144 ROUSSEAU. 



sister of old Rousseau, who appears to have been a 

 man of exemplary virtue, of considerable abilities, 

 some information, and of a very feeling heart. He 

 had gone to Constantinople about seven years after the 

 birth of his eldest and then his only son, but he returned 

 on being apprized by his wife that she was beset by 

 the attentions of the French Resident, to whom she 

 had given every possible repulse. This gentleman, 

 M. de la Closure, showed, at a distance of thirty years, 

 some kindness to the son, and was moved to tears in 

 speaking of his mother, who died when she had given 

 him birth, ten months after her husband's return 

 from the East. His grief was excessive ; and he used 

 for some years after to take a mournful pleasure in 

 speaking of her, and weeping over her memory with 

 his child. He read with him all her books, which 

 were chiefly novels and romances, and in devouring 

 these they would frequently sit up whole nights. The 

 stock being exhausted, they betook themselves to a 

 more wholesome food ; the library of her father 

 having, on his death, come to them, and containing 

 historical and other useful books. An extraordinary 

 enthusiasm for the Greek and Roman characters, and 

 especially the eager perusal of ' Plutarch's Lives/ and 

 the Roman history, was the consequence of this new 

 course of reading. Young Rousseau could not abstain 

 from the subject, and one day alarmed the family at 

 dinner, while he was relating the fable of Scsevola, by 

 running to the chafing-dish and holding his hand on 

 it. When he was eight or nine years old, his father 

 had a quarrel with a French officer, and to avoid 

 being cast into prison, left Geneva and settled at 



