She has discovered the manuscript from which the Memoires were printed, and she has examined the original draft of this manuscript, which had been unearthed some years ago, but whose full import had been unaccountably neglected by previous scholars.  From these researches, two facts have come to light.  In the first place, the manuscript differs in many respects from the printed book, and, in particular, contains a conclusion of two hundred sheets, which has never been printed at all; the alterations were clearly made in order to conceal the inaccuracies of the manuscript; and the omitted conclusion is frankly and palpably a fiction.  And in the second place, the original draft of the manuscript turns out to be the work of several hands; it contains, especially in those portions which concern Rousseau, many erasures, corrections, and notes, while several pages have been altogether cut out; most of the corrections were made by Madame d’Epinay herself; but in nearly every case these corrections carry out the instructions in the notes; and the notes themselves are in the handwriting of Diderot and Grimm.  Mrs. Macdonald gives several facsimiles of pages in the original draft, which amply support her description of it; but it is to be hoped that before long she will be able to produce a new and complete edition of the Memoires, with all the manuscript alterations clearly indicated; for until then it will be difficult to realise the exact condition of the text.  However, it is now beyond dispute both that Madame d’Epinay’s narrative cannot be regarded as historically accurate, and that its agreement with the statements of Grimm and Diderot is by no means an independent confirmation of its truth, for Grimm and Diderot themselves had a hand in its compilation.

Thus far we are on firm ground.  But what are the conclusions which Mrs. Macdonald builds up from these foundations?  The account, she says, of Rousseau’s conduct and character, as it appears in the printed version, is hostile to him, but it was not the account which Madame d’Epinay herself originally wrote.  The hostile narrative was, in effect, composed by Grimm and Diderot, who induced Madame d’Epinay to substitute it for her own story; and thus her own story could not have agreed with theirs.  Madame d’Epinay knew the truth; she knew that Rousseau’s conduct had been honourable and wise; and so she had described it in her book; until, falling completely under the influence of Grimm and Diderot, she had allowed herself to become the instrument for blackening the reputation of her old friend.  Mrs. Macdonald paints a lurid picture of the conspirators at work—­of Diderot penning his false and malignant instructions, of Madame d’Epinay’s half-unwilling hand putting the last touches to the fraud, of Grimm, rushing back to Paris at the time of the Revolution, and risking his life in order to make quite certain that the result of all these efforts should reach posterity.  Well!