Dedication to Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(translation by Nicola Armitt)

It is to you that I dedicate this piece, spirit of the citizens of Geneva: a spirit which, if called into being now, would be placed under the aegis of the most eloquent and virtuous of men. Today, more than ever, we need eloquence and virtue. Divine man, it was you who taught me to know myself and, young as I am, you helped me to appreciate the dignity of my nature and to reflect on the great principles of social order. The old order has fallen: the portico of a new order has arisen on its ruins and, thanks to you, I have placed by own stone there. Receive therefore my homage; as weak as it is I hope that it will please you – I have not yet been known to incense the living.I saw you in your final days and the memory is a source of joy for me. I contemplated your noble traits and I saw the mark of those dark sorrows that the injustice of men has condemned you to. From then on I understood the price of a noble life, dedicated to the cult of truth. This did not frighten me. To be conscious of having wished only good for ones fellow men is the reward of a virtuous man. Only after this comes the gratitude of the people who heap honours on the memory of someone who was denied such honour by his contemporaries. Like you, I wish to live by honest hard work, even if it means a premature death. Born to play a role in the greatest events that have ever shaken the world, assisting in the death of despotism and the birth of true sovereignty, close to seeing the breaking of the storms, of which no human intelligence could tell the outcome, I must devote to myself and to my fellow citizens, the account of all my thoughts and acts. Your example is there before my eyes; your admirable “Confessions” – the frank and bold expression of the purest soul that is destined for posterity, less as a piece of art than as a marvel of virtue. I wish to follow in your venerate footsteps, should I leave nothing but a name that future generations will recall. I would be happy if, in the perilous course of the unprecedented revolution that opens before us, I remain faithful to the inspiration that I have sought through your writings.