Years afterwards he asked himself why he could not enclose with a golden balustrade the happy spot where first he saw her and render it the object of universal veneration.
To many much of the spell of Switzerland comes from the magic of Rousseau’s love for the fair and facile deserter and from the immortal romance in which as Saint-Preux and Julie their idealized amour lived again. She must not escape us thus: we shall learn more of her in another place.
Rousseau declared that he expected to find a devout and forbidding old woman; instead he “saw a face beaming with charms, fine blue eyes full of sweetness, a complexion which dazzled the sight, the lovely lines of an enchanting bosom” and he was henceforth hers. She put him immediately at his ease and sent him a little later to Turin, where he felt himself constrained to sell his religion: it was at the price of his self-respect, but he did many things at that price first and last. More important in his development was his acquaintance with the Abbé Gaime, who, like so many abbés, was a deist and did not believe in supernatural revelation or in the miracles; but he seems to have been a man of high character whose principles often kept Rousseau from regrettable acts.
After his disappointing experiences in Turin, as draughtsman, footman, clerk, beggarman, thief, he returned to Annecy. Madame de Warens asked her cousin, M. d’Aubonne, “a man of great understanding and cleverness,” but an adventurer, to examine Rousseau as to whether it were best for him to be a merchant or an abbé or an engineer. Rousseau says: “The result of his observations was that, notwithstanding the animation of my countenance and promising exterior, I was, if not absolutely silly, at least a lad of very little sense and wholly lacking original ideas or learning.”
Later M. d’Aubonne lost his position through having paid too violent attention to the wife of the intendant, and out of revenge he wrote a comedy which he sent to Madame de Warens. “Let us see if I am as stupid as M. d’Aubonne insists I am,” cried Rousseau. “I am going to make a play like his.”
He did so. It was entitled, “Narcisse ou l’Amour de Lui-même.” Eighteen years later he had it played at Paris but it fell flat. Rousseau left the theatre, went to the Café Procope, the rendezvous of all the wits, and exclaimed—“The new piece has failed; it deserved to fail; it bored me; it is by Rousseau of Geneva and I am Rousseau.”
FRIBOURG.
Perhaps, after all, the most comical episode in Rousseau’s life took place in Lausanne.
It was in 1732. He had been on a trip to Fribourg, on foot, for he was fond of walking, even when he was so troubled with corns that he had to step on his heels. Instead of returning by way of Nyon he proceeded along the north shore, wishing to revel in the view of the lake, which is seen in its greatest extent at Lausanne. Then the brilliant idea seized him to pass himself off for a music-teacher, just as his friend Venture had done on arriving at Annecy. He describes the adventure at some length in his memoirs as follows:—