The Sun.
London, England, 1821-06-20 00:00:00

ship should ever remain sacred, notwithstanding
its ties might have been broken asunder, but
Diderot was of a different opinion. The memoirs
of cotemporaries and many passages of his own
works attest it. But how
.could he have the
effrontery to reproach Rousseau" with having ac-
cepted from him, Diderot, and his friends, during
many years, pecuniary assistance." M. de Mus-
sey-Pathay remarks with reason, that there are
in this passage, which I abridge, as many false-
hoods as words ; and, in fact, no person can be
ignorant of the noble pride with which J. J.
Rousseau refused on every occasion the assistance
offered to him. He has even frequently been re-
proached• for it by the philosophers. They found
•

him a very savage on this point; and it must be
admitted that, if hot all, at least some of them
were not possessed of this Sauvagerie, and that in
this respect they were composed of better mate-

rials than Jean Jacques. Pensions were not
obliged to be forced on them : they wok care to
ask for them.

Rousseau was admitted into the society of the
Baron d'Holbach, but it was impossible he could
be pleased with it long. His susceptible and re-
ligious mind held in horror all the doctrines pro-
fessed there ; vile and desolating doctrines which,
destroying the principle of morals and the bond
of all society, remove every restraint from the
powerful, deprive the weak of his only support,
the oppressed of his redress, and the unfor-
tunate of his last consolation. He who said,
—" Being of beings, I am, because thou art.
" The best use I can make of my reason is to
" humble myself before thee. It is the delight
" of my mind, the charm of my weakness, to find
" myself overpowered by thy grandeur. The
" more I endeavour to contemplate thy divine
" essence, the less I understand it : but it exists :
" that is enough for me : the less I comprehend
"it the more I adore it." That person, I say,
who could thus express his thoughts, must have
found himself quite out of his place in a society
by v, hom the System of Nature had just been
composed. He therefore quitted it, and from
that moment the Baron d'Holbach regarded him
in the light of a miserable bigot. The Baron's
companions followed his example, and did all
they could to ruin J. J. Rousseau in the opinion
of the public : but none laboured so efficaciously
in this good work as M. Grimm.
This Grimm, who afterwards . . . . but he
was then a person of very little consequence,
had lived on the' most intimate terms with Jean
Jacques. He had also received several acts of
kindness from him ; for whenever he wanted mo-

ney, which happened very frequently, he applied
to Rousseau, who always lent it to him, though
he. seldom had much, and who in obliging him
always considered himself the person obliged.—
Bnt the fortune of Grimm changed, and his man-
ners changed with it; he became insolent, like
all upstarts of his species, and never called his
lacqueys but by, the monosyllable El► ! as if,
among the number of his attendants, my gentle-
man did not know which of them was in wait-
ing. From that time, this adventurer, this Baron
of the stage, assumed towards Rousseau the to►►e
and the airs of a patron. And what were the
happy effects of this patronage ? The protege
informs us :—" I made all my friends his, and in
return he deprived me of all of them." Grimm
went still farther; for he reported every where,
that Rousseau was the worst copier of music in
all Paris, as if he wished to reduce to beggary
the man who had formerly opened his purse to
him. If this is friendship, by what signs can we
detect I►atred ?

Jean Jacques was then living in his retreat at
the Hermitage. _Madame d'Epinay having, for
reasons which discretion forbids me to name, re-
solved to go to Geneva, wished Rousseau to ac-
company her, but he very properly declined, ac-
cepting her incitation. How could this refusal
mortify Baron Grimm ? I could tell, but I will
still be silent, though my lingers are itching to
write it down. However, this adventurer thought
proper to come, to an open rupture with Roils).-
seau. " lie forbade me to appear in his pre-
sence," -says Jean Jacques, 46 as he would have
forbidden me to enter his domittions.'"llds'was
declaring war long after the commencement •of
hostilities; but be that as it may, Grimm now
fancied he was no longer bound to keep any terms
with his proter,!, and gave a freer course to'
his hatred. One of Rousseau's friends wrote