The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — CompleteRousseau, Jean-Jacques
Philosophy
The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
Authors, French -- 18th century -- Biography; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778
On his arrival in France his restless and wandering disposition forced
him continually to change his residence, and acquired for him the title
of “Voyageur Perpetuel.” While at Trye, in Gisors, in 1767--8, he wrote
the second part of the Confessions. He had assumed the surname of Renou,
and about this time he declared before two witnesses that Therese was
his wife--a proceeding to which he attached the sanctity of marriage.
In 1770 he took up his abode in Paris, where he lived continuously for
seven years, in a street which now bears his name, and gained a living
by copying music. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the author of ‘Paul
and Virginia’, who became acquainted with him in 1772, has left some
interesting particulars of Rousseau’s daily mode of life at this period.
Monsieur de Girardin having offered him an asylum at Ermemonville in the
spring of 1778, he and Therese went thither to reside, but for no long
time. On the 3d of July, in the same year, this perturbed spirit at last
found rest, stricken by apoplexy. A rumor that he had committed suicide
was circulated, but the evidence of trustworthy witnesses, including a
physician, effectually contradicts this accusation. His remains, first
interred in the Ile des Peupliers, were, after the Revolution, removed
to the Pantheon. In later times the Government of Geneva made some
reparation for their harsh treatment of a famous citizen, and erected
his statue, modelled by his compatriot, Pradier, on an island in the
Rhone.
“See nations, slowly wise and meanly just,
To buried merit raise the tardy bust.”
November, 1896. S. W. ORSON.
THE CONFESSIONS
OF
J. J. ROUSSEAU
BOOK I.
|I have entered upon a performance which is without example,
whose accomplishment will have no imitator. I mean to present my
fellow-mortals with a man in all the integrity of nature; and this man
shall be myself.
I know my heart, and have studied mankind; I am not made like any one
I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not
better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely
in breaking the mould with which she formed me, can only be determined
after having read this work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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