On his arrival in France his restless and wandering disposition forced him continually to change his residence, and acquired for him the title of “Voyageur Perpetuel.”  While at Trye, in Gisors, in 1767—­8, he wrote the second part of the Confessions.  He had assumed the surname of Renou, and about this time he declared before two witnesses that Therese was his wife—­a proceeding to which he attached the sanctity of marriage.  In 1770 he took up his abode in Paris, where he lived continuously for seven years, in a street which now bears his name, and gained a living by copying music.  Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the author of ’Paul and Virginia’, who became acquainted with him in 1772, has left some interesting particulars of Rousseau’s daily mode of life at this period.  Monsieur de Girardin having offered him an asylum at Ermemonville in the spring of 1778, he and Therese went thither to reside, but for no long time.  On the 3d of July, in the same year, this perturbed spirit at last found rest, stricken by apoplexy.  A rumor that he had committed suicide was circulated, but the evidence of trustworthy witnesses, including a physician, effectually contradicts this accusation.  His remains, first interred in the Ile des Peupliers, were, after the Revolution, removed to the Pantheon.  In later times the Government of Geneva made some reparation for their harsh treatment of a famous citizen, and erected his statue, modelled by his compatriot, Pradier, on an island in the Rhone.

“See nations, slowly wise and meanly just,
To buried merit raise the tardy bust.”

November, 1896. 
                                             S. W. Orson.

Theconfessions

Of

J. J. Rousseau

BOOK I.

I have entered upon a performance which is without example, whose accomplishment will have no imitator.  I mean to present my fellow-mortals with a man in all the integrity of nature; and this man shall be myself.

I know my heart, and have studied mankind; I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely in breaking the mould with which she formed me, can only be determined after having read this work.

Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself before the sovereign judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim, thus have I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I. With equal freedom and veracity have I related what was laudable or wicked, I have concealed no crimes, added no virtues; and if I have sometimes introduced superfluous ornament, it was merely to occupy a void occasioned by defect of memory:  I may have supposed that certain, which I only knew to be probable, but have never asserted as truth, a conscious falsehood.  Such as I was, I have declared myself; sometimes vile and despicable, at others, virtuous, generous and sublime; even as thou hast read my inmost soul:  Power eternal! assemble round thy throne an innumerable throng of my fellow-mortals, let them listen to my confessions, let them blush at my depravity, let them tremble at my sufferings; let each in his turn expose with equal sincerity the failings, the wanderings of his heart, and, if he dare, aver, I was better than that man.