w what the
Count of Montaigu's version of matters was, for in truth Rousseau's
conduct in previous posts makes us wonder how it was that he who had
hitherto always been unfaithful over few things, suddenly touched
perfection when he became lord over many.

There is other testimony, however, to the ambassador's morbid quality,
of which, after that general imbecility which was too common a thing
among men in office to be remarkable, avarice was the most striking
trait. For instance, careful observation had persuaded him that three
shoes are equivalent to two pairs, because there is always one of a pair
which is more worn than its fellow; and hence he habitually ordered his
shoes in threes.[113] It was natural enough that such a master and such
a secretary should quarrel over perquisites. That slightly cringing
quality which we have noticed on one or two occasions in Rousseau's
hungry youthful time, had been hardened out of him by circumstance or
the strengthening of inborn fibre. He would now neither dine in a
servants' hall because a fine lady forgot what was due to a musician,
nor share his fees with a great ambassador who forgot what was due to
himself. These sordid disputes are of no interest now to anybody, and we
need only say that after a period of eighteen months passed in
uncongenial company, Rousseau parted from his count in extreme dudgeon,
and the diplomatic career which he had promised to himself came to the
same close as various other careers had already done.

He returned to Paris towards the end of 1744, burning with indignation
at the unjust treatment which he believed himself to have suffered, and
laying memorial after memorial before the minister at home. He assures
us that it was the justice and the futility of his complaints, that left
in his soul the germ of exasperation against preposterous civil
institutions, "in which the true common weal and real justice are always
sacrificed to some seeming order or other, which is in fact destructive
of all order, and only adds the sanction of public authority to the
oppression of the weak and the iniquity of the strong."[114]

One or two pictures connected with the Venetian episode remain in the
memory of the reader of the Confessions, and among them perhaps with
most people is that of the quarantine at Genoa in Rousseau's voyage to
his new post. The travellers had the choice of remaining on board the
felucca, or passing the time in an unfurnished lazaretto.