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Rousseau (Volume 1 and 2) by John Morley
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I.

A French writer in the eighteenth century, in a story which deals with a
rather repulsive theme of action in a tone that is graceful, simple, and
pathetic, painted the portrait of a creature for whom no moralist with a
reputation to lose can say a word; and we may, if we choose, fool
ourselves by supposing her to be without a counterpart in the
better-regulated world of real life, but, in spite of both these
objections, she is an interesting and not untouching figure to those who
like to know all the many-webbed stuff out of which their brothers and
sisters are made. The Manon Lescaut of the unfortunate Abbé Prevost,
kindly, bright, playful, tender, but devoid of the very germ of the idea
of that virtue which is counted the sovereign recommendation of woman,
helps us to understand Madame de Warens. There are differences enough
between them, and we need not mistake them for one and the same type.
Manon Lescaut is a prettier figure, because romance has fewer
limitations than real life; but if we think of her in reading of
Rousseau's benefactress, the vision of the imaginary woman tends to
soften our judgment of the actual one, as well as to enlighten our
conception of a character that eludes the instruments of a commonplace
analysis.[39]

She was born at Vevai in 1700; she married early, and early disagreed
with her husband, from whom she eventually went away, abandoning family,
religion, country, and means of subsistence, with all gaiety of heart.
The King of Sardinia happened to be keeping his court at a small town on
the southern shores of the lake of Geneva, and the conversion of Madame
de Warens to Catholicism by the preaching of the Bishop of Annecy,[40]
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