spondence, I returned
no answer, and he got D'Ivernois to speak to me. Madam Cramer wrote to
Du Peyrou, telling him she was certain the libel was not by Vernes. This
however, did not make me change my opinion. But as it was possible I
might be deceived, and as it is certain that if I were, I owed Vernes an
explicit reparation, I sent him word by D'Ivernois that I would make him
such a one as he should think proper, provided he would name to me the
real author of the libel, or at least prove that he himself was not so.
I went further: feeling that, after all, were he not culpable, I had no
right to call upon him for proofs of any kind, I stated in a memoir of
considerable length, the reasons whence I had inferred my conclusion, and
determined to submit them to the judgment of an arbitrator, against whom
Vernes could not except. But few people would guess the arbitrator of
whom I made choice. I declared at the end of the memoir, that if, after
having examined it, and made such inquiries as should seem necessary, the
council pronounced M. Vernes not to be the author of the libel, from that
moment I should be fully persuaded he was not, and would immediately go
and throw myself at his feet, and ask his pardon until I had obtained it.
I can say with the greatest truth that my ardent zeal for equity, the
uprightness and generosity of my heart, and my confidence in the love of
justice innate in every mind never appeared more fully and perceptible
than in this wise and interesting memoir, in which I took, without
hesitation, my most implacable enemies for arbitrators between a
calumniator and myself. I read to Du Peyrou what I had written: he
advised me to suppress it, and I did so. He wished me to wait for the
proofs Vernes promised, and I am still waiting for them: he thought it
best that I should in the meantime be silent, and I held my tongue, and
shall do so the rest of my life, censured as I am for having brought
against Vernes a heavy imputation, false and unsupportable by proof,
although I am still fully persuaded, nay, as convinced as I am of my
existence, that he is the author of the libel. My memoir is in the hands
of Du Peyrou. Should it ever be published my reasons will be found in
it, and the heart of Jean Jacques, with which my contemporaries would not
be acquainted, will I hope be known.

I have now to proceed to my catastrophe at Motiers, and to my departure
from Val de Travers, after a residence of two