The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Volume 10 — Jean-Jacques Rousseau — John Shaqi
The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Volume 10
Jean-Jacques Rousseau · en
"I love you not, sir; you have done me, your disciple and enthusiastic
admirer; injuries which might have caused me the most exquisite pain.
You have ruined Geneva, in return for the asylum it has afforded you;
you have alienated from me my fellow-citizens, in return for eulogiums I
made of you amongst them; it is you who render to me the residence of my
own country insupportable; it is you who will oblige me to die in a
foreign land, deprived of all the consolations usually administered to a
dying person; and cause me, instead of receiving funeral rites, to be
thrown to the dogs, whilst all the honors a man can expect will accompany
you in my country. Finally I hate you because you have been desirous I
should but I hate you as a man more worthy of loving you had you chosen
it. Of all the sentiments with which my heart was penetrated for you,
admiration, which cannot be refused your fine genius, and a partiality to
your writings, are those you have not effaced. If I can honor nothing in
you except your talents, the fault is not mine. I shall never be wanting
in the respect due to them, nor in that which this respect requires."
In the midst of these little literary cavillings, which still fortified
my resolution, I received the greatest honor letters ever acquired me,
and of which I was the most sensible, in the two visits the Prince of
Conti deigned to make to me, one at the Little Castle and the other at
Mont Louis. He chose the time for both of these when M. de Luxembourg
was not at Montmorency, in order to render it more manifest that he came
there solely on my account. I have never had a doubt of my owing the
first condescensions of this prince to Madam de Luxembourg and Madam de
Boufflers; but I am of opinion I owe to his own sentiments and to myself
those with which he has since that time continually honored me.
[Remark the perseverance of this blind and stupid confidence in the
midst of all the treatment which should soonest have undeceived me.
It continued until my return to Paris in 1770.]
My apartments at Mont Louis being small, and the situation of the alcove
charming, I conducted the prince to it, where, to complete the
condescension he was pleased to show me, he chose I should have the honor
of playing with him a game of chess. I knew he beat the Chevalier de
Lorenzy, who played better than I did. However, notwithstanding the
signs and grimace of the chevalier and the spectators, which I feigned
not to see, I won the two games we played: When they were ended, I said
to him in a respectful but very grave manner: "My lord, I honor your
serene highness too much not to beat you always at chess." This great
prince, who had real wit, sense, and knowledge, and so was worthy not to
be treated with mean adulation, felt in fact, at least I think so, that I
was the only person present who treated him like a man, and I have every
reason to believe he was not displeased with me for it.