[76] Madame de Vandeul’s Mem. sur Diderot, p. 27.  Rousseau, Conf., vii. 130.

[77] Nouv.  Hel., V. xiii. 194. Conf., x. 43.

[78] The reader will find a fuller mention of the French book trade in my Diderot, ch. vi.

[79] Conf., xi. 127.

[80] See a letter from Rousseau to Malesherbes, Nov. 5, 1760. Corr., ii. 157.

[81] Corr., ii. 157.

[82] C.G. de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (p. 1721—­guillotined, 1794), son of the chancellor, and one of the best instructed and most enlightened men of the century—­a Turgot of the second rank—­was Directeur de la Librairie from 1750-1763.  The process was this:  a book was submitted to him; he named a censor for it; on the censor’s report the director gave or refused permission to print, or required alterations.  Even after these formalities were complied with, the book was liable to a decree of the royal council, a decree of the parliament, or else a lettre-de-cachet might send the author to the Bastile.  See Barbier, vii. 126.

After Lord Shelburne saw Malesherbes, he said, “I have seen for the first time in my life what I never thought could exist—­a man whose soul is absolutely free from hope or fear, and yet who is full of life and ardour.”  Mdlle.  Lespinasse’s Lettres, 90.

[83] See note, p. 132.

[84] Conf., xi. 134.

[85] Conf., xi. 139.

[86] Ib., xi. 139. Corr., ii. 270, etc.  Dec. 12, 1761, etc.

[87] Conf., xi. 150.

[88] Fourth Letter to Malesherbes, p. 377.

[89] With one trifling exception, the Letter to Grimm on the Opera of Omphale (1752):  Ecrits sur la Musique, p. 337.

[90] See Barbier’s Journal, viii. 45 (Ed. Charpentier, 1857).  A succinct contemporary account of the general situation is to be found in D’Alembert’s little book, the Destruction des Jesuites.

[91] Grimm, for instance:  Corr.  Lit., iii. 117.

[92] Corr., ii. 337.  June 7, 1672. Conf., xi. 152, 162.

[93] Conf., xi. 162.  The Levite’s story is to be read in Judges, ch. xix.

CHAPTER II.

PERSECUTION.[94]

Those to whom life consists in the immediate consciousness of their own direct relations with the people and circumstances that are in close contact with them, find it hard to follow the moods of a man to whom such consciousness is the least part of himself, and such relations the least real part of his life.  Rousseau was no sooner in the post-chaise which was bearing him away towards Switzerland, than the troubles of the previous day at once dropped into a pale and distant past, and he returned to a world where was neither parliament, nor decree for burning books, nor any warrant for personal arrest.  He took