ROUSSEAU. 147 



to the parsonage of a Savoyard cure (rector) at 

 Carouges, two leagues from Geneva, who received him 

 hospitably in the hopes of converting him, and gave 

 him letters of introduction* to Madame de Warens, a 

 Swiss lady, who having left her husband, had become 

 a Catholic, and lived on a pension from the devout 

 King of Sardinia. She received him kindly, and sent 

 him to Turin, where he was entertained at the semi- 

 nary of Catechists, established for converting heretics. 

 In this religious establishment he found manners of 

 the most dissolute and even abominable kind ; he was 

 feebly reasoned with by the brethren on the errors of 

 his belief; he does not seem in reality to have been 

 convinced ; but a provision in the Church had been 

 placed before his eyes as the probable reward of his 

 apostacy, and he embraced publicly the Catholic religion. 

 It was, however, soon discovered by the officers of the 

 Inquisition that he was not sufficiently orthodox in 

 his faith, for he would not avow his belief that his 

 mother had been numbered among the damned. He 

 was, therefore, turned out of the seminary, with a 

 present of twenty francs from the sum collected at the 

 exhibition of his abjuration. 



After living obscurely in Turin in a lodging-house 

 for common people at half a sous a night, he now en- 

 tered as a footman the service of the Countess de Ver- 

 cellis, and wore livery with the rest of the servants. In 

 the course of a few months this lady died, and the 

 servants were of course dismissed. It was found that 



* The common accounts say that the Bishop of Annecy gave 

 him this introduction. It was M. de Pontverre, Komish cure, 

 in Savoy. 



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