light, was terrified.  I imagined him to be confined for the remainder of his life.  I was almost distracted with the thought.  I wrote to Madam de Pompadour, beseeching her to release him or obtain an order to shut me up in the same dungeon.  I received no answer to my letter:  this was too reasonable to be efficacious, and I do not flatter myself that it contributed to the alleviation which, some time afterwards, was granted to the severities of the confinement of poor Diderot.  Had this continued for any length of time with the same rigor, I verily believe I should have died in despair at the foot of the hated dungeon.  However, if my letter produced but little effect, I did not on account of it attribute to myself much merit, for I mentioned it but to very few people, and never to Diderot himself.

THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU (In 12 books)

Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society

London, 1903

BOOK VIII.

At the end of the preceding book a pause was necessary.  With this begins the long chain of my misfortunes deduced from their origin.

Having lived in the two most splendid houses in Paris, I had, notwithstanding my candor and modesty, made some acquaintance.  Among others at Dupin’s, that of the young hereditary prince of Saxe-Gotha, and of the Baron de Thun, his governor; at the house of M. de la Popliniere, that of M. Seguy, friend to the Baron de Thun, and known in the literary world by his beautiful edition of Rousseau.  The baron invited M. Seguy and myself to go and pass a day or two at Fontenai sous bois, where the prince had a house.  As I passed Vincennes, at the sight of the dungeon, my feelings were acute; the effect of which the baron perceived on my countenance.  At supper the prince mentioned the confinement of Diderot.  The baron, to hear what I had to say, accused the prisoner of imprudence; and I showed not a little of the same in the impetuous manner in which I defended him.  This excess of zeal, inspired by the misfortune which had befallen my friend, was pardoned, and the conversation immediately changed.  There were present two Germans in the service of the prince.  M. Klupssel, a man of great wit, his chaplain, and who afterwards, having supplanted the baron, became his governor.  The other was a young man named M. Grimm, who served him as a reader until he could obtain some place, and whose indifferent appearance sufficiently proved the pressing necessity he was under of immediately finding one.  From this very evening Klupssel and I began an acquaintance which soon led to friendship.  That with the Sieur Grimm did not make quite so rapid a progress; he made but few advances, and was far from having that haughty presumption which prosperity afterwards gave him.  The next day at dinner, the conversation turned upon music; he spoke well on the subject.  I was transported with joy when I learned from him he could play an accompaniment on the harpsichord.  After dinner was over music was introduced, and we amused ourselves the rest of the afternoon on the harpischord of the prince.  Thus began that friendship which, at first, was so agreeable to me, afterwards so fatal, and of which I shall hereafter have so much to say.