eface to _Narcisse_, 'maussade, impoli par principes; je me fous
de tous vous autres gens de cour; je suis un barbare.' There is a touch
of exaggeration and bravado in it all. He was still something of the
child hallooing in the dark to give himself heart. He clutched hold of
material symbols of the freedom he had won, round wig, black stockings,
and a living gained by copying music at so much a line. But he did not
break with his friends; the 'bear' suffered himself to be made a lion.
He had still a foot in either camp, for though he had the conviction
that he was right, he was still fumbling for his words. The memoirs of
Madame d'Epinay tell us how in 1754, at dinner at Mlle Quinault's,
impotent to reply to the polite atheistical persiflage of the company,
he broke out: 'Et moi, messieurs, je crois en Dieu. Je sors si vous
dites un mot de plus.' That was not what he meant; neither was the First
Discourse what he meant. He had still to find his language, and to find
his language he had to find his peace. He was like a twig whirled about
in an eddy of a stream. Suddenly the stream bore him to Geneva, where he
returned to the church which he had left at Confignon. That, too, was
not what he meant. When he returned from Geneva, Madame d'Epinay had
built him the Ermitage.

In the _Reveries_, which are mellow with the golden calm of his
discovered peace, he tells how, having reached the climacteric which he
had set at forty years, he went apart into the solitude of the Ermitage
to inquire into the configuration of his own soul, and to fix once for
all his opinions and his principles. In the exquisite third _Reverie_
two phrases occur continually. His purpose was 'to find firm
ground'--'prendre une assiette,'--and his means to this discovery was
'spiritual honesty'--'bonne foi.' Rousseau's deep concern was to
elucidate the anatomy of his own soul, but, since he was sincere, he
regarded it as a type of the soul of man. Looking into himself, he saw
that, in spite of all his follies, his weaknesses, his faintings by the
way, his blasphemies against the spirit, he was good. Therefore he
declared: Man is born good. Looking into himself he saw that he was free
to work out his own salvation, and to find that solid foundation of
peace which he so fervently desired. Therefore he declared: Man is born
free. To the whisper of les Charmettes that there was a condition of
grace had been added the sterner voice of remorse for his abandoned