Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, the — Volume 09 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 132 pages of information about Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, the — Volume 09.

Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, the — Volume 09 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 132 pages of information about Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, the — Volume 09.

I remember having several years before been frequently told that Grimm was false, that he had nothing more than the appearance of sentiment, and particularly that he did not love me.  I recollected several little anecdotes which I had heard of him by M. de Francueil and Madam de Chenonceaux, neither of whom esteemed him, and to whom he must have been known, as Madam de Chenonceaux was daughter to Madam de Rochechouart, the intimate friend of the late Comte de Friese, and that M. de Francueil, at that time very intimate with the Viscount de Polignac, had lived a good deal at the Palais Royal precisely when Grimm began to introduce himself there.  All Paris heard of his despair after the death of the Comte de Friese.  It was necessary to support the reputation he had acquired after the rigors of Mademoiselle Fel, and of which I, more than any other person, should have seen the imposture, had I been less blind.  He was obliged to be dragged to the Hotel de Castries where he worthily played his part, abandoned to the most mortal affliction.  There, he every morning went into the garden to weep at his ease, holding before his eyes his handkerchief moistened with tears, as long as he was in sight of the hotel, but at the turning of a certain alley, people, of whom he little thought, saw him instantly put his handkerchief in his pocket and take out of it a book.  This observation, which was repeatedly made, soon became public in Paris, and was almost as soon forgotten.  I myself had forgotten it; a circumstance in which I was concerned brought it to my recollection.  I was at the point of death in my bed, in the Rue de Grenelle, Grimm was in the country; he came one morning, quite out of breath, to see me, saying, he had arrived in town that very instant; and a moment afterwards I learned he had arrived the evening before, and had been seen at the theatre.

I heard many things of the same kind; but an observation, which I was surprised not to have made sooner, struck me more than anything else.  I had given to Grimm all my friends without exception, they were become his.  I was so inseparable from him, that I should have had some difficulty in continuing to visit at a house where he was not received.  Madam de Crequi was the only person who refused to admit him into her company, and whom for that reason I have seldom since seen.  Grimm on his part made himself other friends, as well by his own means, as by those of the Comte de Friese.  Of all these not one of them ever became my friend:  he never said a word to induce me even to become acquainted with them, and not one of those I sometimes met at his apartments ever showed me the least good will; the Comte de Friese, in whose house he lived, and with whom it consequently would have been agreeable to me to form some connection, not excepted, nor the Comte de Schomberg, his relation, with whom Grimm was still more intimate.

Add to this, my own friends, whom I made his, and who were all tenderly attached to me before this acquaintance, were no longer so the moment it was made.  He never gave me one of his.  I gave him all mine, and these he has taken from me.  If these be the effects of friendship, what are those of enmity?

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