and living in France, I found my
situation very favorable in daring to speak the truth; well knowing that
continuing, as I was determined to do, not to print anything in the
kingdom without permission, I was not obliged to give to any person in it
an account of my maxims nor of their publication elsewhere. I should
have been less independent even at Geneva, where, in whatever place my
books might have been printed, the magistrate had a right to criticise
their contents. This consideration had greatly contributed to make me
yield to the solicitations of Madam d'Epinay, and abandon the project of
fixing my residence at Geneva. I felt, as I have remarked in my Emilius,
that unless an author be a man of intrigue, when he wishes to render his
works really useful to any country whatsoever, he must compose them in
some other.

What made me find my situation still more happy, was my being persuaded
that the government of France would, perhaps, without looking upon me
with a very favorable eye, make it a point to protect me, or at least not
to disturb my tranquillity. It appeared to me a stroke of simple, yet
dexterous policy, to make a merit of tolerating that which there was no
means of preventing; since, had I been driven from France, which was all
government had the right to do, my work would still have been written,
and perhaps with less reserve; whereas if I were left undisturbed, the
author remained to answer for what he wrote, and a prejudice, general
throughout all Europe, would be destroyed by acquiring the reputation of
observing a proper respect for the rights of persons.

They who, by the event, shall judge I was deceived, may perhaps be
deceived in their turn. In the storm which has since broken over my
head, my books served as a pretence, but it was against my person that
every shaft was directed. My persecutors gave themselves but little
concern about the author, but they wished to ruin Jean Jacques; and the
greatest evil they found in my writings was the honor they might possibly
do me. Let us not encroach upon the future. I do not know that this
mystery, which is still one to me, will hereafter be cleared up to my
readers; but had my avowed principles been of a nature to bring upon me
the treatment I received, I should sooner have become their victim, since
the work in which these principles are manifested with most courage, not
to call it audacity, seemed to have had its effect previous to my retreat