The cause of his suicide, if he really committed it, must be found in his perpetual physical sufferings, in his weariness of life, and in the accesses of insanity with which he was certainly sometimes visited: to this M. de Corancez adds a discovery of the worthless character of Thérèse. The last is merely conjecture. She married a groom of M. Girardin, a year after her husband's death; and he gives her credit for a criminal intercourse with this man, discovered by Rousseau, during his life. His existence had become a dream of bodily and mental suffering; and whether the disease that preyed on him affected his brain with death, or excited him to arm himself against his own life, is a secret difficult to penetrate. The latter seems most probable. He died peacefully, and the heart that had beat so wildly, and the brain pregnant with an ardent love of truth, and with so many wild delusions, were delivered over to the peace of the grave. As a protestant he could not be buried in sacred ground, he was therefore interred in the island of Poplars, in the gardens of Ermenonville. The funeral took place in the evening. The solitary spot shadowed over by trees, through whose foliage the moon shone, the calm of the evening hour, and the lonely grave, were in accordance with the singular but noble character of the man. On his tomb was inscribed-- ICI REPOSE L'HOMME DE LA NATURE ET DE LA VÉRITÉ. _Vitam impendere vero._ These last words he had adopted as his device. His grave ought to have been held sacred; but, in the rage for desecration that possessed the French at the period of the revolution, the body was exhumed and placed in the Pantheon. When the allies invaded France, out of respect for his memory, Ermenonville was exempted from contribution. Rousseau has described himself; but, though sincere in an unexampled degree, it is difficult to appreciate his character from the "Confessions." A recent writer, Barante, founding his opinion on this work, considers him a proud and envious egotist, full of vague aspirations after virtue, incapable of a virtuous deed; yet we find Saint Pierre, who knew him during the latter years of his life, when the struggle between circumstances and his disposition had ceased, and his character was formed, applaud his firm probity, his mild benevolence, his frankness and natural gaiety of heart. One fact stamps Rousseau with nobleness of soul. We turn to the pages of Voltaire's Correspondence, and find it full of the most vilifying and insolent epithets applied to his great contemporary--the opprobrium and insult with which he loads his name bearing the stamp of the impurity and arrogance of his own heart. Rousseau never spoke ill of Voltaire: when others dispraised, he defended him; this might be the result of pride, but it was a noble and generous pride.