I confess even that, as a stranger, and living in France, I found my situation very favorable in daring to speak the truth; well knowing that continuing, as I was determined to do, not to print anything in the kingdom without permission, I was not obliged to give to any person in it an account of my maxims nor of their publication elsewhere.I should have been less independent even at Geneva, where, in whatever place my books might have been printed, the magistrate had a right to criticise their contents.This consideration had greatly contributed to make me yield to the solicitations of Madam d'Epinay, and abandon the project of fixing my residence at Geneva.
I felt, as I have remarked in my Emilius, that unless an author be a man of intrigue, when he wishes to render his works really useful to any country whatsoever, he must compose them in some other.
What made me find my situation still more happy, was my being persuaded that the government of France would, perhaps, without looking upon me with a very favorable eye, make it a point to protect me, or at least not to disturb my tranquillity.It appeared to me a stroke of simple, yet dexterous policy, to make a merit of tolerating that which there was no means of preventing; since, had Ibeen driven from France, which was all government had the right to do, my work would still have been written, and perhaps with less reserve; whereas if I were left undisturbed, the author remained to answer for what he wrote, and a prejudice, general throughout all Europe, would be destroyed by acquiring the reputation of observing a proper respect for the rights of persons.
They who, by the event, shall judge I was deceived, may perhaps be deceived in their turn.In the storm which has since broken over my head, my books served as a pretense, but it was against my person that every shaft was directed.My persecutors gave themselves but little concern about the author, but they wished to ruin Jean-Jacques; and the greatest evil they found in my writings was the honor they might possibly do me.Let us not encroach upon the future.I do not know that this mystery, which is still one to me, will hereafter be cleared up to my readers; but had my avowed principles been of a nature to bring upon me the treatment I received, I should sooner have become their victim, since the work in which these principles are manifested with most courage, not to call it audacity, seemed to have had its effect previous to my retreat to the Hermitage, without Iwill not only say my having received the least censure, but without any steps having been taken to prevent the publication of it in France, where it was sold as publicly as in Holland.The New Eloisa afterwards appeared with the same facility, I dare add, with the same applause; and, what seems incredible, the profession of faith of this Eloisa at the point of death is exactly similar to that of the Savoyard vicar.Every strong idea in the Social Contract had been before published in the discourse on Inequality; and every bold opinion in Emilius previously found in Eloisa.This unrestrained freedom did not excite the least murmur against the first two works;therefore it was not that which gave cause to it against the latter.
Another undertaking much of the same kind, but of which the project was more recent, then engaged my attention: this was the extract of the works of the Abbe de Saint Pierre, of which, having been led away by the thread of my narrative, I have not hitherto been able to speak.The idea was suggested to me, after my return from Geneva, by the Abbe Mably, not immediately from himself, but by the interposition of Madam Dupin, who had some interest in engaging me to adopt it.She was one of the three or four pretty women of Paris, of whom the Abbe de Saint Pierre had been the spoiled child, and although she had not decidedly had the preference, she had at least partaken of it with Madam d'Aiguillon.She preserved for the memory of the good man a respect and an affection which did honor to them both; and her self-love would have been flattered by seeing the stillborn works of her friend brought to life by her secretary.
These works contained excellent things, but so badly told that the reading of them was almost insupportable; and it is astonishing the Abbe de Saint Pierre, who looked upon his readers as schoolboys, should nevertheless have spoken to them as men, by the little care he took to induce them to give him a hearing.It was for this purpose that the work was proposed to me as useful in itself, and very proper for a man laborious in maneuver, but idle as an author, who finding the trouble of thinking very fatiguing, preferred, in things which pleased him, throwing a light upon and extending the ideas of others, to producing any himself.Besides, not being confined to the function of a translator, I was at liberty sometimes to think for myself; and I had it in my power to give such a form to my work, that many important truths would pass in it under the name of the Abbe de Saint Pierre, much more safely than under mine.The undertaking also was not trifling; the business was nothing less than to read and meditate twenty-three volumes, diffuse, confused, full of long narrations and periods, repetitions, and false or little views, from amongst which it was necessary to select some few that were great and useful, and sufficiently encouraging to enable me to support the painful labor.I frequently wished to have given it up, and should have done so, could I have got it off my hands with a good grace;but when I received the manuscripts of the abbe, which were given me by his nephew, the Comte de Saint Pierre, I had, by the solicitation of St.Lambert, in some measure engaged to make use of them, which Imust either have done, or have given them back.It was with the former intention I had taken the manuscripts to the Hermitage, and this was the first work to which I proposed to dedicate my leisure hours.
