in 1722. Voltaire's Le Pour et le contre is said to have shocked
Rousseau, who expressed his sentiments freely. At any rate the
latter had thenceforward no fiercer enemy than Voltaire. 'His
death elicited from Lefranc de Pompignan an ode of real excellence
and perhaps better than anything of Rousseau's own work. That
work is divided, roughly speaking, into two contrasted divisions.
One consists of formal and partly sacred odes and cantatas of the
stiffest character, of which perhaps the Ode a la fortune is the most
famous; the other of brief epigrams, sometimes licentious and
always, or almost always, ill-natured. As an epigrammatist Rousseau
is only inferior to his friend Alexis Piron. In the former he
stands almost alone. The frigidity of conventional diction and the
disuse of all really lyrical rhythm which characterize his period do
not prevent his odes and cantatas from showing at times true
poetical faculty, though cramped, and inadequate to explain his
extraordinary vogue. Few writers were so frequently reprinted
during the 18th century, but even in his own century La Harpe had
arrived at a truer estimate of his real value when he said of his
poetry: “ Le fond n'est qu'un lieu commun charge de declamations
et meme d'idées fausses."
Besides the Soleure edition mentioned above Rousseau published another issue of his work in London in 1723. The chief edition since is that of J. A. Amar (5 vols., 1820), preceded by a notice of his life. M. A. de Latour published (1869) a useful though not complete edition, with notes and a biographical introduction.
ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES (1712~1778), French philosopher, was born at Geneva on the 28th Tune 1712. His family had established themselves in that city at the time of the religious wars, but they were of pure French origin. Rousseau's father Isaac was a watchmaker; his mother, Suzanne Bernard, was the daughter of a minister; she died in childbirth, and Rousseau, who was the second son, was brought up in a haphazard fashion, his father being dissipated, violent tempered and foolish. But he early taught his son to read, and seems to have laid the foundation of the flighty sentimentalism in morals and politics which Rousseau afterwards illustrated with his genius. When the boy was ten years old his father got entangled in a dispute with a fellow-citizen, and being condemned to a short term of imprisonment abandoned Geneva and took refuge at Lyons. The father and son henceforth rarely met. Rousseau was taken 'charge of by his mother's relations and was committed to the tutorship of M. Lambercier, pastor at Boissy. In 1724 he was removed from this school and .taken into the house of his uncle Bernard, by whom he was shortly afterwards apprenticed to a notary. His master, however, found or thought him incapable and sent him back. After a short time (April 25, 1725) he was apprenticed afresh, this time to an engraver. He did not dislike the work, but was or thought himself cruelly treated. In 1728 he ran away, the truancy being by his own account unintentional in the first instance, and due to the fact of the city gates being shut earlier than usual. Then began an extraordinary series of wanderings and adventures, for much of which there is no authority but his cwn Confessions. He first fell in with some proselytizers of the Roman faith at Confignon in Savoy, and-by them he was sent to Madame de Warens at Annecy, a young and pretty widow who was herself a convert. Her influence, however, which was to be so great, was not immediately exercised, and he was passed on to Turin, where there was an institution specially devoted to the reception of neophytes. His experiences here were unsatisfactory, but he abjured duly and was rewarded by being presented with twenty francs and sent about his business. He wandered about in Turin for some time, and at last established himself as footman to a Madame de Vercellis. Here occurred the famous incident of the theft of a ribbon, of which he accused a girl fellow-servant. But, though he kept his place by this piece of cowardice, Madame de Vercellis died not long afterwards and he was turned off. He found another place with the Comte de Gouvon, but lost this also through coxcombry. Then he resolved to return to Madame de Warens at Annecy. The chronology of all these events, as narrated by himself, is somewhat obscure, but they seem to have occupied about three years. Even then Rousseau did not settle at once in the anomalous but to him charming position of domestic lover to this lady, who, nominally a converted Protestant, was in reality, as many women of her time were, a kind of deist, with a theory of noble sentiment and a practice of libertinism tempered by good nature. It used to be held that in her conjugal relations she was more sinned against than sinning. But modern investigations seem toshow that M. de Vuarrens (which is' said to be the correct spelling of the name) was an unfortunate husband, and was deserted and robbed by his wife. However, she welcomed Rousseau kindly, thought it necessary to complete his education, and he was sent to the seminarists of St Lazare to be improved in classics, and also to a music master. In one of his incomprehensible freaks he set off for Lyons, and, after abandoning his companion in an epileptic fit, returned to Annecy to find Madame de Warens gone. Then for some months he relapsed into the life of vagabondage, varied by improbable adventures, which (according to his own statement) he so often pursued. Hardly knowing anything of music, he attempted to give lessons and a concert at Lausanne; and he actually taught at Neuchatel. Then he became, or says he became, secretary to a Greek archimandrite who was travelling in Switzerland to collect subscriptions for the rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre; then he went to Paris, and, with recommendations from the French ambassador at Soleure, saw something of good society; then he returned on foot through Lyons to Savoy, hearing that Madame de Warens was at Chambéry. This was in 1732, and Rousseau, who for a time had unimportant employments in the service of the Sardinian crown, was shortly installed by Madame de Warens, whom he still called Maman, as amen! en litre in her singular household, wherein she diverted herself with him, with music and with chemistry. In 1736 Madame de Warens, partly for Rousseau's health, took a country house, Les Charmettes, a short distance from Chambéry. Here in summer, and in the town during Winter, Rousseau led a delightful life, which he has delightfully described. In a desultory way he did a good deal of reading, but in 1738 his health again became bad, and he was recommended to go to Montpellier. By his own account this journey to Montpellier was in reality a voyage ri C3/there in company with a certain Madame de Larnage. This being so, he could hardly complain when on returning he found that his official position in Madame de Warens's household had been taken by a person named Vintzenried. He was, however, less likely than most men to endure the position of second in command, and in 1740 he became tutor at Lyons to the children of M. de Mably, not the well-known writer of that name, but his and Condillac's elder brother. But Rousseau did not like teaching and was a bad teacher, and after a visit to Les Charmettes, finding that his place there was finally occupied, he once more went to Paris in 174I., He was not without recommendations. But a new system of musical notation which he thought he had discovered was unfavourably received by the Académie des sciences, where it was read in August 1742, and he was unable to obtain pupils. Madame Dupin, however, to whose house he had obtained the entry, procured him the honourable if not very lucrative post of secretary to M. de Montaigu, ambassador at Venice. With him he stayed for about eighteen months, and has as usual infinite complaints to make of his employer and some strange stories to tell. At length he threw up his situation and returned to Paris (1745). Up to this time—that is to say, till his thirty- third year-Rousseau's life, though continuously described by -himself, was of the kind called subterranean, and the account of it must be taken with considerable allowances. From this time, however, he is more or less in view; and, though at least two events of his life;~his quarrel with Diderot and his death-are subjects of dispute, its general history can be checked and followed with reasonable confidence. On his return to Paris he renewed his relations with the Dupin family and with the literary group of Diderot, to which he had already been introduced by M. de Mably's letters. He had an opera, Les Muses gala rites, privately represented; he copied music for money, and received from Madame Dupin and her son-in-law M. de Francueil a small but regular salary as secretary. He lived at the Hotel St Quentin for a time, and once more arranged for himself an equivocal
