JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU was born at Geneva, the son of a
watchmaker, on 28th June 1712. He was apprenticed to a
notary, then to an engraver, from whom he ran away
supposedly because of ill-treatment. He wandered about for
several years, taking a variety of posts, and eventually entered
the household of Madame de Warens at Annecy, where he
settled down to a comfortable existence as her "domestic
lover." He went to Paris in 1741 with a new system of
musical notation, failed to obtain pupils and accepted the post
of secretary to the Ambassador at Venice. He returned to
Paris in 1745, where he made the acquaintance of Diderot and
the Encyclopædists. In 1749, his Discours sur les arts et les
sciences won him the prize offered by the Academy of Dijon,
and brought him immediate fame. In 1756 he took up
residence in the "Hermitage" at Montmorency, where he
wrote La Nouvelle Héloïse ( 1761). Le Contrat social and Emile
followed in 1762, and were almost immediately condemned
by the French and Genevan Governments. After numerous
forced moves he went to England in 1766, was lionized, then
quarrelled with his host, David Hume, and fled to France in
1767. He finished the Confessions, begun in England, though
he was by now half-insane, suffering from a persecution
mania. Rousseau died at Ermenonville on 2nd July 1778.

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