I have omitted nothing bad, added nothing good; and if I have
happened to make use of some unimportant ornament, it has, in every
case, been simply for the purpose of filling up a void occasioned
by my lack of memory. I may have taken for granted as true what I
knew to be possible, never what I knew to be false. Such as I was,
I have exhibited myself,--despicable and vile, when so; virtuous,
generous, sublime, when so. I have unveiled my interior being, such
as Thou, Eternal Existence, hast beheld it. Assemble around me the
numberless throng of my fellow-mortals; let them listen to my
confessions, let them blush at my depravities, let them shrink
appalled at my miseries. Let each of them, in his turn, with equal
sincerity, lay bare his heart at the foot of thy throne, and then
let a single one tell thee, if he dare, _I was better than that
man_.

Notwithstanding our autobiographer's disavowal of debt to example for
the idea of his "Confessions," it seems clear that Montaigne here was at
least inspiration, if not pattern, to Rousseau. But Rousseau resolved to
do what Montaigne had done, more ingenuously and more courageously than
Montaigne had done it. This writer will make himself his subject, and
then treat his subject with greater frankness than any man before him
ever used about himself, or than any man after him would ever use. He
undoubtedly succeeded in his attempt. His frankness, in fact, is so
forward and eager, that it is probably even inventive of things
disgraceful to himself. Montaigne makes great pretence of telling his
own faults, but you observe that he generally chooses rather amiable
faults of his own to tell. Rousseau's morbid vulgarity leads him to
disclose traits in himself, of character or of behavior, that, despite
whatever contrary wishes on your part, compel your contempt of the man.
And it is for the man who confesses, almost more than for the man who is
guilty, that you feel the contempt.

The "Confessions" proceed:--

I was born at Geneva, in 1712, of Isaac Rousseau and Susannah
Bernard, citizens.... I came into the world weak and sickly. I cost
my mother her life, and my birth was the first of my misfortunes.

I never learned how my father supported his loss, but I know that
he remained ever after inconsolable.... When he used to say to me,
"Jean Jacques, let us speak of your mother," my usual re