Produced by David Widger
THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
(In 12 books)
Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society
London, 1903
Although Eloisa, which for a long time had been in the press, did notyet, at the end of the year, 1760, appear, the work already began to makea great noise. Madam de Luxembourg had spoken of it at court, and Madamde Houdetot at Paris. The latter had obtained from me permission forSaint Lambert to read the manuscript to the King of Poland, who had beendelighted with it. Duclos, to whom I had also given the perusal of thework, had spoken of it at the academy. All Paris was impatient to seethe novel; the booksellers of the Rue Saint Jacques, and that of thePalais Royal, were beset with people who came to inquire when it was tobe published. It was at length brought out, and the success it had,answered, contrary to custom, to the impatience with which it had beenexpected. The dauphiness, who was one of the first who read it, spoke ofit to, M. de Luxembourg as a ravishing performance. The opinions of menof letters differed from each other, but in those of any other classapprobation was general, especially with the women, who became sointoxicated with the book and the author, that there was not one in highlife with whom I might not have succeeded had I undertaken to do it.Of this I have such proofs as I will not commit to paper, and whichwithout the aid of experience, authorized my opinion. It is singularthat the book should have succeeded better in France than in the rest ofEurope, although the French, both men and women, are severely treated init. Contrary to my expectation it was least successful in Switzerland,and most so in Paris. Do friendship, love and virtue reign in thiscapital more than elsewhere? Certainly not; but there reigns in it anexquisite sensibility which transports the heart to their image, andmakes us cherish in others the pure, tender and virtuous sentiments we nolonger possess. Corruption is everywhere the same; virtue and moralityno longer exist in Europe; but if the least love of them still remains,it is in Paris that this will be found.—[I wrote this in 1769.]
In the midst of so many prejudices and feigned passions, the realsentiments of nature are not to be distinguished from others, unless wewell know to analyze the human heart. A very nice discrimination, not tobe acquired except by the education of the world, is necessary to feelthe finesses of the heart, if I dare use the expression, with which thiswork abounds. I do not hesitate to place the fourth part of it upon anequality with the Princess of Cleves; nor to assert that had these twoworks been read nowhere but in the provinces, their merit would neverhave been discovered. It must not, therefore, be considered as a matterof astonishment, that the greatest success of my work was at court. Itabounds with lively but veiled touches of the pencil, which could not butgive pleasure there, because the persons who frequent it are moreaccustomed than others to discover them. A distinction must, however, bemade. The work is by no means proper for the species of men of wit whohave nothing but cunning, who possess no other kind of discernment thanthat which penetrates evil, and see nothing where good only is to befound. If, for instance, Eloisa had been published in a certain country,I am convinced it would not have been read through by a single person,and the work would have been stifled in its birth.
I have collected most of the letters written to me on the subject of thispublication, and deposited them, tied up together, in the hands of