177 



ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES. 



ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES. 



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found Madame de Warens residing at a country-house near Chambery, 

 who received him kindly, and afforded him support and protection in 

 her own house during the next ten years. Of his foolish, profligate, 

 and ungrateful conduct during a great part of this period he has given 

 an account in his ' Confessions.' After many absences and many 

 returns, he quitted her finally in 1740, with letters of introduction 

 for some persons at Lyon. He acted in succession as preceptor, 

 musician, and private secretary to the French envoy to Venice, whom 

 he followed to that city. From Venice he proceeded to Paris, in 1745. 

 On alighting at an inn, he became acquainted with a servant girl, 

 Therese Levasseur, with whom he formed a connection which lasted 

 for the rest of his life. He attempted to compose music for the stage, 

 but he did not succeed in selling it. His next employment was as a 

 clerk in the office of M. Dupin, fermier-ge'ne'ral, where however he 

 did not remain long. In 1748 he became acquainted with Madame 

 d'Epinay, who proved one of his steadiest and truest friends. At her 

 house he formed the acquaintance of D'Alembert, Diderot, and 

 Condillac, and by them he was engaged to write articles for the 

 ' Encyclopedia.' 



One day he read in an advertisement that a prize was offered by 

 the Academy of Dijon for the best essay on the question ' Whether 

 the progress of science and of the arts has been favourable to the 

 morals of mankind ? ' Rousseau determined to support the negative, 

 aud Diderot encouraged, but did not originate, his determination. 

 He supported his position in a style of impassioned eloquence, and 

 obtained the prize. His success confirmed him in his bias for paradox 

 and exaggeration, and henceforth he seemed to have adopted as a 

 general principle that the extreme opposite to wrong must of neces- 

 sity be right. His opera, ' Le Devin du Village,' was played before 

 Louis XV., at the Court Theatre of Fontainebleau. Rousseau was in 

 one of the boxes with a gentleman of the court. The king, being 

 pleased with the opera, expressed a desire to see the author, which 

 being signified to Rousseau, his shyness took alarm, and he actually 

 ran away out of the house, and did not stop till he reached Paris. 

 He had neither easy manners nor facility of address, and his own 

 acute feeling of these deficiencies tormented him throughout life, and 

 tended to perpetuate and increase his natural awkwardness. In order 

 to hide these imperfections, he affected disregard of manners, and put 

 on the appearance of a misanthropist, which he in reality was not. 

 He lived chiefly by copying music, and several persons who knew hia 

 straitened circumstances sent him work, for which they offered him 

 three or four times the usual remuneration, but he never would accept 

 anything beyond the accustomed price. 



In 1753 he wrote his ' Lettre sur la Musique Frangaise,' which 

 sorely wounded the national vanity. His next publication, a letter 

 to D'Alembert, ' Sur les Spectacles,' gave rise to a controversy between 

 them. He wrote also a ' Discours sur 1'Origine de 1'Inegalitd parini 

 les Hommes,' which was admired for its eloquence ; but his usual 

 paradoxical vein runs through the whole composition. Rousseau 

 asserts that man is not intended for a social state ; that he has a bias 

 for a solitary existence, and that the condition of the savage in his 

 native wilds is a true state of freedom, and the natural state of man, 

 and that every system of society is an infraction of man's rights. He 

 also maintains that all men are born equal, in spite of the daily evi- 

 dence which we have of the inequalities, physical and moral, observable 

 even in childhood. This idea of the equal rights of men, derived not 

 from reason or religion, but from his favourite theory of man's equality 

 in a state of nature, Rousseau afterwards developed more fully in his 

 ' Contrat Social,' a work which, after leading astray a number of 

 people, and causing considerable mischief, is now regarded by all 

 sound thinkers as a superficial essay. It is a curious fact that 

 Rousseau, after reading the works of Bernardin de St. Pierre, had 

 observed that in all the projects of society and government of that 

 writer there was the fundamental error of " supposing that men in 

 general and in all cases will conduct themselves according to the 

 dictates of reason and justice, rather than according to the impulse 

 of their own passions or wayward judgment." 



In 1756 Rousseau, at the invitation of Madame d'Epinay, took up 

 his residence at her country-house, called L' Hermitage, in the pretty 

 valley of Montmorency, near Paris. Here he began to write his cele- 

 brated novel, ' Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise,' which he finished in 1759. 

 It is of little value as a work of imagination or invention, but as a 

 specimen of impassioned eloquence it will always be admired. Rousseau 

 while he wrote it was under the influence of a violent attachment for 

 Madame d'Houdetot, bister-in-law of Madame d'Epinay ; and this 

 passion, absurd and hopeless though it was, seryed to inspire him during 

 the progress of his work. 



' La Nouvelle Heloise ' has been censured as tending to render vice 

 an object of interest and sympathy. The character of the hero is 

 culpable, for he forgets the obligations of hospitality, and betrays the 

 confidence reposed in him. But here we again perceive the influence 

 of Rousseau's favourite paradox; for, in a state of nature, such as 

 Rousseau fancied it, the relative position of St. Preux, his pupil, and 

 her parents, would not have been the same as in the novel, for they 

 would have all been savages together, and the intimacy of St. Preux 

 with Julie would have been a matter of course. Rousseau however, 

 by the character which he has drawn of Julie after she becomes a wife, 

 has paid a just homage to the sacredness of the marriage bond, and to 



BIOG. DIV. VOL. V. 



the importance of conjugal duties, which constitute the foundation of 

 all society. Rousseau admired virtue and felt its value, though he did 

 not always follow its rules. He says of himself, that after much 

 reflection, perceiving nothing but error among philosophers, and 

 oppression and misery in the social state, he fancied, in the delusion of 

 his pride, that he was born to dissipate all prejudices; but then he 

 saw that, in order to have hia advice listened to, his conduct ought to 

 correspond to his principles. It was probably in compliance with this 

 growing sense of moral duty that at last he married the woman whom 

 he had so long been living with, who had then attained the age of 

 forty-seven, and who, as he himself says, did not possess either mental 

 or personal attractions, and had nothing to recommend her except her 

 attention to him, especially in his fits of illness or despondency. He 

 also repented in the latter years of his life of having sent his illegitimate 

 children to the foundling hospital. 



Rousseau's ' Emile,' which appeared in 1762, contained a new system 

 of education. He gives many good precepts, especially in the first part 

 of the book, which was productive of a beneficial change in the early 

 treatment of children in France : it induced mothers of the higher 

 orders to nurse their children themselves ; it caused the discontinuance 

 of the absurd practice of swaddling infants like mummies ; it taught 

 parents to appeal to the feelings of children, and to develope their 

 rational faculties rather than frighten them into submission by blows 

 or threats, or terrify them by absurd stories. In these respects 

 Rousseau was a benefactor to children ; but as he proceeded in his 

 plan for older boys he became involved in speculations about religion 

 and morality, which gave offence both to Roman Catholics and Protest- 

 ants. The parliament of Paris condemned the book. The archbishop 

 issued a 'mandement' against it. The States- General of Holland 

 proscribed it, and the council of Geneva had it burnt by the hand 

 of the executioner. The publication of his ' Contrat Social,' which 

 took place soon after, added to the outcry against him, in consequence 

 of which Rousseau left Paris and repaired first to Yverdun, but the 

 senate of Bern ordered him to quit the territory of the republic. He 

 then went to Neuchatel, of which Marshal Keith was governor for the 

 King of Prussia. Keith received him kindly, and Rousseau took up 

 his residence at Motiers in the Val de Travers, whence he wrote a 

 reply to the Archbishop of Paris, and a letter to the magistrates of 

 Geneva, in which he renounced his citizenship. In his retirement he 

 wrote the ' Lettres dcrites de la Montague,' being a series of strictures 

 on the political and ecclesiastical government of Geneva as it then was. 

 This work increased the irritation against the author, a feeling which 

 spread even among the villagers of Motiers, who annoyed their 

 eccentric visitor in various ways, which however the suspicious temper 

 of Rousseau probably exaggerated. He removed to the little island 

 of St. Pierre in the Lake of Bienne, where he assumed, no one knows 

 why, the Armenian costume. Being sent away thence by an order 

 from the senate of Bern, he accepted the kind invitation of David 

 Hume, who offered him a quiet asylum in England. Rousseau arrived 

 in London in January 1766, and the following March went to Wootton 

 in Derbyshire, where Hume had procured him a private residence in 

 the house of Mr. Davenport. It was not long however before Rousseau 

 quarrelled both with Hume and Davenport, and suddenly returned to 

 France. A letter had appeared in the newspapers bearing the name 

 of Frederick of Prussia, and reflecting severely upon Rousseau's moral 

 infirmities. Rousseau accused Hume of being the author or planner 

 of the pretended communication. In vain did Hume protest that he 

 knew nothing of the matter. At last Horace Walpole acknowledged 

 himself the author of the offensive letter. Rousseau however would 

 not be pacified, and he continued to charge Hume with the blackest 

 designs against him. 



After his return to France, Rousseau led au unsettled life, often 

 changing his place of residence, till 1770. He published in the mean- 

 time a ' Dictionnaire de Musique,' which was considered to be both 

 imperfect and obscure. He then returned to Paris, and took lodgings 

 in the Rue Platriere, which has since been called Rue J. J. Rousseau. 

 He was left undisturbed by the authorities, but he was cautioned, as 

 there was still a prosecution pending against him on account of his 

 Emile,' not to make himself conspicuous in public ; an advice which 

 seemed to produce the contrary effect upon his wayward temper. He 

 now fell into a real or affected state of misanthropy, fancying that 

 everybody was conspiring against him, and he complained at the same 

 time of acute mental suffering. Byron, who in his mental bias had 

 some points of resemblance with Rousseau, has strikingly described 

 him : 



" His life was one long war with self-sought foes, 



Or friends by himself banished ; for his mind 



Had grown suspicion's sanctuary, and chose 



For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind, 



'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind. 



But he was phrenzied wherefore, who may know 1 



Since cause might be which skill could never find ; 



But he was phrenzied by disease or woe, 

 To that worst pitch of all which wears a reasoning show. 



" For then he was inspired, and from him came, 

 As from the Pythian mystic cave of yore, 

 Those oracles which set the world in flame, 

 Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more." 



(' Childe Harold,' canto Hi.) 

 N 



