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BookXn1 Here begins the work of darkness in which I have found myself enshrouded for the past eight years without having been able to penetrate its frightening obscurity no matter what I might try to do about it. In the abyss of evils in which I am submerged, I feel the contact of the blows that are aimed at me, I perceive their immediate instrument, but I cannot see either the hand that directs it, or the means it puts into operation. Opprobrium and misfortunes fall upon me as if by themselves and without being seen. If my torn-up heart lets some moans escape, I have the appearance of a man who is complaining for no reason, and the authors of my ruin have found the inconceivable art of making the public into an accomplice of their plot without the public suspecting it and perceiving the effect. Thus as I narrate the events that concern me, the treatment I have suffered and everything that has happened to me, I am in no position to go back to the impelling hand, and to fix the causes as I state the facts. These primitive causes are all marked out in the three2 preceding books; all the interests relative to me, all the secret motives are exposed there. But to say how these diverse causes combined to bring about the strange events of my life; this is what I am unable to explain, even by conjecture. If any of my readers are generous enough to want to get to the core of these mysteries and to discover the truth, let them reread the three3 preceding books with care, then let them take the information that will be in their grasp for each fact they will read in the following ones, let them go back from intrigue to intrigue and agent to agent up to the prime movers of everything; I know with certainty at what terminus their research will come to an end, but I get lost in the obscure and tortuous route of the underground passages that will lead them there. During my stay at Yverdon I made the acquaintance of M. Roguin's entire family, and among others his niece Mme Boy de la Tour and her daughters, whose father, as I believe I have said, I had formerly known at Lyon.4 She had come to Iverdon to see her uncle and sisters; her oldest daughter, who was about fifteen years old, enchanted me with her great sense and her excellent character. I became attached to the mother and daughter with the most tender friendship. This latter had been5 destined by M. Roguin to his nephew the Colonel,6 already advanced in age, and 493 494 Confessions who also bore witness of the greatest affection for me; but although the uncle was enthusiastic for this marriage, although the nephew desired it extremely also, and although I took a very lively interest in the satisfaction of both of them, the great disproportion of age and the extreme repugnance of the young person made me cooperate with the mother in discouraging this marriage, which did not take place. Subsequently the Colonel married his relative Mademoiselle Dillan who has a character and beauty in accordance with my heart, and who has made him the happiest of husbands and fathers. In spite of that M. Roguin has not been able to forget that I interfered with his desires on this occasion. I have consoled myself for it with the certainty of having fulfilled, both toward him and toward his family, the duty of the most holy friendship, which is not to make oneself always agreeable, but always to counsel for the best. I was not left in doubt for very long about the welcome that was waiting for me at Geneva in case I wanted to return there. My Book was burned and a warrant issued7 on June 18, that is to say nine days after the one was issued in Paris. So many unbelievable absurdities were accumulated in this second warrant, and the Ecclesiastical Edict8 was so absolutely violated in it that I refused to give faith to the first news that came to me about it, and when it was well confirmed, I trembled that such a manifest andflagrantinfraction of all laws, beginning with the law of good sense, might turn Geneva upside down: I might have had reason to be reassured; everything remained calm. If some uproar stirred up the...

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