revived by the supposed nearness of their
realisation. He roamed for two or three days among the villages in the
neighbourhood of Geneva, finding such hospitality as he needed in the
cottages of friendly peasants. Before long his wanderings brought him to
the end of the territory of the little republic. Here he found himself
in the domain of Savoy, where dukes and lords had for ages been the
traditional foes of the freedom and the faith of Geneva, Rousseau came
to the village of Confignon, and the name of the priest of Confignon
recalled one of the most embittered incidents of the old feud. This feud
had come to take new forms; instead of midnight expeditions to scale the
city walls, the descendants of the Savoyard marauders of the sixteenth
century were now intent with equivocal good will on rescuing the souls
of the descendants of their old enemies from deadly heresy. At this time
a systematic struggle was going on between the priests of Savoy and the
ministers of Geneva, the former using every effort to procure the
conversion of any Protestant on whom they could lay hands.[23] As it
happened, the priest of Confignon was one of the most active in this
good work.[24] He made the young Rousseau welcome, spoke to him of the
heresies of Geneva and of the authority of the holy Church, and gave him
some dinner. He could hardly have had a more easy convert, for the
nature with which he had to deal was now swept and garnished, ready for
the entrance of all devils or gods. The dinner went for much. "I was too
good a guest," writes Rousseau in one of his few passages of humour, "to
be a good theologian, and his Frangi wine, which struck me as excellent,
was such a triumphant argument on his side, that I should have blushed
to oppose so capital a host."[25] So it was agreed that he should be put
in a way to be further instructed of these matters. We may accept
Rousseau's assurance that he was not exactly a hypocrite in this rapid
complaisance. He admits that any one who should have seen the artifices
to which he resorted, might have thought him very false. But, he
argues, "flattery, or rather concession, is not always a vice; it is
oftener a virtue, especially in the young. The kindness with which a man
receives us, attaches us to him; it is not to make a fool of him that we
give way, but to avoid displeasing him, and not to return him evil for
good." He never really meant to change his religion; his fault was like
the coquetting