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Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, the — Volume 11 by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
page 32 of 54 (59%)
pronounced it, because, contrary to his expectation, another person was
appointed to perform that ceremony.

The printing of Emilius, after having been again taken in hand, was
continued and completed without much difficulty; and I remarked this
singularity, that after the curtailings so much insisted upon in the
first two volumes, the last two were passed over without an objection,
and their contents did not delay the publication for a moment. I had,
however, some uneasiness which I must not pass over in silence. After
having been afraid of the Jesuits, I begun to fear the Jansenists and
philosophers. An enemy to party, faction and cabal, I never heard the
least good of parties concerned in them. The gossips had quitted their
old abode and taken up their residence by the side of me, so that in
their chamber, everything said in mine, and upon the terrace, was
distinctly heard; and from their garden it would have been easy to scale
the low wall by which it was separated from my alcove. This was become
my study; my table was covered with proofsheets of Emilius and the Social
Contract and stitching these sheets as they were sent to me, I had all my
volumes a long time before they were published. My negligence and the
confidence I had in M. Mathas, in whose garden I was shut up, frequently
made me forget to lock the door at night, and in the morning I several
times found it wide open; this, however, would not have given me the
least inquietude had I not thought my papers seemed to have been
deranged. After having several times made the same remark, I became more
careful, and locked the door. The lock was a bad one, and the key turned
in it no more than half round. As I became more attentive, I found my
papers in a much greater confusion than they were when I left everything
open. At length I missed one of my volumes without knowing what was
become of it until the morning of the third day, when I again found it
upon the table. I never suspected either M. Mathas or his nephew M. du
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