In July 1770, he made his way to Paris, and here he remained eight years longer, not without the introduction of a certain degree of order into his outer life, though the clouds of vague suspicion and distrust, half bitter, half mournful, hung heavily as ever upon his mind. The Dialogues, which he wrote at this period (1775-76) to vindicate his memory from the defamation that was to be launched in a dark torrent upon the world at the moment of his death, could not possibly have been written by a man in his right mind. Yet the best of the Musings, which were written still nearer the end, are masterpieces in the style of contemplative prose. The third, the fifth, the seventh, especially abound in that even, full, mellow gravity of tone which is so rare in literature, because the deep absorption of spirit which is its source is so rare in life. They reveal Rousseau to us with a truth beyond that attained in any of his other pieces—a mournful sombre figure, looming shadowily in the dark glow of sundown among sad and desolate places. There is nothing like them in the French tongue, which is the speech of the clear, the cheerful, or the august among men; nothing like this sonorous plainsong, the strangely melodious expression in the music of prose of a darkened spirit which yet had imaginative visions of beatitude.
It is interesting to look on one or two pictures of the last waste and obscure years of the man, whose words were at this time silently fermenting for good and for evil in many spirits—a Schiller, a Herder, a Jeanne Phlipon, a Robespierre, a Gabriel Mirabeau, and many hundreds of those whose destiny was not to lead, but ingenuously to follow. Rousseau seems to have repulsed nearly all his ancient friends, and to have settled down with dogged resolve to his old trade of copying music. In summer he rose at five, copied music until half-past seven; munched his breakfast, arranging on paper during the process such plants as he had gathered the previous afternoon; then he returned to his work, dined at half-past twelve, and went forth to take coffee at some public place. He would not return from his walk until nightfall, and he retired at half-past ten. The pavements of Paris were hateful to him because they tore his feet, and, said he, with deeply significant antithesis, "I am not afraid of death, but I dread pain." He always found his way as fast as possible to one of the suburbs, and one of his greatest delights was to watch Mont Valérien in the sunset. "Atheists," he said calumniously, "do not love the country; they like the environs of Paris, where you have all the pleasures of the city, good cheer, books, pretty women; but if you take these things away, then they die of weariness." The note of every bird held him attentive, and filled his mind with delicious images. A graceful story is told of two swallows who made a nest in Rousseau's sleeping-room, and hatched the eggs there. "I was no more than a doorkeeper for them," he said, "for I kept opening the window for them every moment. They used to fly with a great stir round my head, until I had fulfilled the duties of the tacit convention between these swallows and me."
In January 1771, Bernardin de St. Pierre, author of the immortal Paul and Virginia (1788), finding himself at the Cape of Good Hope, wrote to a friend in France just previously to his return to Europe, counting among other delights that of seeing two summers in one year.[392] Rousseau happened to see the letter, and expressed a desire to make the acquaintance of a man who in returning home should think of that as one of his chief pleasures. To this we owe the following pictures of an interior from St. Pierre's hand:—
In the month of June in 1772, a friend having offered to take me to see Jean Jacques Rousseau, he brought me to a house in the Rue Plâtrière, nearly opposite to the Hôtel de la Poste. We mounted to the fourth story. We knocked, and Madame Rousseau opened the door. "Come in, gentlemen," she said, "you will find my husband." We passed through a very small antechamber, where the household utensils were neatly arranged, and from that into a room where Jean Jacques was seated in an overcoat and a white cap, busy copying music. He rose with a smiling face, offered us chairs, and resumed his work, at the same time taking a part in conversation. He was thin and of middle height. One shoulder struck me as rather higher than the other ... otherwise he was very well proportioned. He had a brown complexion, some colour on his cheek-bones, a good mouth, a well-made nose, a rounded and lofty brow, and eyes full of fire. The oblique lines falling from the nostrils to the extremity of the lips, and marking a physiognomy, in his case expressed great sensibility and something even painful. One observed in his face three or four of the characteristics of melancholy—the deep receding eyes and the elevation of the eyebrows; you saw profound sadness in the wrinkles of the brow; a keen and even caustic gaiety in a thousand little creases at the corners of the eyes, of which the orbits entirely disappeared when he laughed.... Near him was a spinette on which from time to time he tried an air. Two little beds of blue and white striped calico, a table, and a few chairs, made the stock of his furniture. On the walls hung a plan of the forest and park of Montmorency, where he had once lived, and an engraving of the King of England, his old benefactor. His wife was sitting mending linen; a canary sang in a cage hung from the ceiling; sparrows came for crumbs on to the sills of the windows, which on the side of the street were open; while in the window of the antechamber we noticed boxes and pots filled with such plants as it pleases nature to sow. There was in the whole effect of his little establishment an air of cleanness, peace, and simplicity, which was delightful.
A few days after, Rousseau returned the visit. "He wore a round wig, well powdered and curled, carrying a hat under his arm, and in a full suit of nankeen. His whole exterior was modest, but extremely neat." He expressed his passion for good coffee, saying that this and ice were the only two luxuries for which he cared. St. Pierre happened to have brought some from the Isle of Bourbon, so on the following day he rashly sent Rousseau a small packet, which at first produced a polite letter of thanks; but the day after the letter of thanks came one of harsh protest against the ignominy of receiving presents which could not be returned, and bidding the unfortunate donor to choose between taking his coffee back or never seeing his new friend again. A fair bargain was ultimately arranged, St. Pierre receiving in exchange for his coffee some curious root or other, and a book on ichthyology. Immediately afterwards he went to dine with his sage. He arrived at eleven in the forenoon, and they conversed until half-past twelve.
Then his wife laid the cloth. He took a bottle of wine, and as he put it on the table, asked whether we should have enough, or if I was fond of drinking. "How many are there of us," said I. "Three," he said; "you, my wife, and myself." "Well," I went on, "when I drink wine and am alone, I drink a good half-bottle, and I drink a trifle more when I am with friends." "In that case," he answered, "we shall not have enough; I must go down into the cellar." He brought up a second bottle. His wife served two dishes, one of small tarts, and another which was covered. He said, showing me the first, "That is your dish and the other is mine." "I don't eat much pastry," I said, "but I hope to be allowed to taste what you have got." "Oh, they are both common," he replied; "but most people don't care for this. 'Tis a Swiss dish; a compound of lard, mutton, vegetables, and chestnuts." It was excellent. After these two dishes, we had slices of beef in salad; then biscuits and cheese; after which his wife served the coffee.
One morning when I was at his house, I saw various domestics either coming for rolls of music, or bringing them to him to copy. He received them standing and uncovered. He said to some, "The price is so much," and received the money; to others, "How soon must I return my copy?" "My mistress would like to have it back in a fortnight." "Oh, that's out of the question: I have work, I can't do it in less than three weeks." I inquired why he did not take his talents to better market. "Ah," he answered, "there are two Rousseaus in the world; one rich, or who might have been if he had chosen; a man capricious, singular, fantastic; this is the Rousseau of the public; the other is obliged to work for his living, the Rousseau whom you see."[393]
They often took long rambles together, and all proceeded most harmoniously, unless St. Pierre offered to pay for such refreshment as they might take, when a furious explosion was sure to follow. Here is one more picture, without explosion.