ear price. They
would have it that I was obliged to them for the protection the king
granted me in spite of the efforts they incessantly made to deprive me of
it. Finally, failing of success, after having done me all the injury
they could, and defamed me to the utmost of their power, they made a
merit of their impotence, by boasting of their goodness in suffering me
to stay in their country. I ought to have laughed at their vain efforts,
but I was foolish enough to be vexed at them, and had the weakness to be
unwilling to go to Neuchatel, to which I yielded for almost two years,
as if it was not doing too much honor to such wretches, to pay attention
to their proceedings, which, good or bad, could not be imputed to them,
because they never act but from a foreign impulse. Besides, minds
without sense or knowledge, whose objects of esteem are influence, power
and money, and far from imagining even that some respect is due to
talents, and that it is dishonorable to injure and insult them.

A certain mayor of a village, who from sundry malversations had been
deprived of his office, said to the lieutenant of Val de Travers, the
husband of Isabella: "I am told this Rousseau has great wit,--bring him
to me that I may see whether he has or not." The disapprobation of such
a man ought certainly to have no effect upon those on whom it falls.

After the treatment I had received at Paris, Geneva, Berne, and even at
Neuchatel, I expected no favor from the pastor of this place. I had,
however, been recommended to him by Madam Boy de la Tour, and he had
given me a good reception; but in that country where every new-comer is
indiscriminately flattered, civilities signify but little. Yet, after my
solemn union with the reformed church, and living in a Protestant
country, I could not, without failing in my engagements, as well as in
the duty of a citizen, neglect the public profession of the religion into
which I had entered; I therefore attended divine service. On the other
hand, had I gone to the holy table, I was afraid of exposing myself to a
refusal, and it was by no means probable, that after the tumult excited
at Geneva by the council, and at Neuchatel by the classe (the ministers),
he would, without difficulty administer to me the sacrament in his
church. The time of communion approaching, I wrote to M. de Montmollin,
the minister, to prove to him my desire of communicating, and declaring
myself heartily united to the Pr