ON THE SUBJECT AND FORM OF THIS WRITING2

I have often said that if someone had given me ideas about another man like those my contemporaries have been given about me, I would not have behaved toward him as they do toward me. This assertion has left everyone utterly indifferent, and I have not seen in anyone the least curiosity about how my behavior would have differed from that of others, and what my reasons would have been. I have concluded from this that the public—perfectly sure of the impossibility of acting more justly or more honestly than it does with respect to me—was consequently sure that in my assumption I would have been wrong not to imitate it. In the public’s self-confidence, I have even believed I noticed a haughty disdain that could come only from a high opinion of its own virtue and that of its guides in this matter. All that being concealed from me by an impenetrable mystery which cannot be reconciled with my reasons, I have been prompted to state my reasons in order to submit them to anyone who would be kind enough to correct me. For if my error exists, it is not without consequence. It forces me to think ill of everyone around me; and since nothing is further from my wishes than to be unjust and ungrateful toward them, those who would disabuse me by bringing me back to better judgments would substitute gratitude for indignation in my heart, and would make me appreciative³ and thankful by showing me my duty to be so. That is not, however, the only motive that has prompted me to take pen in hand. Another that is stronger and no less legitimate will make itself felt in this writing. But I declare that in these motives there is no longer the hope or even the desire to get at last, from those who have judged me, the justice they deny me and are very determined to deny me forever.⁴

In wishing to complete this task, I found myself in a most unusual quandary! The problem was not to find reasons in favor of my feeling, but to imagine any opposing ones, to establish a semblance of equity for actions where I saw none whatsoever. Yet seeing all Paris, all France, all Europe behave toward me with the greatest confidence on the basis of maxims that are so new and so inconceivable to me, I could not assume that this unanimous agreement was without any reasonable or at least apparent foundation, and that a whole generation would agree to suppress wantonly all natural enlightenment, to violate all the laws of justice, all the rules of good sense, without purpose, without profit, without pretext, uniquely to gratify a whim whose goal and cause I could not even glimpse. The profound, universal silence—no less inconceivable than the mystery it veils, a mystery that has been hidden from me for fifteen years with a care that I refrain from characterizing and with a success that appears extraordinary—this terrifying and terrible silence has kept me from grasping the least idea that could clarify these strange attitudes for me. Left to my conjectures for all enlightenment, I have not been able to formulate any explanation of what is happening to me such that I could believe I had unraveled the truth. Sometimes when strong clues have led me to think I had discovered the purpose and authors of the intrigue along with its foundation, the numberless absurdities I saw arising from these assumptions soon forced me to abandon them; and all those which my imagination has troubled itself to put in their place have not stood up any better to the slightest scrutiny.

Yet in order not to fight a chimera, not to slander a whole generation, it was necessary to assume some reasons on the side approved and followed by everyone. I spared nothing in seeking them, in imagining those likely to seduce the multitude; and if I found none that could have produced that effect, Heaven is my witness that it is not for lack of will or efforts, and that I carefully collected all the ideas my understanding could supply for that purpose. When all my efforts led to nothing that could satisfy me, I made the only choice left to reach an explanation: being unable to argue on the basis of private motives that were unknown and incomprehensible to me, I would reason on the basis of a general hypothesis that could combine them all. This was to choose, from among all possible assumptions, the one that was worst for me, best for my adversaries, and from that vantage point—as well adapted as possible to the maneuvers of which I have seen myself to be the target, the demeanors I have glimpsed, the mysterious comments I have overheard here and there—to examine what would have been the most reasonable and most just behavior on their part. Exhausting everything that could be said in their favor was the only means I had to discover what they say in fact; and this is what I have tried to do, attributing to them all plausible motives and specious arguments, and collecting all imaginable charges against myself. Despite all that, I admit I often blushed at the reasons I was forced to ascribe to them. If I had found better ones, I would have used them with all my heart and strength, and all the more easily in that I am certain none would have held up against my replies, because these are derived immediately from the first principles of justice and first elements of good sense, and are applicable to all possible cases of a situation like mine.

As the dialogue form appeared to me best suited to discuss the pros and cons, I chose it for that reason. In these conversations I took the liberty of resuming my family name, which the public judged it appropriate to take from me, and following its example, I refer to myself as a third party, using my Christian name to which the public chose to reduce me. By making my other interlocutor a Frenchman, I did nothing that was not obliging and decent for the name he bears, since I refrained from making him an accomplice in the behavior I disapprove, and I would have done nothing unjust in portraying him here with the traits that his whole nation eagerly displays toward me. I even took the trouble to bring him back to more reasonable feelings than those I have found in any of his compatriots, and the person I placed on stage is such that it would be as fortunate for me as it would be honorable to his country if he were imitated by many there. If I sometimes engage him in absurd reasoning, I state most sincerely at the outset that it is always despite myself, and I believe I can challenge all France to find more solid reasoning to justify the singular practices focused on me, in which that country appears to glorify itself so much.

What I had to say was so clear and I felt it so deeply that I am amazed by the tediousness, repetitiousness, verbiage, and disorder of this writing. What would have made it lively and vehement coming from another’s pen is precisely what has made it dull and slack coming from mine. The subject was myself, and I no longer found on my own interest that zeal and vigor of courage which can exalt a generous soul only for another person’s cause. The humiliating role of my own defense is too much beneath me, too unworthy of the feelings that inspire me for me to enjoy undertaking it. Nor, as it will soon be felt, is that the role I wanted to assume here. But I could not examine the public’s behavior regarding me without viewing myself in the most deplorable and cruel position in the world. I had to focus on sad and harrowing ideas, bitter and revolting memories, feelings that are least suited to my heart. And it was to that state of sorrow and distress that I had to return every time some new outrage, countering my repugnance, made me renew the effort to continue this frequently abandoned writing. Unable to endure such a sorrowful occupation continuously, I engaged in it for brief moments only, writing each idea as it came to me and then stopping, writing the same thing ten times if it came to me ten times, without ever recalling what I wrote previously, and becoming aware of it only when reading the whole thing, too late to make corrections, as I shall explain shortly. Anger sometimes stimulates talent, but disgust and heartbreak stifle it. And after reading this, it will be felt that those had to be the constant dispositions in which I found myself during this painful labor.

Another difficulty made it tiring for me: it was, forced to speak ceaselessly about myself, to speak with justice and truth, without praise and without deprecation. That is not hard for a man who is honored as he deserves by the public. He is thereby dispensed from taking the trouble to do so himself. He can equally well be silent without demeaning himself, or frankly attribute to himself the qualities that everyone sees in him. But how will the person who feels worthy of honor and esteem, yet whom the public freely disfigures and defames, adopt a tone that does himself justice? Should he speak of himself with praise that is merited but generally denied? Should he boast of the qualities he feels he has but which everyone refuses to see? There would be less pride than baseness in thus prostituting the truth. Praising oneself in these circumstances, even with the most rigorous justice, would be degrading oneself rather than doing oneself honor, and it would show little understanding of men to believe that such protestation can dissuade them about an error in which they choose to believe. A proud, disdainful silence is more appropriate in such a case, and would have been more to my taste. But it would not have fulfilled my purpose, and to do so I had necessarily to say how, if I were someone else, I would view a man such as myself. I have tried to discharge such a difficult duty equitably and impartially—without insulting the incredible blindness of the public, without proudly boasting about those virtues it refuses to see in me, yet without accusing myself of vices I do not have, with which it takes pleasure in charging me—by explaining simply what I would deduce about a constitution like mine carefully studied in another man. If restraint and moderation are found in my descriptions, let me not be given credit for that. I declare that if I only had a little more modesty, I would have spoken much more honorably about myself.

Seeing the excessive length of these dialogues, I tried several times to prune them, eliminate the frequent repetitions, and introduce some order and continuity. I could never bear this new torment. The lively feeling of my misfortunes revived by this reading stifles all the attention it requires. It is impossible for me to retain anything, collate two sentences, and compare two ideas. As I force my eyes to follow the lines, my oppressed heart moans and sighs. After frequent and futile attempts, I renounce this labor of which I feel incapable, and for want of being able to do better, I confine myself to transcribing these formless essays which I am in no condition to correct. Even as they are, if the work were still to be done, I would not do it for anything in the universe. I am even forced to abandon multitudes of ideas that are better or better expressed than those which are here, ideas I had scribbled on scraps of paper hoping I could easily incorporate them. But despondency has overcome me to the point where even this little bit of work is impossible. After all, I have said just about everything I had to say. It is drowned in a chaos of disorder and repetitions, but it is there. Good minds will be able to find it. As for those who want only some agreeable rapid reading, who sought and found only that in my Confessions, and who cannot tolerate a little fatigue or maintain their attention in the interest of justice and truth, they will do well to spare themselves the boredom of reading this. It is not to them I wished to speak, and far from seeking to please them, I will at least avoid the ultimate indignity of seeing that the picture of the miseries of my life is an object of amusement for anyone.

What will become of this writing? What use could I make of it? I do not know, and this uncertainty has added greatly to the discouragement that never left me while I worked on it. Those who dispose of me knew about it as soon as it was begun, and given my situation, I see no possible way to keep it from falling into their hands sooner or later.^R1 Thus, following the natural course of events, all the trouble I have taken is a total waste. I do not know what choice Heaven will suggest to me, but I shall hope until the end that it will not abandon the just cause. Into whatever hands Heaven makes these pages fall, if there may still be a human heart among those who read them, that is enough for me, and I will never despise the human species so much that I will not find in that idea some reason for confidence and hope.

Note

R1 The unhappy history of this work found at the end of these dialogues tells how this prediction proved true.⁵