Jean Jacques has left his
master, and entered on a vagabond life.) This lady is a character very
difficult for us Protestant Americans in our contrasted society to
conceive as real or as possible. She kept a house of, what shall we call
it? detention, for souls doubtfully in the way of being reclaimed from
Protestant error into the bosom of the Roman-Catholic Church. She was
herself a Roman-Catholic convert from Protestantism. She had forsaken a
husband, not loved, and was living on a bounty from King Victor Amadeus
of Sardinia. For Annecy, the home of Madame de Warens, our young Jean
Jacques, sent thither by a Roman-Catholic curate, sets out on foot. The
distance was but one day's walk; which one day's walk, however, the
humor of the wanderer stretched into a saunter of three days. The man of
fifty-four, become the biographer of his own youth, finds no loathness
of self-respect to prevent his detailing the absurd adventures with
which he diverted himself on the way. For example:--

Not a country-seat could I see, either to the right or left,
without going after the adventure which I was certain awaited me.
I could not muster courage to enter the mansion, nor even to knock,
for I was excessively timid; but I sang beneath the most inviting
window, very much astonished to find, after wasting my breath, that
neither lady nor miss made her appearance, attracted by the beauty
of my voice, or the spice of my songs,--seeing that I knew some
capital ones that my comrades had taught me, and which I sang in
the most admirable manner.

Rousseau describes the emotions he experienced in his first meeting with
Madame de Warens:--

I had pictured to myself a grim old devotee--M. de Pontverre's
"worthy lady" could, in my opinion, be none other. But lo, a
countenance beaming with charms, beautiful, mild blue eyes, a
complexion of dazzling fairness, the outline of an enchanting neck!
Nothing escaped the rapid glance of the young proselyte; for that
instant I was hers, sure that a religion preached by such
missionaries could not fail to lead to paradise!

This abnormally susceptible youth had remarkable experiences, all within
his own soul, during his sojourn, of a few days only, on the present
occasion, under Madame de Warens's hospitable roof. These experiences,
the autobiographer, old enough to call himself "old dotard," has,
nevertheless, not grown wi