ries. Rousseau, more
earnest, often more sincere, made a better diagnosis of the complaint; he
described its horrible character and the dangerousness of it, he saw no
remedy and he pointed none out. Profound and grievous impotence, whose
utmost hope is an impossible recurrence to the primitive state of
savagery! "In the private opinion of our adversaries," says M. Roy de
Collard eloquently, "it was a thoughtless thing, on the great day of
creation, to let man loose, a free and intelligent agent, into the midst
of the universe; thence the mischief and the mistake. A higher wisdom
comes forward to repair the error of Providence, to restrain His
thoughtless liberality, and to render to prudently mutilated mankind the
service of elevating it to the happy innocence of the brute."

Before Rousseau, and better than he, Christianity had recognized and
proclaimed the evil; but it had at the same time announced to the world a
remedy and a Saviour.

Henceforth Rousseau had chosen his own road: giving up the drawing-rooms
and the habits of that elegant society for which he was not born and the
admiration of which had developed his pride, he made up his mind to live
independent, copying music to get his bread, now and then smitten with
the women of the world who sought him out in his retirement,--in love
with Madame d'Epinay and Madame d'Houdetot, anon returning to the coarse
servant-wench whom he had but lately made his wife, and whose children he
had put in the foundling-hospital. Music at that time absorbed all
minds. Rousseau brought out a little opera entitled _Le Devin de
village_ (The Village Wizard), which had a great success. It was played
at Fontainebleau before the king. "I was there that day," writes
Rousseau, "in the same untidy array which was usual with me; a great deal
of beard and wig rather badly trimmed. Taking this want of decency for
an act of courage, I entered in this state the very room into which would
come, a short time afterwards, the king, the queen, the royal family, and
all the court. . . . When the lights were lit, seeing myself in this.
array in the midst of people all extensively got up, I began to be ill at
ease; I asked myself if I were in my proper place, if I were properly
dressed, and, after a few moments' disquietude, I answered yes, with an
intrepidity which arose perhaps more from the impossibility of getting
out of it than from the force of my arguments. After this little
dial