Part 15 (1/2)
He wandered away till he came to the little Catholic town of Confignon, two leagues from Geneva, and became the guest and protege of the vicar M. de Pontverre, who gave him delicious Frangi wine and attempted to convince him that the heresy of Geneva was ruinous to hopes of salvation.
”Though M. de Pontverre was a religious man,” says Rousseau, ”he was not a virtuous man, but rather a bigot, who knew no virtue except wors.h.i.+ping images and telling his beads; in a word, a kind of missionary who thought it a supreme merit to compose libels against the ministers of Geneva. Far from wis.h.i.+ng to send me back, he endeavoured to favour my escape and put it out of my power to return, even if I had been so disposed. There were a thousand chances to one that he was going to let me perish of starvation or become a rascal; all this was apart from his purpose: he saw a soul s.n.a.t.c.hed from heresy and restored to the bosom of the Church: whether I were an honest man or a knave was immaterial, provided I went to ma.s.s.”
At Annecy was living Madame de Warens, who had robbed her husband of his forks, knives and spoons, involved him in debts, and deserted him for the sake of embracing Catholicism. She was earning a pension of two thousand francs a year from the King of Sardinia by using her new and fervent zeal in the work of propaganda. M. de Pontverre gave Rousseau a letter to the fair and frail baroness. This is what the vicar said:--
”I send you Jean Jacques Rousseau, a youth who has abandoned his country; he seems to me of a happy character. He spent a day with me; and G.o.d summons him to Annecy.
”Try to encourage him to embrace Catholicism. It is a triumph to bring about conversion. You will understand as well as I do that for this great work he must be kept at Annecy, for fear he may receive evil instructions elsewhere. Be careful to intercept all letters that might be written from his country, for if he thinks he is abandoned he will the sooner abjure. I put the whole matter into the hands of the Almighty and yours, which I kiss.”
”Madame de Warens at that time,” says Rousseau, ”was young and charming; she was rich and n.o.ble; she had a naturally lively wit; she liked reading and pondering over what she read, devoting herself now to works of piety, now to the works of the learned Bayle, the Voltaire of his day; she was of a sweet disposition and her society was much sought; she had a good husband and they led an easy life together; her days were cast in a peaceful and prosperous epoch; she spent her best years in those enchanting scenes in the Pays de Vaud, where Lake Leman spreads its limpid waves, at the foot of the lofty mountains of Savoy, in a country fertile and productive.”
Not in too great a hurry to get there, sauntering along, stopping to earn a bite by singing under chateau windows, he finally, on Palm Sunday, met that paragon.
Years afterwards he asked himself why he could not enclose with a golden bal.u.s.trade 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 Abbe Gaime, who, like so many abbes, 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 abbe 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 ent.i.tled, ”Narcisse ou l'Amour de Lui-meme.”
Eighteen years later he had it played at Paris but it fell flat.
Rousseau left the theatre, went to the Cafe 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.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 sh.o.r.e, wis.h.i.+ng to revel in the view of the lake, which is seen in its greatest extent at Lausanne. Then the brilliant idea seized him to pa.s.s 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:--
”I became so much excited with this idea that, without thinking that I had neither his grace nor his talents, I took it into my head to play at Lausanne the part of a little Venture, to teach music, which I did not know how to do, and to say that I was from Paris, where I had never been.... I endeavoured to approach as near as possible to my great model. He called himself Venture de Villeneuve; I by an anagram converted the name of Rousseau into that of Vaussore, and I called myself Vaussore de Villeneuve. Venture understood composition, although he had said nothing about it; I, without understanding it, boasted of my knowledge of it to everybody, and although I did not know how to note down the simplest ballad, gave myself out as a composer. This is not all. Having been presented to M. de Treytorens, professor of law, who was fond of music, and had concerts at his house, and being anxious to give him a specimen of my talents, I set myself to composing a piece for his concert with as much effrontery as if I had known how to go about it. I had the perseverance to work for a fortnight at this precious composition, to make a fair copy of it, to write out the different parts, and to distribute them with as much a.s.surance as if it had been a masterpiece of harmony.”
Imagine the discords! But his ”executioners” made him beat time to the end, though they could see that sweat-drops of agony were pearling on his brow. That he escaped with his life is a wonder. I read somewhere that the house where this contretemps took place is still standing, but I could not find any one who might point it out to me. The fame which he thus won as a composer and kapellmeister did not bring him any pupils and he went on to Vevey of which he says:--
”I conceived for that town an affection which has followed me in all my travels, and caused me at length to place there the characters of my novel. I would gladly say to those who possess taste and sensibility, Go to Vevey, visit the adjacent country, examine the localities, go about upon the lake, and say if nature has not made this beautiful region for a Julie, for a Claire, and for a Saint-Preux; but do not look for them there.”
Rousseau returned to Geneva in 1739 to secure the inheritance which was due him from his mother's estate. The City might have gobbled it up, since he had abjured the Protestant religion; perhaps it was too small to attract the attention of the authorities; he secured it, spent some of it on books and gave the rest to Madame de Warens. He met his father there, who also was unmolested, although the judgment against him, from the consequences of which he had escaped, was still on the black book. Rousseau intended to return to live in Geneva. He had become famous, and when he renounced the Catholic faith he was reinstated in his rights of citizens.h.i.+p, but once more his conflict with orthodoxy rendered it an unsafe place for him. There seemed to be no room for him anywhere. The peasants drove him out of Neuchatel, though Marshal Keith, who represented Frederick the Great there, made him welcome. Bern sought him out in his island home in the Lake of Bienne to lay heavy hand upon him. He was unhappy in England, and even his last home at Ermenonville witnessed his violent death, as it is now believed by some, at the hands of the ignorant and jealous Therese.
Really, Geneva has little to show directly connected with Rousseau beyond the mislabelled place of his birth. Yet the whole Lake of Geneva is redolent of his glory. Not far from the haunts of his youth lived Calvin, who would have probably been as ready to burn Rousseau as he was to burn Servetus. La Grand' Rue runs between the cathedral and the University, and almost parallel is La Rue Calvin where the great theocrat abode. Of course we went there and did our _hommages_ to the shades of the departed.
There is a deal of individuality in the names of city streets--that is, there may be. One would expect monotony of architecture in those simply numbered or lettered. But Geneva has charming names, suggesting romance, theology and history. If it has its Rue des Eaux Vives, which might well suggest heaven, it has also its Rue de l'Enfer and its Rue du Purgatoire. Of course there is a Rue Voltaire. Pleasant things are suggested by the Rue du Montchoisy, or that of Beaulieu.
But as cities change, once respectable or even fas.h.i.+onable thoroughfares lose their vogue and even become slums.
From Calvin's old residence we went to the Hotel de Ville, which has a commanding situation. It was interesting not alone because of its elegant Renaissance architecture, its ramp whereby an equestrian mayor might ride up to the third story--it was built between the sixth and seventh decades of the Sixteenth Century--or because of the ancient frescoes in the Council Chamber, but perhaps most of all, to an American or an Englishman, because in one of its rooms sat the epoch-making commission which settled for fifteen and a half millions, awarded to the United States the Alabama claims, and thus made the longest stride since the beginning of the world toward the sensible and feasible way of settling questions which would be likely to lead to war.
England was represented by her Lord Chief Justice, Sir Alexander James Edward c.o.c.kburn, with Sir Roundel Palmer as counsel; the United States sent Charles Francis Adams with William M. Evarts, Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng and Morrison R. Waite; Switzerland's arbitrator was her one-time president, Jacob Stamepfli; the other two judges were the Brazilian Minister to France and Count Federigo Sclopis of Italy, who was the chairman. The arbitrators sat from December, 1871, until September 14, 1872. Such vital interests were at stake that the world almost held its breath; for had both parties not honourably held by the decision--ignoring the dissatisfied extremists who would have preferred to fight rather than yield--there would have befallen the worst war of the ages. Where such enormous financial interests were at issue the fact that a question involving so many untried questions of international law could be settled peaceably was a triumph of civilization. Sacred then for ever be that upper room; it should be regarded as more worthy of pious pilgrimage than almost any other spot in this round world, for, if its precedent should be carried out, it would spell the emanc.i.p.ation of the world from the terrible incubus of militarism, from the needless crus.h.i.+ng burden of enormous armies and wasteful navies.