Of course we cannot be sure that Grimm did not manipulate these letters long after the event, but there is nothing in Rousseau’s history to make us perfectly sure that he was incapable either of telling a falsehood to Madame d’Epinay, or of being shamelessly selfish in respect of Diderot.  I see no reason to refuse substantial credit to Grimm’s account, and the points of coincidence between that and the Confessions make its truth probable.[296]

Rousseau’s relations with Madame d’Epinay were more complex, and his sentiments towards her underwent many changes.  There was a prevalent opinion that he was her lover, for which no real foundation seems to have existed.[297] Those who disbelieved that he had reached this distinction, yet made sure that he had a passion for her, which may or may not have been true.[298] Madame d’Epinay herself was vain enough to be willing that this should be generally accepted, and it is certain that she showed a friendship for him which, considering the manners of the time, was invitingly open to misconception.  Again, she was jealous of her sister-in-law, Madame d’Houdetot, if for no other reason than that the latter, being the wife of a Norman noble, had access to the court, and this was unattainable by the wife of a farmer-general.  Hence Madame d’Epinay’s barely-concealed mortification when she heard of the meetings in the forest, the private suppers, the moonlight rambles in the park.  When Saint Lambert first became uneasy as to the relations between Rousseau and his mistress, and wrote to her to say that he was so, Rousseau instantly suspected that Madame d’Epinay had been his informant.  Theresa confirmed the suspicion by tales of baskets and drawers ransacked by Madame d’Epinay in search of Madame d’Houdetot’s letters to him.  Whether these tales were true or not, we can never know; we can only say that Madame d’Epinay was probably not incapable of these meannesses, and that there is no reason to suppose that she took the pains to write directly to Saint Lambert a piece of news which she was writing to Grimm, knowing that he was then in communication with Saint Lambert.  She herself suspected that Theresa had written to Saint Lambert,[299] but it may be doubted whether Theresa’s imagination could have risen to such feat as writing to a marquis, and a marquis in what would have seemed to her to be remote and inaccessible parts of the earth.  All this, however, has become ghostly for us; a puzzle that can never be found out, nor be worth finding out.  Rousseau was persuaded that Madame d’Epinay was his betrayer, and was seized by one of his blackest and most stormful moods.  In reply to an affectionate letter from her, inquiring why she had not seen him for so long, he wrote thus:  “I can say nothing to you yet.  I wait until I am better informed, and this I shall be sooner or later.  Meanwhile, be certain that accused innocence will find a champion ardent enough to make calumniators repent, whoever they may