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tue ; and surely the relinquishment of bad
habits, ought not to be met by accusations
of the want of consistency.
Madame de Warrens, before her death,
inhabited a small house in the village of
Lemenc, a few miles from Chamberry, and
is buried in the church. Amono; her other
commercial specidations, she formed a company,
in conjunction with Mademoiselle des
Maúlles, for working a bed of coal in the
commune of Magland, in the year 1756.
The difficulty of carriage caused it to be
abandoned. We were told at the baths of
Brida, by the Countess de V. of Chamberry,
whose grandmother was acquainted with
many of the ladies mentioned by Rousseau
in his Confessions, that Madame de Warrens
at one time established a manufacture
of porcelain, or earthen ware, in the suburbs
of Chamberry, and that young Rousseau
was engaged in superintending it. He
has omitted to mention this circumstance,
though he informs us she entered into
several commercial speculations, (without
naming them,) in which he assisted her.
Had the pottery been successful, Rousseau
might possibly have been flxed for life in
that occupation, and instead of interesting
the world with Julia and Emile, all his
remaining works might have been a few
earthen-ware shepherds and shepherdesses,
with broken limbs and noses, ornamenting
the chimney-pieces of the country inns in
Savoy, the fragile relics of the genius of
Jean Jacques.
How many apparently fortuitous circumstances
conspired to snatch Rousseau in
his youth from that oblivion, to which he
seemed doomed by his birth and education ?
It is a knowledge of such circumstances,
which makes the biography of the early
years of self-taught and extraordinary genius
always interesting; and it is this which
gives real value to les Confessions. It must
be regretted, however, that those to whom
the manuscript was intrusted should have
published it in his lifetime, and also that
they did not suppress certain parts that
ought not, at any time, to have been presented
to the public gaze. But with all its
faults, I cannot avoid agreeing with a French
gentleman, whom we met at les Charmettes,
who said, “ On condamnera toujours les
Confessions, mais on ne cessera jamais de
les lire.”
The evening was so beautiful, and the
M 3