180 ROUSSEAU. 



Paris. With M. St." Germain he never had a minute's 

 difference of any kind ; yet he entirely gave over 

 writing to him for the last seven years of his life. 

 With all his former friends he quarrelled; and half 

 a year before his death he wrote and sent a circu- 

 lar, representing himself and his wife as so much re- 

 duced that they could no longer live out of a work- 

 house, and begging to be sent to some hospital, where 

 their little income might be used for their support. It 

 is plain that he would have greatly wished some friend, 

 some of the supposed conspirators, to send him there 

 without his asking it ; but as no one thought of doing 

 so, the circular was issued. It was all a pretence. 

 At Ermenonville, he immediately became so much 

 pleased with the place, that he began writing, and 

 seemed as contented as his nature would allow him 

 to be. Two friends, much attached to him, and 

 alarmed by the tone of the circular, ascertained that it 

 was all a trick there is no other word to give it a 

 trick to attract pity, and make his persecutions be cre- 

 dited. Nor can any one doubt, that had he been 

 taken at his word, he would have proclaimed the 

 grand plot as having reached its consummation. He 

 died suddenly, on the 2d of July, 1778, apparently of 

 apoplexy, having immediately before come home ill 

 from a walk, and complained of a pain in the head. 

 He had only been at Ermenonville six weeks. He was 

 buried, at his own request, on the island in the lake 

 there. The report of his suicide was utterly without 

 foundation, though Madame de Stael, in her clever 

 'Essay* on his genius, gives it countenance. It has 

 been again and again completely disproved. 



