Volume 1

Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau / Jean Jacques Rousseau.

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau / Jean Jacques Rousseau. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    brilliant victory ; and, for fear of being obliged to endure a second struggle, I was base enough to depart without thanking the Abbe for his kindness. To form an idea of the lengths to which my madness carried me at this moment, one ought to know to what a degree my heart is liable to become heated about the smallest trifles, and how violently it plunges into the idea of the object which attracts it, however idle and worthless this object may be. The oddest, the most childish, the most foolish plans flatter and support my favourite idea, in order to convince me of the reasonableness of devoting myself to it. Would it be believed that anyone, almost nineteen years of age, could place his hopes of support for the rest of his life on an empty bottle ? Then listen. The Abbe de Gouvon, some weeks before, had made me a present of a pretty little heron-fountain,1 with which I was delighted. As we were constantly playing with this artificial fountain, while talking about our journey, the wise Bade and myself thought that the one might prove very serviceable in lengthening the other. What could there be more curious in the world than a heron-fountain ? This axiom was the foundation upon which we built the edifice of our future fortune. We need only assemble the peasants of each village round our fountain, and food and all kinds of good cheer would be showered upon us in so much greater abundance, as we were both convinced that provisions cost nothing to those who procure them, and that, if they do not stuff passers-by with them, it is pure ill-will on their part. Everywhere we expected weddings and festivities, reckon¬ ing that, without further expenditure than the breath of our lungs and the water of our fountain, it would pay our way through Piedmont, Savoy, France—in fact, all over the world. We made endless plans for our journey, and first took our way northwards, more for the pleasure of crossing the Alps than with the idea that we should be obliged to stop anywhere at last. [1731—1732.]—Such was the plan with which I set out, aban¬ doning without regret my protector, my tutor, my studies, my hopes and the expectation of a fortune almost assured, to begin the life of a regular vagabond. I said good-bye to the capital, to the court, to ambition, vanity, love, pretty women, and all the exciting adventures, the hope of which had brought me there the year before. I set out with my fountain and my friend Bade, with a light purse but a heart filled with joy, thinking of nothing 1 Fontaine de hiron : the proper name is fontaine de Hid yon, called after its inventor, Hiero of Alexandria.