Editing Jean-Jacques Rousseau (section)

===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''.