Rousseau's Dog

by David Edmonds

  I know that Rousseau is writing very busily at present, and I have grounds to think that he intends to fall equally on Voltaire & on me. He himself had told me, that he was composing his memoirs, in which justice would be equally done to his own character, to that of his friends, and to that of his enemies. As I had passed so wonderfully from the former class to the latter, I must expect to make a fine figure.

  However, he continued, the arrival of Rousseau’s detailed indictment—”which had been extorted from him by the authority of Mr. Davenport”—had put his mind at rest. That Rousseau might print the indictment

  gives me no manner of concern. The letter will really be a high panegyric on me; because there is no one who will not distinguish the facts which he acknowledges, and the chimeras which his madness and malice have invented. … I own that I was somewhat anxious about the affair till I received this mad letter, but now I am quite at my ease.

  Quite at his ease maybe, but the story Hume relayed to Mme de Meinières is notable for its errors and minor deceptions. For one example, Davenport had not “extorted” the indictment. For another, Hume claims Rousseau had described him as “the greatest villain alive, le plus noir de tous les hommes.” But this was not the entire, carefully conditional expression that Rousseau had used. How Rousseau had insulted Hume was gossip in London. In a letter from the capital on July 18, Garrick repeated that Rousseau had called Hume “noir, black, and a coquin, knave” (both untrue).

  While Hume claimed to be sighing with relief after absorbing Rousseau’s indictment, he was, in fact, preoccupied with the probability of his accuser’s publishing it. So on July 15, he reported to Hugh Blair that Rousseau’s extended condemnation was “a perfect frenzy. It would make a good eighteen penny pamphlet; and I fancy he intends to publish it.”

  Writing to Davenport on the same date, Hume increased the cover price, perhaps in deference to his correspondent’s wealth: it became a two shillings pamphlet, but remained “a perfect frenzy.” He had a word of acid advice for Rousseau’s landlord: “It is, that you would continue the charitable work you have begun, till he be shut up altogether in Bedlam, or till he quarrel with you and run away from you. If he show any disposition to write me a penitenial [sic] letter, you may encourage it; not that I think it of any consequence to me, but because it will ease his mind and set him at rest.”

  Frenzied or not, Rousseau’s peerless rhetoric commanded Hume’s objective respect. However absurd the logic of Rousseau’s case might be, there was no denying the wicked mockery of those “three slaps” and the beauty and power of his final paragraphs. As Hume told Mme de Meinières, “Would you believe it, that in a piece so full of frenzy, malice, impertinence, and lyes, there are many strokes of genius and eloquence, and the conclusion of it is remarkably sublime?”

  WITH ROUSSEAU ISOLATED in the stillness of Wootton, Hume pondered his reply amid the tumult of Leicester Fields. This he did not send to Rousseau until July 22.

  Curiously, he took up only one accusation in the indictment, relating to the dramatic events on the evening before Rousseau left for Staffordshire. In his rebuttal, Hume reconnected these to the retour chaise affair, recording how he justified Davenport’s deceit while insisting he himself had had no part in it. In this retelling, Rousseau’s silence followed, then his bedewing of Hume with tears and the emotional outburst. One or other must be a liar, protested Hume, as their accounts were diametrically opposed. “You imagine, perhaps, that because the incident passed privately, without any witness, the question will lie between the credibility of your assertion and mine.” But Hume had three proofs. First, a letter from Rousseau confirming Hume’s account; second, Hume had told Davenport the story the next day “with a view to preventing such good natured artifices for the future”; third, as he thought the story “much to your honour,” he had also conveyed it to friends, including Mme de Boufflers.

  Hume ended uncompromisingly: while his account was consistent and rational, Rousseau’s was devoid of all common sense.

  I shall only add in general, that I enjoyed, about a month ago, an uncommon pleasure, when I reflected, that, thro’ many difficulties and by most assiduous care and pains, I had, beyond my most sanguine expectations, provided for your repose, honour, and fortune. But I soon felt a very sensible uneasiness, when I found, that you had, wantonly and voluntarily, thrown away all these advantages, and was the declared enemy of your own repose, fortune, and honour. I cannot be surprised after this, that you are my enemy. Adieu, and for ever.

  The tone is triumphalist. But for all that, Hume’s letter is unconvincing and again raises some awkward questions about his good faith. In the indictment, Rousseau does not refer to the retour chaise at all. He is solely concerned with Hume’s staring that filled him with “inexpressible terror.” Moreover, there are no letters from either Rousseau or Hume that support Hume’s account.

  Hume did not let the matter drop with this limited reply to Rousseau. Scrutinizing Rousseau’s indictment, he identified twelve lies (in fact more, but he “gave” Rousseau some repetitions) that must be among the most curious of marginalia. Hume’s comments, which can be read in a duplicate in the Royal Library at Windsor, are penned in his spidery writing with care and precision; they are at the heart of the Concise Account, his published version of the affair.

  For Hume, every detail had to be addressed. In uncovering the conspiracy, Rousseau accorded the most trivial incidents equal probative value with the most wounding. No happening was by chance or without significance. To misquote T. S. Eliot slightly, “In the sordid particulars, the unearthly design appears.” And only by confronting and disputing the sordid particulars could Hume confront and dispute the underlying narrative—his alleged plot against Rousseau.

  The twelve “lyes” countered various allegations made by Rousseau. Thus, “lye” seven was that Hume had once improperly interrogated Le Vasseur about Rousseau’s private life. “Lye” ten was that he was the source of a newspaper claim that in London Rousseau gave a cold reception to his only living relative outside of Geneva (his cousin). “Lye, lye, lye,” scribbled Hume. But they are not the only comments Hume made about Rousseau’s text. Rousseau brought into his evidence the Ramsay portrait, his relationship with Davenport, a missed dinner at the British Museum, meals sent into Rousseau’s Buckingham Street lodging, and the presence of the young Tronchin in Lisle Street. Hume begged the reader’s pardon for his dealing with such silly and trivial matters.

  For Rousseau, the plot comes into full view with the King of Prussia letter and the pension. Only then did he grasp that he had been lured to England, and had fallen prey to “the treachery of a false friend … the circumstance that filled my too susceptible heart with deadly sorrow.” Hume responded: “This false friend is, undoubtedly myself. But what is the treachery? What harm have I done, or could I do to M. Rousseau? On the supposition of my entering into a project to ruin him how could I think to bring it about by the services I did him?” Publication of the spoof was unavoidable, after copies were dispersed in Paris and London: that Hume was completely innocent of everything to do with the spoof could be seen from a letter submitted by Walpole and attached to this response.

  Hume also had to deal with Rousseau’s climax: the revelation that the trap had closed in on him, and that all the evidence led back to the arch-plotter (Hume). The letter in the press that questioned the Genevan’s coldness to his cousin also said that he was apt to change his friends. Not only must Hume have furnished the materials for the piece, he must also have intended Rousseau to realize this. But why? “Nothing is more clear. To raise my resentment to the highest point, so that he might bring on, even more sensationally, the blow he was preparing. He knew, that to make me commit a number of follies, he had only to put me in a passion. We are now arrived at the critical moment, which is to show whether he reasoned well or badly.” As Ralph Leigh remarks, whatever one thinks of the blind illogicality of Rousseau’s case, one has to admire the ingenuity with which he
makes his enemies responsible for his own follies.

  The “critical” moment was the offer of the pension and Hume’s “skill” in convincing Conway that it was the condition of secrecy that held Rousseau back from accepting. This was “the end and object of all his labours. … He thinks his measures well taken, and no proofs can be made to appear against him. He demands an explanation: he shall have it, and here it is.”

  Understandably baffled by Rousseau’s visions of phantasmagorical maneuverings, Hume noted: “How should I have known of these nonsensical suspicions? Mr. Davenport, the only person of my acquaintance who saw Mr. Rousseau, assures me he was completely ignorant of them.”

  In Rousseau’s mind, the diabolical subtlety of Hume’s plan was clear; it left him no way out. (We could see this as a perverted tribute to Hume’s intellect.) If he knew of Hume’s treacherous acts, then Rousseau could not accept Hume’s help without becoming tainted, a scoundrel himself. If he refused his help, he would have to give an explanation and so would be ruined in the eyes of men. To achieve this, his inescapable dishonor, Hume had brought him to England under the guise of friendship.

  Hume left this without comment. Doubtless, he felt that on such fantasy, none was necessary.

  But there was a simple threnody running through Rousseau’s darkly surreal imaginings that Hume could not hear—it told of the exile’s anguish at his inability to discover in Hume a true friend and at his patron’s failure to respond to his distress.

  Hume was left debating his next move. He had, he believed, destroyed Rousseau’s case. Should he publish? To what end?

  17

  Willing to Wound

  You can’t make an eagle out of a butterfly…. It is enough, it seems to me, that all the men of letters give him his just deserts, and moreover that his biggest punishment is to be forgotten.

  —VOLTAIRE, writing about Rousseau

  The quality, the most necessary for the execution of any useful enterprise, is discretion.

  —HUME

  IN DETERMINING HOW best to deal with Rousseau, Hume faced two linked problems. He had to decide whether to publish his account of the dispute and he had to preserve the support of his highly placed friends in London and Paris. The option of attempting a rapprochement with his tormented former charge—perhaps involving a visit to Wootton, embraces, tears, and a passionate affirmation of friendship—seems not to have occurred to him.

  Meanwhile, as part of his preparation for possible publication, Hume turned to his supposedly closest Parisian friend, Mme de Boufflers, writing to her on July 15 after a two-month gap.

  “This is a deliberate and a cool plan to stab me,” he lamented. And he asked for her “consolation and advice.”

  Should I give the whole account to the public, as I am advised by several of my friends, particularly Lord Hertford and General Conway, I utterly ruin this unhappy man. [There is no evidence of such advice.] Every one must turn their back on so false, so ungrateful, so malicious, and so dangerous a mortal. I know not indeed any place above ground where he could hide his shame; and such a situation must run him into madness and despair.

  He could not resolve to commit such cruelty, Hume continued. On the other hand:

  It is extremely dangerous for me to be entirely silent. He is at present composing a book, in which it is very likely he may fall on me with some atrocious lie. … My present intention therefore is to write a narrative of the whole affair … in the form of a letter to General Conway.

  Hume explained that he had already passed the story on to his friends in London and that he “wrote some hint of it to Baron De Holbach.” He had also asked d’Holbach to examine the banker Rougemont’s books “with his own eyes. I know not but the inserting [of] that story may be to my purpose” [authors’ italics]. He then chided her for “always forgetting” his request to investigate Rousseau’s finances herself. “Perhaps you have done it, but have concealed the issue from me, as not being willing to disgust me with my good friend.”

  Seemingly, Rousseau’s attack had produced a curious blindness in this sympathetic and impartial historian. Until now he had withheld from Mme de Boufflers that he had also commissioned d’Holbach to delve into Rousseau’s resources. And to describe his writing d’Holbach “some hint” of his clash with Rousseau hardly captures the fierce tenor of his letters.

  Perhaps Hume anticipated her feeling affronted: after all, she saw herself as his soul mate, and yet he had contacted d’Holbach first. In any case, misleading her in this way was naive. In practice, given how inclusive and gossipy a social circle she moved in and what status she enjoyed, the chance of her not having heard of the d’Holbach letters was slim. In fact, Mme de Boufflers had already complained to Julie de L’Espinasse of Hume’s leaving her in ignorance; had he told her about the affair, she would have kept it to herself, as d’Holbach should have done.

  Hume’s strategy was now fixed on those Parisians who already disliked and distrusted his adversary, and he dispatched a full history of his involvement with Rousseau to d’Alembert.

  In the third week of July, Paris became Hume’s campaign headquarters, with a meeting chez Mlle de L’Espinasse of practically all his Parisian friends. By chance, they congregated just as d’Alembert received Hume’s most recent bulletin: it included Hume’s plan to send an account to a chosen few. These brilliant Enlightenment spirits—exponents of the supremacy of reason and exactly the people Hume wanted to share his thoughts—formed themselves into an ad hoc advisory committee, Turgot, l’abbé Morellet, Marmontel, among them. All were burning to learn the latest and to counsel Hume on tactics.

  D’Alembert reported their initial conclusions to the anxious Scot: everybody, including he and Julie, now thought the story must be made public. If the matter had not made such a sensation, and if Hume had not complained in so lively a manner, he would have continued to advise discretion. But now the public was so taken with the quarrel, and things were so advanced, that Hume ought quickly to put the truth before them.

  Plainly, however, shock at Hume’s berserk letters to d’Holbach had not worn off. The message from the advisory committee was unanimous and unambiguous. “Practise the greatest moderation, but at the same time the greatest clarity and the greatest detail.” Hume should explain that he was publishing at that moment in order to give Rousseau the chance to reply. He should then go into detail, but stick to the simple facts, with no bitterness, without insult, without even reflecting on Rousseau’s character or writings. He must not repeat too often how he was Rousseau’s benefactor; everyone knew that already.

  D’Alembert added that it was also put about that Rousseau suspected Hume of a hand in what d’Alembert called “Mr. Valpole’s” King of Prussia letter. D’Alembert disapproved of the spoof: to torment an unfortunate being who had done you no ill was cruel. It was essential that Hume prove he had nothing to do with this rotten deed (d’Alembert was quite sure he did not).

  However, not all voices were tuned in a chorus for publication.

  On July 22, while taking the waters with her lover Conti at Pouguesles-eaux, an ancient spa some 220 kilometers south of Paris, Mme de Boufflers began a memorable epistle to Hume. In her indignation, and with notable insight, she offered her friend a finely worked judgment on the affair. He could not have asked for guidance that was more sensitive—or less welcome.

  D’Alembert had forwarded Hume’s newest letter for her perusal. “I confess that it has surprised and afflicted me to the last degree. What! You recommend to [d’Alembert] to communicate [Hume’s account of Rousseau’s behavior], not only to your friends in Paris (a definition at once very vague and very extensive), but to M. de Voltaire, with whom you have very slight connections, and with whose principles you are so well acquainted.” She also firmly rebuked him for asking d’Holbach to investigate Rousseau’s means. “What use do you intend to make of the new inquiries with which you have charged M. D’Olbach? You have not apparently the design of writing anything against th
is unfortunate man. You will not become his denunciator, after having been his protector.”

  She had discussed matters with Adam Smith, she recorded. She and Smith believed that Hume had misread Rousseau’s letter refusing the pension, and Smith suggested Hume should reread it to Conway. “It does not seem to us, that he is refusing the pension, nor that he wants it made public. He begs that it may be deferred till the tranquility of his soul, disturbed by violent sorrow, is re-established. In his ill-temper, your mistake, which he supposed was intentional, must have put the finishing stroke to his misfortunes, by souring his mind, and completely upsetting his reason.” Even so, Hume should have demonstrated his superiority by not involving himself further and by acting with “generous pity” toward Rousseau.

  Hume was now cornered. The violence of his language and the severity of his allegations, she told him, the liberty he gave to d’Holbach to tell the world, the engagement of his Parisian supporters in managing the affair, the promise to supply evidence of Rousseau’s plotting against him—all these made it nigh impossible for Hume to avoid publication. Paradoxically, his lack of moderation had put his reputation more at risk than Rousseau’s; the injured innocent had become the vicious attacker. Some of Hume’s friends, Mme de Boufflers maintained, feared for him.

  She could have meant Turgot. The meeting chez de L’Espinasse had left this enlightened statesman uneasy. On July 23, he wrote the first of a number of letters rehearsing his doubts and tactfully providing Hume with another approach; it was a subtle exercise in the diplomacy of dissuasion. His first opinion, he said, had been not to publish, and he had come around to the common view only after reviewing all the circumstances. For in the eyes of Rousseau’s numerous partisans, Hume had become the accuser and, as such, obliged to justify himself. Rousseau’s accusations were so wild that no one would give any credence to them. So the only reason for publishing was to show that Hume’s own counteraccusations of villainy, of baseness, and of atrocity were justified. If he had the proofs of Rousseau’s maneuvering, then they must be declared, even though bringing down a man of talent was sad or regrettable; the hypocrite’s mask must be ripped off, the truth exposed.