Rousseau Part 25

[128] Moultou to Rousseau, Streckeisen, i. 85, 87.

[129] Streckeisen, i. 50.

[130] _Ib._, i. 76.

[131] _Lettre a Christophe de Beaumont_, pp. 163-166.

[132] _Lettre a Christophe de Beaumont_, pp. 130-135.

[133] _Lettre a Christophe de Beaumont_, p. 93.

[134] Carlyle's _Frederick_, Bk. xxi. ch. iv. Rousseau, _Corr._, iii.

102.

[135] _Corr._, iii. 57. Nov. 1762. To M. Montmollin.

[136] _Conf._, xii. 206.

[137] _Conf._, xii. 198.

[138] _Corr._, iii. 295. Dec. 25, 1763.

[139] Quoted in Musset-Pathay, ii. 500.

[140] For instance, _Corr._, iii. 249.

[141] _Ib._, iii. 364, 381.

[142] _Corr._, iii. 181-186, etc.

[143] Prince Lewis Eugene, son of Charles Alexander (reigning duke from 1733 to 1737); a younger brother of Charles Eugene, known as Schiller's Duke of Wurtemberg, who reigned up to 1793. Frederick Eugene, known in the Seven Years' War, was another brother. Rousseau's correspondent became reigning duke in 1793, but only lived a year and a half afterwards.

[144] _Corr._, iii. 250. Sept. 29, 1763.

[145] The prince's letters are given in the Streckeisen collection, vol. ii.

[146] Streckeisen, ii. 202.

[147] Possibly Wilkes also; _Corr._, iv. 200.

[148] Streckeisen, i. 89. June 1, 1763.

[149] _Corr._, iii. 202. June 4, 1763.

[150] _Memoirs of my Life_, p. 55, _n._ (Ed. 1862). Necker (1732-1804), whom Mdlle. Curchod ultimately married, was an eager admirer of Rousseau. "Ah, how close the tender, humane, and virtuous soul of Julie," he wrote to her author, "has brought me to you. How the reading of those letters gratified me! how many good emotions did they stir or fortify! How many sublimities in a thousand places in these six volumes; not the sublimity that perches itself in the clouds, but that which pushes everyday virtues to their highest point," and so on. Feb. 16, 1761. Streckeisen, i. 333.

[151] Boswell's name only occurs twice in Rousseau's letters, I believe; once (_Corr._, iv. 394) as the writer of a letter which Hume was suspected of tampering with, and previously (iv. 70) as the bearer of a letter. See also Streckeisen, i. 262.

[152] Streckeisen, ii. 111. Jan. 18, 1765.

[153] Bk. ii. ch. x.

[154] Boswell's _Account of Corsica_, p. 367.

[155] The correspondence between Rousseau and b.u.t.tafuoco has been published in the _Oeuvres et Corr. Inedites de J.J.R._, 1861. See pp.

35, 43, etc.

[156] Boswell's _Life_, 179, 193, etc. (Ed. 1866).

[157] _"Je suis tout homme de pouvoir vous regarder avec pitie!"_ Letter dated Jan. 4, 1766, and given by Musset-Pathay as from a Scotch lord, unnamed. Boswell had the honour of conducting Theresa to England, after Hume had taken Rousseau over. "This young gentleman,"

writes Hume, "very good-humoured, very agreeable, and very mad--has such a rage for literature that I dread some circ.u.mstance fatal to our friend's honour. You remember the story of Terentia, who was first married to Cicero, then to Sall.u.s.t, and at last in her old age married a young n.o.bleman, who imagined that she must possess some secret which would convey to him eloquence and genius." Burton's _Life_, ii. 307, 308. Boswell mentions that he met Rousseau in England (_Account of Corsica_, p. 340), and also gives Rousseau's letter introducing him to Paoli (p. 266).

[158] To b.u.t.tafuoco, p. 48, etc.

[159] _Corr._, vi. 176. Feb. 26, 1770.

[160] It may be worth noticing, as a link between historic personages, that Napoleon Bonaparte's first piece was a _Lettre a Matteo b.u.t.tafuoco_ (1791), the same b.u.t.tafuoco with whom Rousseau corresponded, who had been Choiseul's agent in the union of the island to France, was afterwards sent as deputy to the Const.i.tuent, and finally became the bitterest enemy of Paoli and the patriotic party.

[161] _Corr._, iii. 190. To the First Syndic, May 12, 1763.

[162] Grimm's _Corr. Lit._, iv. 235. For Rousseau's opinion of his book's companion at the stake, see _Corr._, iii. 442.

[163] Streckeisen, ii. 526.

[164] There appears to be no doubt that Rousseau was wrong in attributing to Vernes the _Sentimens des Citoyens_.

[165] _Corr._, iv. 116, 122 (April 1765), 165-196 (August); also _Conf._, xii. 245.

[166] Note to M. Auguis's edition, _Corr._, v. 395.

[167] _Corr._, iv. 204.

[168] _Conf._, xii. 259. This lapidation has sometimes been doubted, and treated as an invention of Rousseau's morbid suspicion. The official doc.u.ments prove that his account was substantially true (see Musset-Pathay, ii. 559.)

[169] The fifth of the _Reveries_. See also _Conf._, 262-279, and _Corr._, iv. 206-224. His stay in the island was from the second week in September down to the last in October, 1765.

[170] _Corr._, iv. 221. Oct. 20, 1765.

[171] _Ib._, iv. 136, etc. April 27, 1765.

[172] Streckeisen-Moultou, ii. 209, 212.

[173] _Ib._, ii. 554.

[174] He arrived at Strasburg on the 2d or 3d of November, left it about the end of the first week in December, and arrived in Paris on the 16th of December 1765. A sort of apocryphal tradition is said to linger in the island about Rousseau's last evening on the island, how after supper he called for a lute, and sang some pa.s.sably bad verses.

See M. Bougy's _J.J. Rousseau_, p. 179 (Paris: 1853.)

[175] Madame de Verdelin to J.J.R. Streckeisen, ii. 532. The minister even expressed his especial delight at being able to serve Rousseau, so little seriousness was there now in the formalities of absolution.