ROUSSEAU. 185 



tique," and though sometimes a secretary, yet speaking 

 of the relations between master and domestique in 

 plain terms.* He drew the distinction between do- 

 mestique and valet, indeed ; but surely he could not 

 after this complain of any one doubting whether he ever 

 had been Secretary of Embassy. It is another great 

 discrepancy between his book and his ' Correspond- 

 ence/ that while he complains to the Foreign Office 

 of being left penniless at Venice, and without the means 

 of returning home, he states, in his 'Confessions/ 

 that at the Consul's, where he dined the day he quitted 

 the Embassy, "every purse at table was opened to 

 him," and he accepted a sum which he mentions, forty 

 sequins, for the necessary expenses of his journey ; and 

 he also gives the names of the two persons who lent 

 him the money.f The remark seems quite fair, too, 

 as well as obvious, that from the moment when he 

 first formed the plan of reading his book to select 

 circles, we lose the entire confidence inspired by the 

 earlier parts of the book ; and though he may not, till 

 after he grew tired of England, and returned to 

 Bougoin, have intended to give these readings at 

 Paris, he probably had, for some time before, an idea 

 that he should at one period or other read or show, if 

 not publish, them. 



Of his character it is almost as easy to speak with 

 confidence as of his writings. It seems certain that 

 so much genius never was in any other man united to 



* Compare Cor., ii. (CEuv., viii., p. 71) and i. (OEuv., vii. 53, p. 

 53-59). 



f Conf. and Cor., ib. 



