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[403] Corancez, quoted in Musset-Pathay, i. 239. Also _Corr._, vi.
295.
[404] _Corr._, vi. 303.
[405] Robespierre, then a youth, is said to have invited him here. See Hamel's _Robespierre_, i. 22.
[406] See above, vol. i. pp. 16, 17.
[407] _Corr._, vi. 264.
[408] The case stands thus:--(1) There was the certificate of five doctors, attesting that Rousseau had died of apoplexy. (2) The a.s.sertion of M. Girardin, in whose house he died, that there was no hole in his head, nor poison in the stomach or viscera, nor other sign of self-destruction. (3) The a.s.sertion of Theresa to the same effect.
On the other hand, we have the a.s.sertion of Corancez, that on his journey to Ermenonville on the day of Rousseau's burial a horse-master on the road had said, "Who would have supposed that M. Rousseau would have destroyed himself!"--and a variety of inferences from the wording of the certificate, and of Theresa's letter. Musset-Pathay believes in the suicide, and argued very ingeniously against M. Girardin. But his arguments do not go far beyond verbal ingenuity, showing that suicide was possible, and was consistent with the language of the doc.u.ments, rather than adducing positive testimony. See vol. i. of his _History_, pp. 268, etc. The controversy was resumed as late as 1861, between the _Figaro_ and the _Monde Ill.u.s.tre_. See also M. Jal's _Dict. Crit. de Biog. et d'Hist._, p. 1091.
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