Page:The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Aldus, 1903, v. 2.djvu/328

 most was, seeing families of my friends, or of persons who gave themselves that name, openly join the league of my persecutors; such as the D'Ivernois, without excepting the father and brother of my Isabel le Boy de la Tour, a relation to the friend in whose house I lodged, and Madam Girardier, her sister-in-law.


 * [This fatality had begun with my residence at, Yverdon; the banneret
 * Roguin dying a year or two after my departure from that city, the
 * old papa Roguin had the candor to inform me with grief, as he said,
 * that in he papers of his relation, proofs had been found of his
 * having been concerned in the conspiracy to expel me from Yverdon and
 * the state of Berne. This clearly proved the conspiracy not to be,
 * as some people pretended to believe, an affair of hypocrisy since
 * the banneret, far from being a devotee, carried materialism and
 * incredulity to intolerance and fanaticism. Besides, nobody at
 * Yverdon had shown me more constant attention, nor had so prodigally
 * bestowed upon me praises and flattery as this banneret. He
 * faithfully followed the favorite plan of my persecutors.]

This Peter Boy was such a brute; so stupid, and behaved so uncouthly, that, to prevent my mind from being disturbed, I took the liberty to ridicule him; and after the manner of the 'Petit Prophete', I wrote a pamphlet of a few pages, entitled, 'la Vision de Pierre de la Montagne dit le Voyant,--[The vision of Peter of the Mountain called the Seer.]--in which I found means to be diverting enough on the miracles which then served as the great pretext for my persecution. Du Peyrou had this scrap printed at Geneva, but its success in the country was but moderate; the Neuchatelois with all their wit, taste but weakly attic salt or pleasantry when these are a little refined.

In the midst of decrees and persecutions, the Genevese had distinguished themselves by setting up a hue and cry with all their might; and my friend Vernes amongst others, with an heroical generosity, chose that moment precisely to publish against me letters in which he pretended to prove I was not a Christian. These letters, written with an air of self-sufficiency were not the better for it, although it was positively said the celebrated Bonnet had given them some correction: for this man, although a materialist, has an intolerant orthodoxy the moment I am in question. There certainly was nothing in this work which could tempt me to answer it; but having an opportunity of saying a few words upon it in my 'Letters from the Mountain', I inserted in them a short note sufficiently expressive of disdain to render Vernes furious. He filled Geneva with his furious exclamations, and D'Ivernois wrote me word he had quite lost his senses. Sometime afterwards appeared an anonymous sheet, which instead of ink seemed to be written with water of Phelethon. In this letter I was accused of having exposed my children in the streets, of taking about