Rousseau's Dog

by David Edmonds

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  Acknowledgments

  We seem to be specializing in knock-down-drag-out clashes between men of titanic gifts. Our previous books focused on a ten-minute argument in 1946 between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, and a two-month battle for the world chess crown in 1972 between Bobby Fischer of the United States and Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. This time, we have become involved in a violent eighteen-month relationship in the eighteenth century between two of history’s most influential philosophers.

  In our earlier works there were dozens of witnesses to the central action, many of whom we were able to interview. Here, our wholly deceased cast live on, but only through their books and essays, and their vivid letters, journals, and memoirs. Our debts to the quick are therefore less numerous: nonetheless, they are equally heartfelt.

  We have to start with Dr. Nigel Warburton, to whom we are profoundly grateful. Nigel had penned a fascinating article on the Ramsay portraits of Rousseau and Hume, and when we approached him about this he mentioned that he intended to write a book on Rousseau in England. Hearing of our similar intention, he decided not to write his book but instead to hand over all his notes. Later, he explained that this act of extraordinary generosity was motivated in part by an author who had been equally generous in donating all his research for a book Nigel has written on the architect Erno Goldfinger.

  We like to walk the ground. Wittgenstein’s Poker took us to Cambridge and Vienna, Bobby Fischer Goes to War, to Reykjavik and Moscow. This time we retrod Rousseau’s footsteps, in Switzerland along Lake Neuchâtel (in Môtiers, Rousseau’s expulsion was explained by his predatory lusting after the young women of the village), and in England from London west to Chiswick, north to Staffordshire, and east to Lincolnshire. A tour of Strawberry Hill illuminated Horace Walpole through his passion for black rooms lit by a single candle. In Wootton, the Hon. Johnny Greenall, who has built a neo-Georgian mansion on the site of Wootton Hall, kindly allowed us to wander around the grounds, where we could pause in the remains of “Rousseau’s grotto.” Several miles away, William Podmore, who as a boy had gone with his father to the original Wootton Hall, when it was demolished in 1931, to take possession of the great staircase and the grotto, showed us both purchases—lovingly reconstructed. On David’s first trip around Staffordshire, accompanied by the philosopher and writer Jonathan Rée, they were shepherded by Wootton-based artists Simon and Jo Munby through the area’s maze of fields and narrow country lanes. In Chiswick, local historians James Wisdom and Val Bott shared their passion for the area with the present authors over lunch in their Chiswick home. Their tour of Chiswick was so vivid that the eighteenth-century village rose up before our eyes, while the busy roundabout on the A40 magically vanished. Carolyn Hammond, at Chiswick Library, prepared the microfiches and rate-books for our perusal and then in her spare time tracked down some fascinating documentation on Rousseau’s Chiswick landlord.

  John would like to acknowledge two engrossing and scholarly lectures in the Wallace Collection series Fleshly Olympus: Libertine and Liberty: Literature in the Age of Reason by Professor David Coward, and Drawing Room to Picture Frame: Women and Celebrity in the Eighteenth Century by Stella Tillyard.

  David would like to thank the staff in the British Library, who make this as pleasant a salt mine as an author could hope for. John would like to salute the London Library:
an essential resource in the helpfulness of its staff, the browsing permitted by its open shelves, the breadth of its collection, and the freedom to take out its books, even original volumes of eighteenth-century journals.

  We are indebted to our hawk-eyed readers and experts who read all or parts of the manuscript, and identified errors of fact or interpretation. They are Hannah Edmonds, David Franklin, Peter Mangold, Derek Matravers, Christopher Dickson, Jonathan Rée, Zina Rohan, Neville Shack, Christopher Tugendhat, Nigel Warburton, Andrew Yorke. A few of these readers are now our text-checking veterans, having performed a similarly unremunerated service for the previous books. Simon Gray put aside work on his drama for a comprehensive reading of ours, its meaning and moral. Marilyn Butler discussed with us Rousseau’s literary legacy.

  Our story not only spanned the English Channel, it involved a culture that assumed a knowledge of Latin and its classic works. Several linguists helped with or checked translations in French and Latin and explicated the references in each language: Sara Beck, Hannah Edmonds, Elisabeth Eidinow, Esther Eidinow, Sam Eidinow, Isabel Raphael. In Paris, Catherine and Gérard Hubert zestfully followed up our research requests, as did Christopher Dickson in Switzerland. From Geneva, Alfred Dufour put his deep knowledge of that city’s history at our disposal.

  The book would not have been possible without the superb professional skills and support of our agent and publishers: at David Higham, Jacqueline Kom, Georgina Ruffhead and Ania Corless; at Faber Julian Loose, and Henry Volans; at Ecco, Julia Serebrinsky, Lee Boudreaux, Gheña Glijansky, Marty Karlow, and Jane Beirn.

  Index

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.

  Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

  A

  Académie de Dijon (Dijon Academy), 10–13

  Adam, Robert, 259

  Albon, Comtesse d’, 291

  Alembert, Jean-Baptiste Le Rond d’, 34, 71, 74, 80, 89, 152, 153, 287, 295

  de L’Espinasse’s relationship with, 71, 287, 289, 291

  DH-JJR conflict and, 185, 199–200, 203, 206–7, 209, 213, 268

  DH’s correspondence with, 183, 185, 199–200, 200, 203, 204

  JJR’s clash with, 29–30

  King of Prussia letter and, 161, 165, 172, 200, 206–7

  at salons, 73, 75, 289

  American Revolution, 258, 299, 303

  amour de soi, 138–39

  amour propre, 138–39, 266

  animals, humans compared with, 137–38, 139

  Animula (Eliot), 5

  Annan dale, Marquess of, 17, 113

  Aristotle, 271

  Arty, Mme de, 288

  atheists, 74, 144, 145, 288, 291

  Augusta, Dowager Princess, 296

  Augustine, Saint, 229, 230

  Ayer, Sir Freddie, 264

  B

  Bagehot, Walter, 55

  Baldwin, Henry, 165

  Bally, Henri, 291

  Barbantane, Marquise de, 79, 152

  DH’s correspondence with, 112, 121, 122, 126, 131, 162, 163, 204

  Beaumont, Christophe de, 47

  bel esprit, 77, 79

  Berlin, 83, 251

  Bernard (Rousseau’s cousin), 6, 7, 238

  Bernardine monks, 71

  Berne, canton of, 50–51, 87

  Blacklock, Thomas, 20

  Blair, Rev. Hugh, 20, 295

  DH’s correspondence with, 63, 67, 74, 86, 122, 132–33, 145, 148, 149, 151–52, 176–77, 184–85, 191, 241, 295

  book burning, 34, 36, 38, 290

  booksellers, 34, 84

  in London, 22, 94, 104, 171

  Boothby, Sir Brooke, 165, 226, 227, 237, 253, 298

  Boston, 234, 242, 245

  Boswell, James, 100, 112, 168, 189, 214, 258, 260, 295–96, 302

  Le Vasseur’s relationship with, 46–47, 107, 109, 112, 117–19

  in Môtiers, 45–47, 271

  botany, 226, 302

  JJR’s interest in, 50, 115–16, 156, 222, 223, 226, 247, 252, 255, 272, 294, 302

  Boufflers, Duc de, 292

  Boufflers, Mme de (Comtesse de Boufflers-Rouverel), 36, 42, 65, 75–80, 87–88, 90, 230, 235, 248, 287–88

  Confessions and, 254

  as Conti’s mistress, 75, 76, 79, 200, 287, 288–89

  DH-JJR link and, 35, 40–41, 75, 266, 288

  DH’s correspondence with, 40–41, 76–79, 91, 105, 121, 125–26, 127, 130–31, 132, 152, 160, 161, 163–64, 165, 177, 177–78, 184, 193, 198, 200–201, 213, 215–19, 241, 248, 256, 257, 259, 267, 270, 288

  DH’s relationship with, 75–76, 76–80, 199, 270, 288

  JJR’s correspondence with, 38, 118, 160, 171, 213, 216–17, 228, 259

  JJR’s finances and, 127, 130–31, 199, 201, 267

  King of Prussia letter and, 132, 159–65, 206

  marriage of, 75, 287

  “Rule of Life” of, 76, 183, 268

  Boufflers-Rouverel, édouard, Comte de, 75, 79, 287

  Brady, Frank, 118

  Brand, Sir Thomas, 58, 162

  British Museum, 207

  Brunswick, Prince of, 96

  Buccleuch, Duke of, 185, 298

  Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 103

  Bunbury, Lady Sarah, 106–7, 299

  Bunbury, Sir Charles, 53, 60, 62, 299

  Burke, Edmund, 22, 224, 260, 261–62, 303

  Burney, Charles, 218

  Burton, John Hill, 115–16

  Bute, John Stuart, Earl of, 20, 23, 25, 57, 61, 63, 115, 296, 297, 301

  Byng, Admiral, 56

  Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 262

  C

  Calais, 91, 160, 173, 250

  Calvin, John, 7

  Calvinism, 7, 12, 29, 49

  Calwich Abbey, 224–26, 300, 301

  Camden, Lord, 241

  Canada, 17, 56

  Catherine the Great, 290

  Catholicism, Roman, 5, 67, 144, 145, 295

  cats, dogs vs., 271

  cause and effect, 135, 260–61

  censorship:

  in France, 9, 34, 48, 74, 290

  in Geneva, 47, 48

  in Scotland, 20

  Cerjat, Jean-François-Maximilian, 238, 242

  Charlemont, Lord, 18, 68, 130

  Charles I, King of England, 21, 22, 23

  Charles II, King of England, 54

  Charles X, King of France, 66

  Charlotte Sophia, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, 98, 100–101, 204, 224, 297, 300

  Chenonceaux, Mme de, 173

  Cheshire, 227, 235, 238–40

  children, 229

  JJR’s abandonment of own, 11, 12, 49, 230

  upbringing of, 2, 32, 33—34, 94, 140

  Chiswick, 106, 111–16, 118, 119, 151, 156, 239, 296, 302

  Choiseul, étienne-François, Comte de Stainville, Duc de, 57, 60, 89, 288

  Chute, John, 159

  cicisbeo, 79

  cities:

  DH’s views on, 143–44

  JJR’s views on, 11, 27, 42, 102, 105, 112, 113, 143, 222

  civilization:

  corrupting influence of, 10

  DH on benefits of, 143

  Clairaut, Alexis-Claude, 81–83

  Clarissa (Richardson), 59

  Coindet, François, 204, 271

  Coke, Lady Mary, 90

  Cole, Rev. Mr., 160–61

  Collins, J. Churton, 107

  Colombiers, 42

  Comedian, The (Fielding), 94

  Concise Account (Hume), 193, 208, 212, 218, 270

  Confessions (Augustine), 229

  Confessions (Rousseau), 2, 5, 7, 11, 31, 37, 49, 127, 261, 262

  controversy in, 34–35

  DH’s concerns about, 191, 218

  friendship in, 270–71

  happiness in, 140–41

  Le Vasseur in, 107–11

  Mme de Boufflers in, 35, 76
, 251

  Mme de Verdelin in, 82, 251

  Môtiers attack in, 50

  nature in, 143

  Paris in, 11

  publication of, 241, 246, 288

  readings from, 253–54

  secret jealousies in, 28–29

  virtue in, 29

  writing of, 220, 228–32

  Considerations on the Government of Poland (Rousseau), 253

  Conti, Louis-François de Bourbon, Prince de, 35–36, 89, 216, 249, 252, 288–89

  King of Prussia letter and, 159, 160

  Mme de Boufflers and, 75, 76, 79, 200, 287, 289

  Temple residence of, 75, 81, 86, 256, 287

  Conway, Francis Seymour, see Hertford, Francis Seymour Conway, Earl of

  Conway, Henry Seymour, 52, 54–55, 60–63, 96, 127–29, 187, 198, 219, 244, 299, 301

  DH-JJR conflict and, 187, 188, 198, 201, 270

  JJR’s correspondence with, 245

  JJR’s dinner invitation from, 149, 151

  JJR’s royal pension and, 128–29, 176–78, 188, 195, 201, 202, 219, 236–37

  King of Prussia letter and, 158–59

  in Rockingham administration, 62–63, 127–28, 303

  Conway, Mrs. Henry Seymour, 149, 178

  Correspondance littéraire, 28, 73, 87, 290

  cosmopolitanism, 8, 143

  Council of Bern, 38

  Cowper, John, 227

  Cranston, Maurice, 107

  Craufurd, John (“Fish”), 162, 163, 164, 296

  Critical and Historical Essays (Macaulay), 52

  Critical Review, 21

  Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 260

  Cunning Man, The (Rousseau), 218–19

  Curchod, Suzanne, see Necker, Suzanne

  D

  Darwin, Erasmus, 223

  Davenport, Davies, 226, 253, 300

  Davenport, Phoebe, 226, 240, 251, 252, 300

  Davenport, Richard, 122–23, 148, 149, 191, 195, 235–41, 253, 299–300

  DH’s correspondence with, 177, 182, 187, 192, 241, 243, 244, 247

  DH’s description of, 122, 299

  on JJR, 233

  JJR’s correspondence with, 157, 169–70, 183, 222, 235–36, 238, 239–40, 243–44, 245–46, 249, 251–52

  JJR’s relationship with, 194, 226, 233, 237, 252