152 ROUSSEAU. 



misfortunes, and his being subject to epileptic fits. 

 Rousseau took the opportunity one day, when he fell 

 down in the street, of leaving him to his fate, and 

 escaping in the crowd. Such was his return for the 

 favours received from a kind master. He stole back to 

 Annecy, and found Madame de Warens had left the 

 place on a secret expedition, which proved to be a resi- 

 dence of some time at Paris. 



He now wandered about Switzerland, and at one 

 time he settled in Lausanne as a music master. He 

 must needs call himself Vaussure de Villeneuve,* in 

 imitation of the creature he was last taken with ; and 

 as it should seem, in a fit of insanity, being wholly in- 

 capable of composing, he wrote a concerto which was 

 given before a large company at a law professor's house, 

 he himself directing the orchestra. The hideous discords 

 and absolutely incoherent nonsense of the piece created, 

 of course, unbounded and universal ridicule. His scho- 

 lars soon dropped off ; indeed he was fain now to con- 

 fess himself an impostor, and to own that he had under- 

 taken to teach what he was himself profoundly ignorant 

 of. He began, however, to learn music, and had made 

 some progress when another impostor like himself came 

 to Lausanne, and induced him to go as his secretary 

 and interpreter. This was a man pretending to be an 

 Archimandrite of the Greek church, come to beg aid 

 for repairing the holy sepulchre. He accompanied 

 this knave, and on one occasion made a speech for him 

 to the senate of Bern, who bestowed a considerable sum 

 on the unworthy pair. The French ambassador, who 



* Vaussure was a kind of anagram of Roussear. 



