t know what to do
with their own time, think they have a right to waste that of
others."[226] The more abruptly he treated visitors, persecuting
dinner-givers, and all the tribe of the importunate, the more obstinate
they were in possessing themselves of his time. In seizing the hours
they were keeping his purse empty, as well as keeping up constant
irritation in his soul. He appears to have earned forty sous for a
morning's work, and to have counted this a fair fee, remarking modestly
that he could not well subsist on less.[227] He had one chance of a
pension, which he threw from him in a truly characteristic manner.

When he came to Paris he composed his musical diversion of the Muses
Galantes, which was performed (1745) in the presence of Rameau, under
the patronage of M. de la Popeliniere. Rameau apostrophised the unlucky
composer with much violence, declaring that one-half of the piece was
the work of a master, while the other was that of a person entirely
ignorant of the musical rudiments; the bad work therefore was
Rousseau's own, and the good was a plagiarism.[228] This repulse did not
daunt the hero. Five or six years afterwards on a visit to Passy, as he
was lying awake in bed, he conceived the idea of a pastoral interlude
after the manner of the Italian comic operas. In six days the Village
Soothsayer was sketched, and in three weeks virtually completed. Duclos
procured its rehearsal at the Opera, and after some debate it was
performed before the court at Fontainebleau. The Plutarchian stoic, its
author, went from Paris in a court coach, but his Roman tone deserted
him, and he felt shamefaced as a schoolboy before the great world, such
divinity doth hedge even a Lewis XV., and even in a soul of Genevan
temper. The piece was played with great success, and the composer was
informed that he would the next day have the honour of being presented
to the king, who would most probably mark his favour by the bestowal of
a pension.[229] Rousseau was tossed with many doubts. He would fain have
greeted the king with some word that should show sensibility to the
royal graciousness, without compromising republican severity, "clothing
some great and useful truth in a fine and deserved compliment." This
moral difficulty was heightened by a physical one, for he was liable to
an infirmity which, if it should overtake him in presence of king and
courtiers, would land him in an embarrassment worse than death. What
would become o