me; I waited, and I am waiting still. He counselled me to keep silence in the meantime; I was silent and I shall be silent for the rest of my life under the imputation of having brought against Vernes a serious, false, and unproven charge, though I remain as firmly convinced and persuaded in my heart as I am of my own existence that he is the author of the libel. My memoir is in M. Du Peyrou’s possession. If ever it sees the light my reasons will be found in it, and the heart of Jean-Jacques, which my contemporaries have been so unwilling to recognize, will then, I hope, be understood.
It is time to come to my catastrophe at Motiers and to my departure from the Val-de-Travers after a residence of two and a half years, and after eight months of unshakeable firmness in the face of the most humiliating treatment. I find it impossible clearly to remember the details of that unpleasant era. But they will be found in the account published by Du Peyrou of which I shall have to speak later.
After Mme de Verdelin’s departure the excitement became more violent, and despite the King’s repeated injunctions, despite frequent orders from the Council of State, despite the precautions of the lord of the manor and the local magistrates, the people, seriously regarding me as Antichrist, and finding all their clamour ineffective, seemed at last about to resort to violence. Already stones bounced after me on the roads, thrown from rather too far off to hit me. Finally, on the, night of the Motiers fair, which is at the beginning of September, I was attacked in my home in such a way as to endanger the lives of its inhabitants.
At midnight I heard a loud noise in the gallery which ran along the back of the house. A hail of stones thrown against the window and the door which gave on to this gallery had fallen with such a clatter that my dog, who slept in the gallery and who had begun to bark
, was silent with fright and rushed into a corner, where he gnawed and scratched at the boards in his endeavour to escape. I was roused by the noise, and was just about to leave my room to visit the kitchen when a stone flung by a powerful hand smashed the kitchen window, flew across the room, broke open the door of my bedroom and fell at the foot of my bed, so that if I had been a second quicker it would have hit me in the stomach. I concluded that the noise had been made to rouse me, and the stone thrown to catch me as I came out. I rushed into the kitchen, where I found Thérèse, who had also got up and ran trembling towards me. We stood against the wall out of the line of the window, to avoid being hit by the stones, and to consider what we should do. For if we had run out to call for help we should have been stoned to death. Fortunately the maidservant of an old fellow who lived below me was woken by the noise and ran to call the lord of the manor, who lived next door. He jumped out of bed, hastily put on his dressing-gown, and instantly came with the watch, which was on patrol that night on account of the fair, and happened to be near. So shocked was the lord of the manor by the spectacle of the damage that he turned quite pale; and when he saw the quantity of stones in the gallery he cried: ‘Good God, it’s an absolute quarry!’ On inspecting the lower floor they found that the door into a small courtyard had been forced, and that somebody had tried to get into the house through the gallery. On their inquiring why the watch had neidier noticed nor prevented the tumult, it was discovered that the Motiers men had insisted on doing duty that night although it was another village’s turn. The next day the lord of the manor sent his report to the State Council, who sent him orders two days later to investigate the affair, and to offer a reward under promise of secrecy to anyone informing against the guilty parties. In the meantime he was to put a guard at the Prince’s expense on my house and on his own, which adjoined it. The next day Colonel de Pury, Meuron the public prosecutor, Martinet the lord of the manor, Guyenet the collector of taxes, d’lvernois the treasurer, and his father, in short all the important men in the district paid me a visit, and all together begged me to yield to the storm and, at least temporarily, to leave a parish in which I could no longer live in safety and honour. I saw that even M. Martinet was terrified by the frenzied fury of the populace and afraid that it might be turned against him too. I knew that he would be glad to see me depart immediately, so that he might be relieved of the difficulty of protecting me, and could leave the place himself, which he did as soon as I departed. I gave in, therefore, and I took very little persuading; for the spectacle of the people’s hatred caused me such anguish that it was more than I could bear.
I had more than one place of retreat open to me. Since her return to Paris, Mme de Verdelin had mentioned in several of her letters a Mr Walpole, whom she called Milord, who showed great concern for me, and offered me a refuge on one of his estates, of which she sent me the most attractive description, entering into such details in regard to board and lodging that I could see how interested she and this Lord Walpole were in the proposition. My Lord Marshal had always advised me to go to England or Scotland, and had also offered me a home on his estates, but he offered me an alternative which tempted me far more, at Potsdam, not far from his residence. He had just informed me of a suggestion that the King had made on my behalf, and which almost amounted to an invitation; and the Duchess of Saxe-Gotha felt so sure that I should accept that she wrote pressing me to visit her on my way, and to spend some time with her. But I was so fond of Switzerland that I could not make up my mind to leave it so long as it was possible to live there; and I took this opportunity to carry out a plan which I had been considering for several months, but which I have not yet been able to mention, for fear of interrupting the thread of my story.
This plan was to go and settle on the island of Saint-Pierre, which belonged to the hospital of Berne and lay in the middle of the lake of Bienne. I had visited the island on a walking tour that I had made in the previous summer with Du Peyrou; and I had been so enchanted with it that from that moment I had thought continuously about some way of setting up house there. The greatest obstacle was that the island belonged to the Bernese, who had disgracefully driven me from their territory three years before; and not only did it hurt my pride to go back among people who had given me such a bad reception, but I had reason to fear that they would allow me no more peace on that island than they had at Yverdun. I had consulted my Lord Marshal on the point; and he thought, as I did, that the Bernese would be delighted to see me banished to that island, and to hold me there as a hostage for any further works I might be tempted to write. He had sounded them on the subject through a M. Sturler, his former neighbour at Colombier. M. Sturler made inquiries from various leading officials and, on the basis of their replies, assured my Lord Marshal that the Bernese were ashamed of their past conduct, and would be most delighted to see me living on the island on Saint-Pierre, where they would leave me in peace. As an additional precaution, before I risked taking up residence there, I made fresh inquiries through Colonel Chaillet, who confirmed these assurances. So when the receiver of taxes for the island obtained his principals’ permission to receive me into his house, I considered that I was taking no risk in going to stay there, with the tacit consent both of the authorities and the owners. For I could not suppose that the gentlemen of Berne would publicly acknowledge the injustice they had done me, and so offend against the most inviolable principles of all rulers.
The island of Saint-Pierre, known in Neuchâtel as the Île de la Motte, lies in the middle of the Lake of Bienne and is about a Mlle and a half in circumference. But in that small space it produces all the chief necessities for existence. It has fields, meadows, orchards, woods, vineyards; and all this, thanks to the diversified and hilly nature of the ground, provides a most pleasing variety of landscape. For its different parts, which cannot all be seen at the same time, form a pleasing contrast to one another, and make the island seem larger than it really is. The western part, which looks over to Gleresse and Bonneville, is formed by a very high terrace. This has been planted with a long avenue, broken in the middle by a large hall in which all the inhabitants of the neighbouring shores gather on Sundays during the grape harvest to dance and enjoy themselves. There is only one house on the island, where the receiver lives. But it is large and comfortable, and situated in a hollow which protects it from the wind.
Five or six hundred yards to the south of the island is another, much smaller, which is uncultivated and uninhabited, and appears to have been broken away at some time from the larger one by storms. Its gravelly soil produces nothing but willows and persicaria; it has, however, one considerable eminence, which is grassy and very pleasant. The shape of the lake is almost a regular oval. Its shores are less fertile than those of the lakes of Geneva or Neuchâtel, but form, all the same, a most decorative landscape, particularly on the western side, which is thickly inhabited and edged with vineyards lying at the foot of a chain of mountains, very much as at Côte-Rôtie,* though they do not give as good wine. Going from south to north one passes through the townships of Saint-Jean, Bonneville, Bienne, and Nidau, which last is at the end of the lake, and between them lie some very pleasant villages.
Such was the retreat that I had contrived for myself, and in which I resolved to settle on leaving the Val-de-Travers.† This choice was so much in keeping with my peaceful tastes and with my solitary, indolent disposition, that I think of it as one of those sweet dreams for which I have felt the most enthusiasm. It seemed to me that on that island I should be further removed from men, safer from their insults, and more forgotten by them; freer, in a word, to surrender to the pleasures of idleness and the contemplative life. I should have liked to be so cut off on that island as to have no more traffic with mortal men; and I certainly took every possible precaution to excuse myself from the necessity of any intercourse with them.
The question was how to live; and the high price of provisions and the difficulties of transport made living dear on the island, where one i
s, moreover, at the mercy of the receiver. This difficulty was solved by an arrangement which Du Peyrou was so kind as to make with me, whereby he took over the obligations of the company which had undertaken and abandoned the publication of my complete works. I gave him all the necessary materials, and myself undertook the arrangements and the distribution. I also agreed to hand him the memoirs of my life, and I made him general trustee for all my papers, under the express condition that he should make no use of them till after my death, since I had set my heart on ending my days in peace and giving the public no further reminder of my existence. The annuity which he promised to pay me in return for this was enough for me to live on. My Lord Marshal, who had recovered all his property, offered me a further 1200 francs a year, only half of which I accepted. He wanted to send me the capital, which I refused, having no idea how to invest it. He, therefore, handed the sum over to Du Peyrou, in whose hands it has remained, and who has paid me the annuity on the terms agreed between himself and the donor. Reckoning the proceeds of my agreement with Du Peyrou, my Lord Marshal’s pension – of which two-thirds would revert to Thérèse after my death – and the annual sum of three hundred francs which I received from Duchesne, I could count on a decent subsistence for myself and, after me, for Thérèse, to whom I left an income of 700 francs, from Rey’s pension together with my Lord Marshal’s. So I had no longer any cause to fear that she would lack for bread any more than I. But it was decreed that I should be compelled by honour to reject all the resources that fortune and my own labours brought within my reach, and that I should die as poor as I had lived. The reader shall judge whether without sinking to the lowest depths of infamy I could have adhered to arrangements deliberately designed to humiliate me, by people who have each time carefully deprived me of all other resources, in order to compel me to consent to my dishonour. How could they have been in any doubt as to the choice I should make in this dilemma? They have always judged my heart by their own.