But no. He couldn't appear as a composer now. That glory, craved for so long, was now forbidden to him. Still, just for the ladies, and just for this once, for this one weekend in the country, he would make a little piece out of his melodies.

The ladies were delighted and Jean Jacques was applauded. And everyone went to work to learn the parts which he wrote.

But then, after the little operetta had been given its feeble amateur rendering, everyone insisted that it was too good to be lost forever, and that the Royal Academy of Music must now have the manuscript in order to give it the really first-rate performance it merited.

Rousseau was aware that he must seem like a hypocrite, standing there and arguing that he could not possibly permit a public performance. The ladies especially couldn't understand what troubled him. A contradiction? Bah, what was a contradiction in one's life? Every woman has had the experience of saying no when she meant yes, and saying yes when she meant no.

Rousseau had to admit that though he couldn't agree to a public performance, he would indeed, just for his own private satisfaction, dearly love to know how his work would sound when done by professional musicians and by trained voices.

``I'd simply like to know if it is as good as you kind people seem to think,'' he said.

Duclos, the historian, pointed out to Jean Jacques that this was impossible. The musicians of the Royal Opera would not rehearse a work merely to see how it would sound. Merely to satisfy the author's curiosity.