Editing Jean-Jacques Rousseau (section)

==Biography==

===Youth===
Rousseau was born in the [[Republic of Geneva]], which was at the time a [[city-state]] and a Protestant associate of the [[Old Swiss Confederacy|Swiss Confederacy]] (now a [[Cantons of Switzerland|canton]] of [[Switzerland]]). Since 1536, Geneva had been a [[Huguenot]] republic and the seat of [[Calvinism]]. Five generations before Rousseau, his ancestor Didier, a bookseller who may have published Protestant tracts, had escaped persecution from French Catholics by fleeing to Geneva in 1549, where he became a wine merchant.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=8}}<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/books/chapters/jeanjacques-rousseau.html |title=Jean-Jacques Rousseau |last=Damrosch |first=Leo|author-link=Leo Damrosch|date=30 October 2005 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=22 December 2016 |ref=none |archive-date=8 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171008181832/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/books/chapters/jeanjacques-rousseau.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Rousseau Geneve House.JPG|thumb|left|upright|The house where Rousseau was born at number 40, Grand-Rue, Geneva]]
Rousseau was proud that his family, of the ''moyen'' order (or middle-class), had voting rights in the city. Throughout his life, he generally signed his books "Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Citizen of Geneva".{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=31}} Geneva, in theory, was governed democratically by its male voting ''citizens''. The citizens were a minority of the population when compared to the immigrants (''inhabitants'') and their descendants (''natives''). In fact, rather than being run by vote of the citizens, the city was ruled by a small number of wealthy families that made up the [[Council of Two Hundred]]; they delegated their power to a 25-member executive group from among them called the "Small Council".

There was much political debate within Geneva, extending down to the tradespeople. Much discussion was over the idea of the sovereignty of the people, of which the ruling class oligarchy was making a mockery. In 1707, democratic reformer [[Pierre Fatio]] protested this situation, saying "A sovereign that never performs an act of sovereignty is an imaginary being".{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=17}} He was shot by order of the Small Council. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's father, [[Isaac Rousseau|Isaac]], was not in the city then, but Jean-Jacques's grandfather supported Fatio and was penalized for it.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=31}}

Rousseau's father, Isaac Rousseau, followed his grandfather, father and brothers into the watchmaking business. He also taught dance for a short period. Isaac, notwithstanding his artisan status, was well-educated and a lover of music. Rousseau wrote that "A Genevan watchmaker is a man who can be introduced anywhere; a Parisian watchmaker is only fit to talk about watches".{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=31}}{{NoteTag|"And indeed, a British visitor commented, 'Even the lower class of people [of Geneva] are exceedingly well informed, and there is perhaps no city in Europe where learning is more universally diffused'; another at mid-century noticed that Genevan workmen were fond of reading the works of Locke and Montesquieu." —Leo Damrosch{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=31}}}}

In 1699, Isaac ran into political difficulty by entering a quarrel with visiting English officers, who in response drew their swords and threatened him. After local officials stepped in, it was Isaac who was punished, as Geneva was concerned with maintaining its ties to foreign powers.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=9}}

Rousseau's mother, Suzanne Bernard Rousseau, was from an upper-class family. She was raised by her uncle Samuel Bernard, a Calvinist preacher. He cared for Suzanne after her father, Jacques, who had run into trouble with the legal and religious authorities for fornication and having a mistress, died in his early 30s.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=9}} In 1695, Suzanne had to answer charges that she had attended a street theatre disguised as a peasant woman so she could gaze upon M. Vincent Sarrasin, whom she fancied despite his continuing marriage. After a hearing, she was ordered by the [[Genevan Consistory]] to never interact with him again. She married Rousseau's father at the age of 31. Isaac's sister had married Suzanne's brother eight years earlier, after she had become pregnant and they had been chastised by the Consistory. The child died at birth. The young Rousseau was told a fabricated story about the situation in which young love had been denied by a disapproving patriarch but later prevailed, resulting in two marriages uniting the families on the same day. Rousseau never learnt the truth.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=10}}

Rousseau was born on 28 June 1712, and he would later relate: "I was born almost dying, they had little hope of saving me". He was baptized on 4 July 1712, in the great cathedral. His mother died of [[puerperal fever]] nine days after his birth, which he later described as "the first of my misfortunes".{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=7}}

He and his older brother François were brought up by their father and a paternal aunt, also named Suzanne. When Rousseau was five, his father sold the house the family had received from his mother's relatives. While the idea was that his sons would inherit the principal when grown up and he would live off the interest in the meantime, in the end, the father took most of the substantial proceeds. With the selling of the house, the Rousseau family moved out of the upper-class neighbourhood and into an apartment house in a neighbourhood of craftsmen—silversmiths, engravers, and other watchmakers. Growing up around craftsmen, Rousseau would later contrast them favourably to those who produced more aesthetic works, writing "those important persons who are called artists rather than artisans, work solely for the idle and rich, and put an arbitrary price on their baubles".{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=14}} Rousseau was also exposed to class politics in this environment, as the artisans often agitated in a campaign of resistance against the privileged class running Geneva.

Rousseau had no recollection of learning to read, but he remembered how when he was five or six his father encouraged his love of reading:
{{blockquote|text=Every night, after supper, we read some part of a small collection of romances [adventure stories], which had been my mother's. My father's design was only to improve my reading, and he thought these entertaining works were calculated to give me a fondness for it; but we soon found ourselves so interested in the adventures they contained, that we alternately read whole nights together and could not bear to give over until after a volume. Sometimes, in the morning, on hearing the swallows at our window, my father, quite ashamed of this weakness, would cry, "Come, come, let us go to bed; I am more a child than thou art." (''Confessions'', Book 1)}} Rousseau's reading of escapist stories (such as ''[[L'Astrée]]'' by [[Honoré d'Urfé]]) affected him; he later wrote that they "gave me bizarre and romantic notions of human life, which experience and reflection have never been able to cure me of".{{sfn|Damrosch|2005}}{{Page needed|date=June 2015}} After they had finished reading the novels, they began to read a collection of ancient and modern classics left by his mother's uncle. Of these, his favourite was [[Plutarch]]'s ''[[Parallel Lives|Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans]]'', which he would read to his father while he made watches. Rousseau saw Plutarch's work as another kind of novel—the noble actions of heroes—and he would act out the deeds of the characters he was reading about. In his [[Confessions (Rousseau)|''Confessions'']], Rousseau stated that the reading of Plutarch's works and "the conversations between my father and myself to which it gave rise, formed in me the free and republican spirit".{{sfn|Rousseau|1796|p=10}}

Witnessing the local townsfolk participate in [[militia]]s made a big impression on Rousseau. Throughout his life, he would recall one scene where, after the volunteer militia had finished its manoeuvres, they began to dance around a fountain and most of the people from neighbouring buildings came out to join them, including him and his father. Rousseau would always see militias as the embodiment of popular spirit in opposition to the armies of the rulers, whom he saw as disgraceful mercenaries.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Lang |first=Timothy |date=1 January 2018 |title=Rousseau and the Paradox of the Nation-State |url=https://scholarworks.umass.edu/history_oapubs/2/ |access-date=18 April 2021 |pages=10, 14, 24 |journal=History Open Access Publications |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225061652/https://scholarworks.umass.edu/history_oapubs/2/ |url-status=live |hdl=20.500.14394/30510}}</ref>{{sfn|Snyder|1999|pp=44, 56}}

When Rousseau was ten, his father, an avid hunter, got into a legal quarrel with a wealthy landowner on whose lands he had been caught trespassing. To avoid certain defeat in the courts, he moved away to [[Nyon]] in the territory of Bern, taking Rousseau's aunt Suzanne with him. He remarried, and from that point, Jean-Jacques saw little of him. Jean-Jacques was left with his maternal uncle, who packed him and his son, Abraham Bernard, away to board for two years with a Calvinist minister in a hamlet outside Geneva. Here, the boys picked up the elements of mathematics and drawing. Rousseau, who was always deeply moved by religious services, for a time even dreamed of becoming a Protestant minister.

[[File:LesCharmettes.jpg|thumb|Les Charmettes, where Rousseau lived with [[Françoise-Louise de Warens]] from 1735 to 1736, now a museum dedicated to Rousseau]]

Virtually all our information about Rousseau's youth has come from his posthumously published ''Confessions'', in which the chronology is somewhat confused, though recent scholars have combed the archives for confirming evidence to fill in the blanks. At age 13, Rousseau was apprenticed first to a [[civil law notary|notary]] and then to an engraver who beat him. At 15, he ran away from Geneva (on 14 March 1728) after returning to the city and finding the city gates locked due to the curfew.

In adjoining [[Savoy]] he took shelter with a Roman Catholic priest, who introduced him to [[Françoise-Louise de Warens]], age 29. She was a noblewoman of a Protestant background who was separated from her husband. As a professional lay proselytizer, she was paid by the King of [[Piedmont]] to help bring Protestants to Catholicism. They sent the boy to [[Turin]], the capital of Savoy (which included Piedmont, in what is now Italy), to complete his conversion. This resulted in his having to give up his Genevan citizenship, although he would later revert to Calvinism to regain it.

In converting to Catholicism, both de Warens and Rousseau were likely reacting to Calvinism's insistence on the [[total depravity]] of man. [[Leo Damrosch]] writes: "An eighteenth-century Genevan liturgy still required believers to declare 'that we are miserable sinners, born in corruption, inclined to evil, incapable by ourselves of doing good{{'"}}.{{Sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=121}} De Warens, a [[deist]] by inclination, was attracted to Catholicism's doctrine of forgiveness of sins.

Finding himself on his own, since his father and uncle had more or less disowned him, the teenage Rousseau supported himself for a time as a servant, secretary, and tutor, wandering in Italy (Piedmont and Savoy) and France. Among his students was [[Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon-Conti]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Electronic Enlightenment: Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon-Conti |url=https://www.e-enlightenment.com/person/bourbsteph024382/?srch_type=lives&per_name=bourbon-conti&r=4 |access-date=2024-12-05 |website=www.e-enlightenment.com}}</ref>  During this time, he lived on and off with de Warens, whom he idolized. [[Maurice Cranston]] notes, "Madame de Warens [...] took him into her household and mothered him; he called her 'maman' and she called him 'petit.'"<ref>{{cite book |author=Jean-Jacques Rousseau |title=The Social Contract |date=June 30, 1968 |publisher=Penguin Classics |isbn=0140442014 |page=12 |translator-last=Cranston |translator-first=Maurice}}</ref> Flattered by his devotion, de Warens tried to get him started in a profession, and arranged formal music lessons for him. At one point, he briefly attended a seminary with the idea of becoming a priest.

===Early adulthood===
[[File:FrancoiseLouiseWarens.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Françoise-Louise de Warens]]

When Rousseau reached 20, de Warens took him as her lover, while intimate also with the steward of her house. The sexual aspect of their relationship (a ''[[ménage à trois]]'') confused Rousseau and made him uncomfortable, but he always considered de Warens the greatest love of his life. A rather profligate spender, she had a large library and loved to entertain and listen to music. She and her circle, comprising educated members of the Catholic clergy, introduced Rousseau to the world of letters and ideas. Rousseau had been an indifferent student, but during his 20s, which were marked by long bouts of [[hypochondria]], he applied himself in earnest to the study of philosophy, mathematics, and music. At 25, he came into a small inheritance from his mother and used a portion of it to repay de Warens for her financial support of him. At 27, he took a job as a tutor in [[Lyon]].

In 1742, Rousseau moved to Paris to present the [[Académie des Sciences]] with a new system of [[numbered musical notation]] he believed would make his fortune. His system, intended to be compatible with [[typography]], is based on a single line, displaying numbers representing [[interval (music)|intervals]] between notes and dots and commas indicating rhythmic values. Believing the system was impractical, the Academy rejected it, though they praised his mastery of the subject, and urged him to try again. He befriended [[Denis Diderot]] that year, connecting over the discussion of literary endeavors.{{sfn|Rousseau|1987|ps=, Book VII}}

[[File:Palazzo Surian Bellotto (Venice).jpg|thumb|Palazzo belonging to Tommaso Querini at 968 Cannaregio [[Venice]] that served as the French Embassy during Rousseau's period as Secretary to the Ambassador]]
From 1743 to 1744, Rousseau had an honorable but ill-paying post as a secretary to the Comte de Montaigue, the French ambassador to [[Venice]]. This awoke in him a lifelong love for Italian music, particularly opera:
{{blockquote| I had brought with me from Paris the prejudice of that city against Italian music; but I had also received from nature a sensibility and niceness of distinction which prejudice cannot withstand. I soon contracted that passion for Italian music with which it inspires all those who are capable of feeling its excellence. In listening to [[barcarole]]s, I found I had not yet known what singing was... |''Confessions''{{sfn|Rousseau|1903|p=291}}|source=}}

Rousseau's employer routinely received his stipend as much as a year late and paid his staff irregularly.{{Sfn | Damrosch | 2005 | p=168 | ps=: the count was "a virtual parody of a parasitic aristocrat, incredibly stupid, irascible, and swollen with self importance". He spoke no Italian, a language in which Rousseau was fluent. Although Rousseau did most of the work of the embassy, he was treated like a valet.}} After 11 months, Rousseau quit, taking from the experience a profound distrust of government bureaucracy.

===Return to Paris===
Returning to Paris, the penniless Rousseau befriended and became the lover of [[Thérèse Levasseur]], a seamstress who was the sole support of her mother and numerous ne'er-do-well siblings. At first, they did not live together, though later Rousseau took Thérèse and her mother in to live with him as his servants, and himself assumed the burden of supporting her large family. According to his ''Confessions'', before she moved in with him, Thérèse bore him a son and as many as four other children (there is no independent verification for this number).{{NoteTag|Some of Rousseau's contemporaries believed the babies were not his. George Sand has written an essay, "Les Charmettes" (1865. Printed in the same volume as "Laura" from the same year), in which she explains why Rousseau may have accused himself falsely. She quotes her grandmother, in whose family Rousseau had been a tutor, and who stated that Rousseau could not get children.}}

Rousseau wrote that he persuaded Thérèse to give each of the newborns up to a foundling hospital, for the sake of her "honor". "Her mother, who feared the inconvenience of a brat, came to my aid, and she [Thérèse] allowed herself to be overcome" (''Confessions''). In his letter to Madame de Francueil in 1751, he first pretended that he was not rich enough to raise his children, but in Book IX of the ''Confessions'' he gave the true reasons of his choice: "I trembled at the thought of intrusting them to a family ill brought up, to be still worse educated. The risk of the education of the [[foundling hospital]] was much less".

[[File:Levasseur1.jpg|upright|thumb|A portrait of [[Thérèse Levasseur]] from 1791]]

Ten years later, Rousseau made inquiries about the fate of his son, but unfortunately no record could be found. When Rousseau subsequently became celebrated as a theorist of education and child-rearing, his abandonment of his children was used by his critics, including [[Voltaire]] and [[Edmund Burke]], as the basis for arguments ''ad hominem''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4xnMPtxUdWcC&pg=PA113 |title=Rousseau's Ghost |last=Ball |first=Terence |year=1998 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-7914-3933-3 |language=en |access-date=29 December 2019 |archive-date=3 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803172953/https://books.google.com/books?id=4xnMPtxUdWcC&pg=PA113 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Beginning with some articles on music in 1749,{{NoteTag|1 = Rousseau in his musical articles in the ''Encyclopédie'' engaged in lively controversy with other musicians, e.g. with Rameau, as in his article on Temperament, for which see Encyclopédie: Tempérament (English translation), also [[Temperament Ordinaire]].}} Rousseau contributed numerous articles to [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]] and [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert|D'Alembert]]'s great ''[[Encyclopédie]]'', the most famous of which was an article on political economy written in 1755.

Rousseau's ideas were the result of an almost obsessive dialogue with writers of the past, filtered in many cases through conversations with Diderot. In 1749, Rousseau was paying daily visits to Diderot, who had been thrown into the fortress of [[Vincennes]] under a ''[[lettre de cachet]]'' for opinions in his "[[Lettre sur les aveugles à l'usage de ceux qui voient|Lettre sur les aveugles]]", that hinted at [[materialism]], a belief in [[atoms]], and [[natural selection]]. According to science historian [[Conway Zirkle]], Rousseau saw the concept of natural selection "as an agent for improving the human species."<ref>{{Citation |last=Zirkle |first=Conway |date=25 April 1941 |title=Natural Selection before the ''Origin of Species'' |journal=[[Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society]] |volume=84 |issue=1 |location=Philadelphia |pages=71–123 |jstor=984852}}</ref>

Rousseau had read about an essay competition sponsored by the [[Académie de Dijon]] to be published in the ''Mercure de France'' on the theme of whether the development of the arts and sciences had been morally beneficial. He wrote that while walking to Vincennes (about three miles from Paris), he had a revelation that the arts and sciences were responsible for the moral degeneration of mankind, who were basically good by nature. Rousseau's 1750 ''[[Discourse on the Arts and Sciences]]'' was awarded the first prize and gained him significant fame.

Rousseau continued his interest in music. He wrote both the words and music of his opera ''[[Le devin du village]]'' (''The Village Soothsayer''), which was performed for [[Louis XV of France|King Louis XV]] in 1752. The king was so pleased by the work that he offered Rousseau a lifelong pension. To the exasperation of his friends, Rousseau turned down the great honor, bringing him notoriety as "the man who had refused a king's pension". He also turned down several other advantageous offers, sometimes with a brusqueness bordering on truculence that gave offense and caused him problems. The same year, the visit of a troupe of Italian musicians to Paris, and their performance of [[Giovanni Battista Pergolesi]]'s ''[[La serva padrona]]'', prompted the [[Querelle des Bouffons]], which pitted protagonists of French music against supporters of the Italian style. Rousseau, as noted above, was an enthusiastic supporter of the Italians against [[Jean-Philippe Rameau]] and others, making an important contribution with his ''Letter on French Music''.

===Return to Geneva===
On returning to Geneva in 1754, Rousseau reconverted to [[Calvinism]] and regained his official Genevan citizenship. In 1755, Rousseau completed his second major work, the ''Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men'' (the ''[[Discourse on Inequality]]''), which elaborated on the arguments of the ''Discourse on the Arts and Sciences''.
[[File:Elisabeth La Live de Bellgarde.jpg|left|thumb|upright|A contemporary portrait of the Countess of Houdetot]]
He also pursued an unconsummated romantic attachment with the 25-year-old [[Sophie d'Houdetot]], which partly inspired his [[epistolary novel]] ''[[Julie, or the New Heloise|Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse]]'' (also based on memories of his idyllic youthful relationship with Mme de Warens). Sophie was the cousin and houseguest of Rousseau's patroness and landlady [[Louise d'Épinay|Madame d'Épinay]], whom he treated rather high-handedly. He resented being at Mme. d'Épinay's beck and call and detested what he viewed as the insincere conversation and shallow atheism of the ''Encyclopédistes'' whom he met at her table. Wounded feelings gave rise to a bitter three-way quarrel between Rousseau and Madame d'Épinay; her lover, the journalist [[Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm|Grimm]]; and their mutual friend, Diderot, who took their side against Rousseau. Diderot later described Rousseau as being "false, vain as Satan, ungrateful, cruel, hypocritical, and wicked... He sucked ideas from me, used them himself, and then affected to despise me".{{Sfn | Damrosch | 2005 | p=304}}

[[File:Louise d'Epinay Liotard.jpg|upright|thumb|Mme d'Épinay by [[Jean-Étienne Liotard]], ''ca'' 1759 (Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva)]]

Rousseau's break with the ''Encyclopédistes'' coincided with the composition of his three major works, in all of which he emphasized his fervent belief in a spiritual origin of man's soul and the universe, in contradistinction to the [[materialism]] of Diderot, [[Julien Offray de La Mettrie|La Mettrie]] and [[Baron d'Holbach|D'Holbach]]. During this period, Rousseau enjoyed the support and patronage of [[Charles II François Frédéric de Montmorency-Luxembourg]] and the [[Louis François I de Bourbon, prince de Conti|Prince de Conti]], two of the richest and most powerful nobles in France. These men truly liked Rousseau and enjoyed his ability to converse on any subject, but they also used him as a way of getting back at [[Louis XV of France|Louis XV]] and the political faction surrounding his mistress, [[Madame de Pompadour]]. Even with them, however, Rousseau went too far, courting rejection when he criticized the practice of [[tax farming]], in which some of them engaged.{{Sfn | Damrosch | 2005 | p=357}}

Rousseau's 800-page novel of [[Sentimentality|sentiment]], ''[[Julie, or the New Heloise|Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse]]'', was published in 1761 to immense success. The book's rhapsodic descriptions of the natural beauty of the Swiss countryside struck a chord in the public and may have helped spark the subsequent nineteenth-century craze for Alpine scenery. In 1762, Rousseau published ''Du Contrat Social, Principes du droit politique'' (in English, literally ''[[The Social Contract|Of the Social Contract, Principles of Political Right]]'') in April. Even his friend [[Antoine-Jacques Roustan]] felt impelled to write a polite rebuttal of the chapter on Civil Religion in the ''Social Contract'', which implied that the concept of a [[Christian republic]] was paradoxical since Christianity taught submission rather than participation in public affairs. Rousseau helped Roustan find a publisher for the rebuttal.{{sfn|Rosenblatt|1997|pp=264–265}}

Rousseau published ''[[Emile, or On Education]]'' in May. A famous section of ''Emile'', "The Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar", was intended to be a defense of religious belief. Rousseau's choice of a Catholic vicar of humble peasant background (plausibly based on a kindly prelate he had met as a teenager) as a spokesman for the defense of religion was in itself a daring innovation for the time. The vicar's creed was that of [[Socinianism]] (or [[Unitarianism]] as it is called today). Because it rejected original sin and [[Revelation|divine revelation]], both Protestant and Catholic authorities took offense.{{NoteTag|Rousseau's biographer Leo Damrosch believes that the authorities chose to condemn him on religious rather than political grounds for tactical reasons.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005}}{{Page needed |date=June 2015}}}}

Moreover, Rousseau advocated the opinion that, insofar as they lead people to virtue, all religions are equally worthy, and that people should therefore conform to the religion in which they have been brought up. This religious [[indifferentism]] caused Rousseau and his books to be banned from France and Geneva. He was condemned from the pulpit by the Archbishop of Paris, his [[book burning|books were burned]] and warrants were issued for his arrest.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=358}} Former friends such as [[Jacob Vernes]] of Geneva could not accept his views and wrote violent rebuttals.{{sfn|Blackwood|1842|p=165}}

A sympathetic observer, [[David Hume]] "professed no surprise when he learned that Rousseau's books were banned in Geneva and elsewhere". Rousseau, he wrote, "has not had the precaution to throw any veil over his sentiments; and, as he scorns to dissemble his contempt for established opinions, he could not wonder that all the zealots were in arms against him. The liberty of the press is not so secured in any country... as not to render such an open attack on popular prejudice somewhat dangerous."{{sfn|Gay|1977|p=72}}

===Voltaire and Frederick the Great===
After Rousseau's [[Emile, or On Education|''Emile'']] had outraged the French parliament, an arrest order was issued by parliament against him, causing him to flee to Switzerland. Subsequently, when the Swiss authorities also proved unsympathetic to him—condemning both ''Emile'', and also ''[[The Social Contract]]''—Voltaire issued an invitation to Rousseau to come and reside with him, commenting that: "I shall always love the author of the 'Vicaire savoyard' whatever he has done, and whatever he may do...Let him come here [to Ferney]! He must come! I shall receive him with open arms. He shall be master here more than I. I shall treat him like my own son."{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=190–191}}

[[File:Allan Ramsay - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|1766 portrait of Rousseau wearing an Armenian [[papakha]] and costume, [[Allan Ramsay (artist)|Allan Ramsay]]]]

Rousseau later expressed regret that he had not replied to Voltaire's invitation. In July 1762, after Rousseau was informed that he could not continue to reside in Bern, [[Jean le Rond D'Alembert|D'Alembert]] advised him to move to the [[Canton of Neuchâtel|Principality of Neuchâtel]], ruled by [[Frederick the Great]] of Prussia. Subsequently, Rousseau accepted an invitation to reside in [[Môtiers]], fifteen miles from Neuchâtel. On 11 July 1762, Rousseau wrote to Frederick, describing how he had been driven from France, from Geneva, and from Bern; and seeking Frederick's protection. He also mentioned that he had criticized Frederick in the past and would continue to be critical of Frederick in the future, stating however: "Your Majesty may dispose of me as you like." Frederick, still in the middle of the [[Seven Years' War]], then wrote to the local governor of Neuchâtel, [[George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal|Marischal Keith]], who was a mutual friend of theirs:
{{blockquote|We must succor this poor unfortunate. His only offense is to have strange opinions which he thinks are good ones. I will send a hundred crowns, from which you will be kind enough to give him as much as he needs. I think he will accept them in kind more readily than in cash. If we were not at war, if we were not ruined, I would build him a hermitage with a garden, where he could live as I believe our first fathers did...I think poor Rousseau has missed his vocation; he was obviously born to be a famous anchorite, a desert father, celebrated for his austerities and flagellations...I conclude that the morals of your savage are as pure as his mind is illogical.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=191}}}}

Rousseau, touched by the help he received from Frederick, stated that from then onwards he took a keen interest in Frederick's activities. As the Seven Years' War was about to end, Rousseau wrote to Frederick again, thanking him for the help received and urging him to put an end to military activities and to endeavor to keep his subjects happy instead. Frederick made no known reply but commented to Keith that Rousseau had given him a "scolding".{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=192}}

===Fugitive===
For more than two years (1762–1765) Rousseau lived at [[Môtiers]], spending his time in reading and writing and meeting visitors such as [[James Boswell]] (December 1764). (Boswell recorded his private discussions with Rousseau, in both direct quotation and dramatic dialog, over several pages of his 1764 journal.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Boswell |first1=James |author1-link = James Boswell |editor-first = Frederick A. | editor-last=Pottle |url-access = registration | oclc = 868987 | series = [[Yale University|Yale]] editions of the private papers of James Boswell |title=Boswell on the grand tour : Germany and Switzerland, 1764 |date=1953 |publisher=[[McGraw Hill Education|McGraw-Hill]] |location=New York |pages=221–231 |url=https://archive.org/details/boswellongrandto00bosw/page/221/mode/1up?view=theater |access-date=30 June 2024}}</ref>) In the meantime, the local ministers had become aware of the apostasies in some of his writings and resolved not to let him stay in the vicinity. The Neuchâtel Consistory summoned Rousseau to answer a charge of blasphemy. He wrote back asking to be excused due to his inability to sit for a long time due to his ailment.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=392–393}} Subsequently, Rousseau's own pastor, Frédéric-Guillaume de Montmollin,{{sfn|Cranston|2005|page=113}} started denouncing him publicly as an Antichrist.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=205–206}} In one inflammatory sermon, Montmollin quoted Proverbs 15:8: "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight"; this was interpreted by everyone to mean that Rousseau's taking communion was detested by the Lord.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=394–395}} The ecclesiastical attacks inflamed the parishioners, who proceeded to pelt Rousseau with stones when he would go out for walks. Around midnight of 6–7 September 1765, stones were thrown at the house Rousseau was staying in, and some glass windows were shattered. When a local official, Martinet, arrived at Rousseau's residence he saw so many stones on the balcony that he exclaimed "My God, it's a quarry!"{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=395}} At this point, Rousseau's friends in Môtiers advised him to leave the town.

Since he wanted to remain in Switzerland, Rousseau decided to accept an offer to move to a tiny island, the [[St. Peter's Island|Île de St.-Pierre]], having a solitary house. Although it was within the [[Canton of Bern]], from where he had been expelled two years previously, he was informally assured that he could move into this island house without fear of arrest, and he did so (10 September 1765). Here, despite the remoteness of his retreat, visitors sought him out as a celebrity.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Watson |first1=Nicola J. |url=http://www.euromanticism.org/rousseaus-trapdoor/ |title=Rousseau's Trapdoor – European Romanticisms in Association |date=7 July 2017 |access-date=3 September 2020 |archive-date=27 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200927154845/http://www.euromanticism.org/rousseaus-trapdoor/ |url-status=live}}</ref> However, on 17 October 1765, the Senate of Bern ordered Rousseau to leave the island and all Bernese territory within fifteen days. He replied, requesting permission to extend his stay, and offered to be incarcerated in any place within their jurisdiction with only a few books in his possession and permission to walk occasionally in a garden while living at his own expense. The Senate's response was to direct Rousseau to leave the island, and all Bernese territory, within twenty-four hours. On 29 October 1765 he left the Île de St.-Pierre and moved to Strasbourg. At this point he received invitations from several parties in Europe, and soon decided to accept [[David Hume|Hume]]'s invitation to go to England.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=207–207}}

On 9 December 1765, having secured a passport from the French government, Rousseau left Strasbourg for Paris where he arrived a week later and lodged in a palace of his friend, the [[Louis François, Prince of Conti|Prince of Conti]]. Here he met Hume, and also numerous friends and well-wishers, and became a conspicuous figure in the city.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=404–405}} At this time, Hume wrote: "It is impossible to express or imagine the enthusiasm of this nation in Rousseau's favor...No person ever so much enjoyed their attention...Voltaire and everybody else are quite eclipsed.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=207}}

Although [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]] at this time desired a reconciliation with Rousseau, both of them expected an initiative by the other, and the two did not meet.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=406}}

====Letter of Walpole====
On 1 January 1766, [[Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm|Grimm]] included in his "Correspondance littéraire" a letter said to have been written by Frederick the Great to Rousseau. It had actually been composed by [[Horace Walpole]] as a playful hoax.{{NoteTag|"My present fame is owing to a very trifling composition, but which has made incredible noise. I was one evening at [[Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin|Mme Geoffrin's]] joking on Rousseau's affectations and contradictions, and said some things that diverted them. When I came home I put them in a letter, and showed it next day to Helvetius and the Duc de Nivernois; who were so pleased with it that, after telling me some faults in the language, ... they encouraged me to let it be seen. As you know, I willingly laugh at mountebanks, political or literary, let their talents be ever so great; I was not averse. The copies have spread like wildfire, et ''me voici à la mode'' [and behold, I am in fashion] ... Here is the letter:<br />''The King of Prussia to M.Rousseau: My dear Jean Jacques:''<br />'You have renounced Geneva, your fatherland; you have had yourself chased from Switzerland, a country so much praised in your writings; France has issued a warrant against you. Come, then, to me; I admire your talents; I am amused by your dreams, which (be it said in passing) occupy you too much and too long. You must at last be wise and happy. You have had yourself talked of enough for peculiarities hardly fitting to a truly great man. Show your enemies that you can sometimes have common sense; this will annoy them without doing you harm. My states offer you a peaceful retreat; I wish you well, and would like to help you if you can find it good. But if you continue to reject my aid, be assured that I shall tell no one. If you persist in racking your brains to find new misfortunes, choose such as you may desire; I am king, and can procure any to suit your wishes; and—what surely will never happen to you among your enemies—I shall cease to persecute you when you cease to find your glory in being persecuted.'<br />''Your good friend,''<br />''Frederick''<br />—Horace Walpole's letter to H. S. Conway, dated 12 January 1766{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=208}}}} Walpole had never met Rousseau, but he was well acquainted with Diderot and Grimm. The letter soon found wide publicity;{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=420–421}} Hume is believed to have been present, and to have participated in its creation.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=208–209}} On 16 February 1766, Hume wrote to the Marquise de Brabantane: "The only pleasantry I permitted myself in connection with the pretended letter of the King of Prussia was made by me at the dinner table of Lord Ossory." This letter was one of the reasons for the later rupture in Hume's relations with Rousseau.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=420–421}}

===In Britain===
On 4 January 1766 Rousseau left Paris with Hume, the merchant De Luze (an old friend of Rousseau), and Rousseau's pet dog Sultan. After a four-day journey to [[Calais]], where they stayed for two nights, the travelers embarked on a ship to [[Dover]]. On 13 January 1766 they arrived in London.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=406–407}} Soon after their arrival, [[David Garrick]] arranged a box at the [[Theatre Royal, Drury Lane|Drury Lane Theatre]] for Hume and Rousseau on a night when the [[George III|King]] and [[Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz|Queen]] also attended. Garrick was himself performing in a comedy by himself, and also in a tragedy by Voltaire.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=408–409}} Rousseau became so excited during the performance that he leaned too far and almost fell out of the box; Hume observed that the King and Queen were looking at Rousseau more than at the performance.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=420–421}} Afterwards, Garrick served supper for Rousseau, who commended Garrick's acting: "Sir, you have made me shed tears at your tragedy, and smile at your comedy, though I scarce understood a word of your language."{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=209}}

At this time, Hume had a favorable opinion of Rousseau; in a letter to Madame de Brabantane, Hume wrote that after observing Rousseau carefully he had concluded that he had never met a more affable and virtuous person. According to Hume, Rousseau was "gentle, modest, affectionate, disinterested, of extreme sensitivity". Initially, Hume lodged Rousseau in the house of Madam Adams in London, but Rousseau began receiving so many visitors that he soon wanted to move to a quieter location. An offer came to lodge him in a Welsh monastery, and he was inclined to accept it, but Hume persuaded him to move to [[Chiswick]].{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=209–210}} Rousseau now asked for Thérèse to rejoin him.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=409}}

Meanwhile, [[James Boswell]], then in Paris, offered to escort Thérèse to Rousseau.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=410}} (Boswell had earlier met Rousseau and Thérèse at Motiers; he had subsequently also sent Thérèse a garnet necklace and had written to Rousseau seeking permission to communicate occasionally with her.) Hume foresaw what was going to happen: "I dread some event fatal to our friend's honor." Boswell and Thérèse were together for more than a week, and as per notes in Boswell's diary they consummated the relationship, having intercourse several times. On one occasion, Thérèse told Boswell: "Don't imagine you are a better lover than Rousseau."{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=410}}

Since Rousseau was keen to relocate to a more remote location, Richard Davenport—a wealthy and elderly widower who spoke French—offered to accommodate Thérèse and Rousseau at [[Wootton, Staffordshire|Wootton Hall]] in Staffordshire. On 22 March 1766 Rousseau and Thérèse set forth for Wootton, against Hume's advice. Hume and Rousseau would never meet again. Initially Rousseau liked his new accommodation at Wootton Hall and wrote favorably about the natural beauty of the place, and how he was feeling reborn, forgetting past sorrows.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=411–412}}

====Quarrel with Hume====
On 3 April 1766 a daily newspaper published the letter constituting Horace Walpole's hoax on Rousseau—without mentioning Walpole as the actual author; that the editor of the publication was Hume's personal friend compounded Rousseau's grief. Gradually articles critical of Rousseau started appearing in the British press; Rousseau felt that Hume, as his host, ought to have defended him. Moreover, in Rousseau's estimate, some of the public criticism contained details to which only Hume was privy. Further, Rousseau was aggrieved to find that Hume had been lodging in London with François Tronchin, son of Rousseau's enemy in Geneva.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=419–421}}

About this time, Voltaire anonymously (as always) published his ''Letter to Dr. J.-J. Pansophe'' in which he gave extracts from many of Rousseau's prior statements which were critical of life in England; the most damaging portions of Voltaire's writeup were reprinted in a London periodical. Rousseau now decided that there was a conspiracy afoot to defame him.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=421}} A further cause for Rousseau's displeasure was his concern that Hume might be tampering with his mail.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=418–419}} The misunderstanding had arisen because Rousseau tired of receiving voluminous correspondence whose postage he had to pay.{{NoteTag|In those days in Europe the recipient had to pay for the postage for any mail received.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2009-09-12 |title=The Postal Service in 18th Century Britain: Post Roads and Post-Boys |url=https://janeaustensworld.com/2009/09/12/the-postal-service-in-18th-century-britain-post-roads-and-post-boys/ |access-date=2024-06-14 |website=Jane Austen's World |language=en}}</ref>}} Hume offered to open Rousseau's mail himself and to forward the important letters to Rousseau; this offer was accepted. However, there is some evidence of Hume intercepting even Rousseau's outgoing mail.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=431}}

After some correspondence with Rousseau, which included an eighteen-page letter from Rousseau describing the reasons for his resentment, Hume concluded that Rousseau was losing his mental balance. On learning that Rousseau had denounced him to his Parisian friends, Hume sent a copy of Rousseau's long letter to [[Marie Françoise Catherine de Beauvau-Craon|Madame de Boufflers]]. She replied stating that, in her estimate, Hume's alleged participation in the composition of Horace Walpole's ''faux'' letter was the reason for Rousseau's anger.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=213–214}}{{NoteTag|"Rousseau's letter is atrocious; it is to the last degree extravagant and inexcusable ... But do not believe him capable of any falsehood or artifice; nor imagine that he is either an impostor or a scoundrel. His anger has no just cause, but it is sincere; of that I feel no doubt. Here is what I imagine to be the cause of it. I have heard it said, and he has perhaps been told, that one of the best phrases in Mr Walpole's letter was by you, and that you had said in jest, speaking in the name of the King of Prussia, 'If you wish for persecutions, I am a king, and can procure them for you of any sort you like,' and that Mr Walpole ... had said you were its author. If this be true, and Rousseau knows of it, do you wonder that, sensitive, hot-headed, melancholy, and proud, ... he has become enraged?"—Madame de Boufflers's letter to David Hume, written in 1766.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|pp=213–214}}}}

When Hume learnt that Rousseau was writing the ''[[Confessions (Rousseau)|Confessions]]'', he assumed that the present dispute would feature in the book. Adam Smith, Turgot, Marischal Keith, Horace Walpole, and Mme de Boufflers advised Hume not to make his quarrel with Rousseau public; however, many members of [[Holbach's Coterie|Holbach's coterie]]—particularly [[Jean le Rond D'Alembert|D'Alembert]]—urged him to reveal his version of the events. In October 1766 Hume's version of the quarrel was translated into French and published in France; in November it was published in England.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=426–427}} Grimm included it in his ''Correspondance littéraire''; ultimately:

{{Blockquote|...the quarrel resounded in Geneva, Amsterdam, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. A dozen pamphlets redoubled the ''bruit''. Walpole printed his version of the dispute; Boswell attacked Walpole; Mme. de La Tour's ''Precis sur M. Rousseau'' called Hume a traitor; Voltaire sent him additional material on Rousseau's faults and crimes, on his frequentation of "places of ill fame", and on his seditious activities in Switzerland. [[George III]] "followed the battle with intense curiosity".{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=214}}}}

After the dispute became public, due in part to comments from notable publishers like [[Andrew Millar]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk/manuscripts/html_output/1.html |title=The manuscripts, Letter from Andrew Millar to Andrew Mitchell, 26 August 1766. Andrew Millar Project. University of Edinburgh. |website=www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk |access-date=2 June 2016 |archive-date=7 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161007144647/http://www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk/manuscripts/html_output/1.html |url-status=live}}</ref> Walpole told Hume that quarrels such as this only end up becoming a source of amusement for Europe. Diderot took a charitable view of the mess: "I knew these two philosophers well. I could write a play about them that would make you weep, and it would excuse them both."{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=427}} Amidst the controversy surrounding his quarrel with Hume, Rousseau maintained a public silence; but he resolved now to return to France. To encourage him to do so swiftly, Thérèse advised him that the servants at Wootton Hall sought to poison him. On 22 May 1767 Rousseau and Thérèse embarked from [[Dover]] for [[Calais]].{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=214}}

===In Grenoble===
On 22 May 1767, Rousseau reentered France even though an arrest warrant against him was still in place. He had taken an assumed name, but was recognized, and a banquet in his honor was held by the city of [[Amiens]]. French nobles offered him a residence at this time. Initially, Rousseau decided to stay in an estate near Paris belonging to [[Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau|Mirabeau]]. Subsequently, on 21 June 1767, he moved to a chateau of the Prince of Conti in [[Trie-Château|Trie]].{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=447–448}}

Around this time, Rousseau started developing feelings of paranoia, anxiety, and of a conspiracy against him. Most of this was just his imagination at work, but on 29 January 1768, the theatre at Geneva was destroyed through burning, and Voltaire mendaciously accused Rousseau of being the culprit. In June 1768, Rousseau left Trie, leaving Thérèse behind, and went first to [[Lyon]], and subsequently to [[Bourgoin-Jallieu|Bourgoin]]. He now invited Thérèse to this place and ''married'' her,{{NoteTag|Rousseau and Thérèse le Vasseur were not legally married nor married in church. A faux marriage took place instead in Bourgoin in 1768. Rousseau himself writes in a Letter to Madame de Luxembourg (1761): "... je lui ai déclaré que je ne l'épouserais jamais; et même un mariage public nous eût été impossible à cause de la différence de religion ..."{{sfn|Rousseau|1856|p=308}} Eyewitnesses have declared that he didn't even use his own name, but "Renou", which was his alias when he was on the run. He neither conformed to the official formalities of a legal marriage. There were two "witnesses" present: Mr. de Champagneux, mayor of Bourgoin, and a Mr. de Rozière; both were artillery officers.{{sfn|Musset-Pathay|1821|p=488}}<!-- Read more at: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ro-Sc/Rousseau-Jean-Jacques.html#Comments_form#ixzz3qcpQYMYt -->}} under his alias "Renou" in a faux civil ceremony in Bourgoin on 30 August 1768.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=451–456}}

In January 1769, Rousseau and Thérèse went to live in a farmhouse near [[Grenoble]]. Here he practiced botany and completed the ''[[Confessions (Rousseau)|Confessions]]''. At this time he expressed regret for placing his children in an orphanage. On 10 April 1770, Rousseau and Thérèse left for Lyon where he befriended Horace Coignet, a fabric designer and amateur musician. At Rousseau's suggestion, Coignet composed musical interludes for Rousseau's prose poem ''Pygmalion''; this was performed in Lyon together with Rousseau's romance ''The Village Soothsayer'' to public acclaim. On 8 June, Rousseau and Thérèse left Lyon for Paris; they reached Paris on 24 June.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=462–464}}

In Paris, Rousseau and Thérèse lodged in an unfashionable neighborhood of the city, the Rue Platrière—now called the Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He now supported himself financially by copying music, and continued his study of botany.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=465}} At this time also, he wrote his ''[[Letters on the Elements of Botany]]''. These consisted of a series of letters Rousseau wrote to Mme Delessert in Lyon to help her daughters learn the subject. These letters received widespread acclaim when they were eventually published posthumously. "It's a true pedagogical model, and it complements ''Emile''," commented Goethe.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=472}}

In order to defend his reputation against hostile gossip, Rousseau had begun writing the ''Confessions'' in 1765. In November 1770, these were completed, and although he did not wish to publish them at this time, he began to offer group readings of certain portions of the book. Between December 1770, and May 1771, Rousseau made at least four group readings of his book with the final reading lasting seventeen hours.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=474}} A witness to one of these sessions, [[Claude Joseph Dorat]], wrote: {{Blockquote|I expected a session of seven or eight hours; it lasted fourteen or fifteen. ... The writing is truly a phenomenon of genius, of simplicity, candor, and courage. How many giants reduced to dwarves! How many obscure but virtuous men restored to their rights and avenged against the wicked by the sole testimony of an honest man!{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=474}} }}

After May 1771, there were no more group readings because Madame d'Épinay wrote to the chief of police, who was her friend, to put a stop to Rousseau's readings so as to safeguard her privacy. The police called on Rousseau, who agreed to stop the readings. His ''Confessions'' were finally published posthumously in 1782.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=476}}

In 1772, Rousseau was invited to present recommendations for a new constitution for the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]], resulting in the ''[[Considerations on the Government of Poland]]'', which was to be his last major political work.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Gourevitch |editor-first=Victor |title=Rousseau: 'The Social Contract' and Other Later Political Writings |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kcvseZCgQKMC |year=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=ix |isbn=978-0-521-42446-2 |access-date=8 February 2017 |archive-date=16 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170216213853/https://books.google.com/books?id=kcvseZCgQKMC |url-status=live}}</ref>

Also in 1772, Rousseau began writing ''[[Dialogues: Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques|Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques]]'', which was another attempt to reply to his critics. He completed writing it in 1776. The book is in the form of three dialogues between two characters; a "Frenchman" and "Rousseau", who argue about the merits and demerits of a third character—an author called ''Jean-Jacques''. It has been described as his most unreadable work; in the foreword to the book, Rousseau admits that it may be repetitious and disorderly, but he begs the reader's indulgence on the grounds that he needs to defend his reputation from slander before he dies.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=476–480}}

===Final years===
In 1766, Rousseau had impressed Hume with his physical prowess by spending ten hours at night on the deck in severe weather during the journey by ship from Calais to Dover while Hume was confined to his bunk. "When all the seamen were almost frozen to death...he caught no harm...He is one of the most robust men I have ever known," Hume noted.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=406–407}} His [[dysuria|urinary disease]]<ref>{{cite book |title=Review of Neurology and Psychiatry, Volume 6 |editor1-last=Bruce |editor1-first=Alexander |year=1908 |publisher=[[T. N. Foulis]] |page=437 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PRqgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA437 |access-date=7 January 2016 |archive-date=14 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210814071211/https://books.google.com/books?id=PRqgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA437 |url-status=live}}</ref> had also been greatly alleviated after he stopped listening to the advice of doctors.{{citation needed|date=April 2018}} At that time, notes Damrosch, it was often better to let nature take its own course rather than subject oneself to medical procedures. His general health had also improved.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=467}} However, on 24 October 1776, as he was walking on a narrow street in Paris, a nobleman's carriage came rushing by from the opposite direction; flanking the carriage was a galloping [[Great Dane]] belonging to the nobleman. Rousseau was unable to dodge both the carriage and the dog and was knocked down by the Great Dane. He seems to have suffered a concussion and neurological damage. His health began to decline; Rousseau's friend Corancez described the appearance of certain symptoms which indicate that Rousseau started suffering from epileptic seizures after the accident.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=485–487}}

[[File:Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU au Panthéon (Lunon).jpg|thumb|The tomb of Rousseau in the crypt of the [[Panthéon (Paris)|Panthéon]], Paris]]

In 1777, Rousseau received a royal visitor, when the Holy Roman Emperor [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Joseph II]] came to meet him. His free entry to the Opera had been renewed by this time and he would go there occasionally.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=883}} At this time also (1777–1778), he composed one of his finest works, ''[[Reveries of a Solitary Walker]]'', ultimately interrupted by his death.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=481}}

In the spring of 1778, the [[René de Girardin|Marquis Girardin]] invited Rousseau to live in a cottage in his château at [[Ermenonville]]. Rousseau and Thérèse went there on 20 May. Rousseau spent his time at the château in collecting botanical specimens, and teaching botany to Girardin's son.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=487–488}} He ordered books from Paris on grasses, [[moss]]es and [[mushroom]]s and made plans to complete his unfinished ''[[Emile, or On Education#Émile et Sophie|Emile and Sophie]]'' and ''[[Daphnis and Chloe#Opera|Daphnis and Chloe]]''.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=488}}

On 1 July, a visitor commented that "men are wicked," to which Rousseau replied with "men are wicked, yes, but man is good"; in the evening there was a concert in the château in which Rousseau played on the piano his own composition of the Willow Song from ''[[Othello]]''.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=488}} On this day also, he had a hearty meal with Girardin's family; the next morning, as he was about to go teach music to Girardin's daughter, he died of cerebral bleeding resulting in an apoplectic stroke.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|pp=488–489}} It is now believed that repeated falls, including the accident involving the Great Dane, may have contributed to Rousseau's stroke.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=489}}

Following his death, Grimm, [[Germaine de Staël|Madame de Staël]] and others spread the false news that Rousseau had committed [[suicide]]; according to other gossip, Rousseau was insane when he died. All those who met him in his last days agree that he was in a serene frame of mind at this time.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=887}}

On 4 July 1778, Rousseau was buried on the Île des Peupliers, a tiny, wooded island in a lake at [[Ermenonville]],<ref>Chronicle of the French Revolution {{ISBN|0582051940}}</ref> which became a place of pilgrimage for his many admirers. On 11 October 1794, his remains were moved to the [[Panthéon (Paris)|Panthéon]], where they were placed near those of [[Voltaire]].{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=887}}{{NoteTag|"From that haven of neighborly peace their spirits rose to renew their war for the soul of the Revolution, of France, and of Western man." —Will and Ariel Durant.{{sfn|Durant|Durant|1967|p=887}}}}