ROUSSEAU 453 Catholicism. She sent him to the school of catechumens at Turin for his definitive conver- sion, and he lost no time in nominally going through the ceremony, in order to escape from that institution. But his destitution obliged him to become a lacquey of the countess de Vercellis, and after her death of the count de Gouvon at Turin, who taught him Latin, and with whom his prospects were improving when an old comrade tempted him to lead a roving life, which in the autumn of 1729 ended in his seeking shelter under the roof of Mme. de Warens. She now sent him to a theological seminary at Annecy, from which he was dis- missed as unfitted for the priesthood. Finally he took up his abode in her house at Chambe>y, and after a severe illness he passed several years with her as her lover in the neighbor- ing farmhouse Les Charmettes. He left her in 1740 in a fit of jealousy, and was a tutor in the family of M. de Mably at Lyons till the autumn of 1741, when he went to Paris. He was absorbed at that time in the study of mu- sic, after attempting to teach the art, and he had invented a new system of musical notation, which he submitted in 1742 to the academy of sciences in Paris, under the auspices of R6au- mur, but without success. At a later period he published a Dictionnaire de musique. He then composed Les muses galantes, an opera which was never performed. After recover- ing from a new attack of illness he was secre- tary to M. de Montaigu, French ambassador at Venice, for about 18 months, but in 1745 he returned to Paris disgusted with his chief. Here he became acquainted with Mme. d'Epi- nay, Diderot, Grimm, and D'Holbach. He now lived with The>ese Le Vasseur, whom he had first met at a squalid hotel where she was a cook. She was coarse but faithful, and bore him five children, who were successively sent to the foundling hospital. Toward the close of his life he took her as his wife, in presence of two witnesses. He struggled with adversity for several years, receiving little or nothing for his musical and literary labors, and only a small income as secretary to Mme. Dupin, and next as cashier, which latter em- ployment filled him with anxiety and nearly ruined his health. In 1750 he received the prize offered by the academy of Dijon for the best disquisition on the question whether the progress of science and the arts has contribu- ted to corrupt or improve the morals of man- kind. In his essay he declared war against all civilization, and henceforward he set himself up as a censor and reformer of society, dis- daining all the elegancies of life, and attract- ing attention by his oddities. In 1752 he pro- duced Le devin du village, an opera, the art- less melody of which won general admiration, and Lettre sur la musique francaise, in favor of Italian music, which exposed him to the animosity of the national school. He caused a still greater sensation by writing in 1753 another essay for the academy of Dijon on "The Origin of Inequality among Men," in which he attacked the existing social order. He now revisited Geneva, where he was cor- dially received and regained his citizenship by returning to Calvinism, and would have re- mained there but for his jealousy of Voltaire, who resided in the vicinity. In 1756 he took up his residence at the Hermitage, a charming retreat which Mme. d'Epinay had fitted up for him and his family in the valley of Montmo- rency; and here he wrote most of Julie, ou la Nouvelle Helo'ise (6 vols., 1760), in which he idealized Mme. d'Houdetot, and his Lettre sur les spectacles, addressed to D'Alembert. But his love for Mme. d'Houdetot gave um- brage to Mme. d'Epinay, and he in his turn became jealous of the relations of the latter to Grimm, Diderot, and D'Holbach. His do- mestic life was at the same time made in- tolerable by the mother of The>ese, and after many tribulations he was obliged to leave the Hermitage, and retired to Montmorency, where he found friends in the duke and duchess de Luxembourg, who prevailed upon him in May, 1759, to inhabit one of their chateaux. Here he met the prince de Conti, the marchioness de Boufflers, and Malesherbes, the censor of the press. At Montmorency he wrote Emile and the Contrat social, and collected materials for his Confessions. His Emile, ou de V education, a visionary work which has been called by Goethe "nature's gospel on education," was printed in Amsterdam at the duke's expense (4 vols., 1762) ; and being also published in Paris against Rousseau's wishes, it was condemned by the parliament, and he escaped arrest by going to Geneva and thence to the canton of Bern. Expelled everywhere, he finally took refuge in the then Prussian principality of Neufchatel, where he was befriended by Lord Keith, the governor. His Contrat social, in which he proclaimed the principles of universal suffrage and popular sovereignty, appeared in the same year, and made him still more obnoxious to the adversaries of progress. He effectively replied to the fulminations of the archbishop of Paris against fimile, and in his Lettres de la mon- tagne (1764) to those of the Genevan authori- ties ; but as the departure of Lord Keith from Neufchatel left him unprotected against the fanaticism of the priests and the populace at Motiers, to which place he had retired, he fled at the end of 1765, intending to visit Berlin, but lingered at Strasburg and other places, where he was well received. Arriving in Paris, he was treated with much distinction, but was not permitted to remain. Early in 1766 he accompanied David Hume to England at his urgent invitation, but soon fell out with him. The correspondence relating to this quarrel was deposited in the British museum in 1874, together with Rousseau's autograph will. He returned to France in May, 1767, Snd resided in various places till 1770, when he settled in Paris. His health was utterly broken by his imaginary and real fears of his enemies; and
