zerland about this time. Rousseau and his friend
Moultou have preserved it for us, and it is probable that it has lost
none of its pungency in passing through the hands of the latter. The
substance of it is this:--that in the year 1763, when Gibbon revisited
Lausanne, as we have seen, Susanne Curchod was still in a pitiable
state of melancholy and well nigh broken-hearted at Gibbon's manifest
coldness, which we know he considered to be "friendship and esteem."
Whether he even saw her on this visit cannot be considered certain,
but it is at least highly probable. Be that as it may: this is the
picture of her condition as drawn by Moultou in a letter to Rousseau:
"How sorry I am for our poor Mdlle. Curchod! Gibbon, whom she loves,
and to whom I know she has sacrificed some excellent matches, has come
to Lausanne, but cold, insensible, and as entirely cured of his old
passion as she is far from cure. She has written me a letter that
makes my heart ache." Rousseau says in reply, "He who does not
appreciate Mdlle. Curchod is not worthy of her; he who appreciates her
and separates himself from her is a man to be despised. She does not
know what she wants. Gibbon serves her better than her own heart. I
would rather a hundred times that he left her poor and free among you
than that he should take her off to be rich and miserable in
England." One does not quite see how Gibbon could have acted to the
contentment of Jean-Jacques. For not taking Mdlle. Curchod to
England--as we may presume he would have done if he had married
her--he is contemptible. Yet if he does take her he will make her
miserable, and Rousseau would rather a hundred times he left her
alone--precisely what he was doing; but then he was despicable for
doing it. The question is whether there is not a good deal of
exaggeration in all this. Only a year after the tragic condition in
which Moultou describes Mdlle. Curchod she married M. Necker, and
became devoted to her husband. A few months after she married Necker
she cordially invited Gibbon to her house every day of his sojourn in
Paris. If Gibbon had behaved in the unworthy way asserted, if she had
had her feelings so profoundly touched and lacerated as Moultou
declares, would she, or even could she, have acted thus? If she was
conscious of being wronged, and he was conscious--as he must have
been--of having acted basely, or at least unfeelingly, is it not as
good as certain that both parties would have been caref