Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

ROUSSEAU
which has been questioned) five children were born to them,
who were all consigned to the foundling hospital. This dis¬
regard of responsibility was partly punished by the use his
critics made of it when he became celebrated as a writer
on education and a preacher of the domestic affections.
Diderot, with whom he became more and more familiar,
admitted him as a contributor to the Encyclopedic. He
formed new musical projects, and he was introduced by
degrees to many people of rank and influence, among
whom his warmest patron for a time was Madame
d’lilpinay. It was not, however, till 1749 that Rousseau
made his mark. The academy of Dijon offered a prize for
an essay on the effect of the progress of civilization on
morals. Rousseau took up the subject, developed his
famous paradox of the superiority of the savage state, won
the prize, and, publishing his essay next year, became
famous. The anecdotage as to the origin of this famous
essay is voluminous. It is agreed that the idea was
suggested when Rousseau went to pay a visit to Diderot,
who was in prison at Vincennes for his Lettre sur les
Aveugles. Rousseau says he thought of the paradox on his
way down; Morellet and others say that he thought of
treating the subject in the ordinary fashion and was
laughed at by Diderot, who showed him the advantages of
the less obvious treatment. Diderot himself, who in such
matters is almost absolutely trustworthy, does not claim
the suggestion, but uses words which imply that it was at
least partly his. It is very like him. The essay, however,
took the artificial and crotchety society of the day by
storm. Francueil gave Rousseau a valuable post as cashier
in the receiver general’s office. But he resigned it either
from conscientiousness, or crotchet, or nervousness at
responsibility, or indolence, or more probably from a
mixture of all four. He went back to his music copying,
but the salons of the day were determined to have his
society, and for a time they had it. In 1752 he brought
out at Fontainebleau an operetta, the Devin du Village, which
was very successful. He received a hundred louis for it,
and he was ordered to come to court next day. This
meant the certainty of a pension. But Rousseau’s shyness
or his perversity (as before, probably both) made him
disobey the command. His comedy Narcisse, written long
| before, was also acted, but unsuccessfully. In the same
| year, however, a letter Sur la Musique Francgdse again
; had a great vogue.1 Finally, for this was an important
1 Rousseau’s influence on Frencli music was greater than might have
been expected from his very imperfect education; in truth, he was a
. musician by natural instinct only, but his feeling for art was very
I strong, and, though capricious, based upon true perceptions of the
good and beautiful. The system of notation (by figures) concerning
which he read a paper before the. Academie des Sciences, August 22,
1742, was ingenious, but practically worse than useless, and failed
to attract attention, though the paper was published in 1743 under the
title of Dissertation sur la musique moderne. In the famous ‘ ‘ guerre
des buffons, he took the part of the “ buffonists, ” so named in conse¬
quence of their attachment to the Italian “opera buffa,”as opposed to
the true French opera ; and, in his Lettre sur la musique Franqaise,
published in 1753, he indulged in a violent tirade against French
music, which he declared to be so contemptible as to lead to the con¬
clusion ‘ ‘ that the French neither have, nor ever will have, any music
of their own, or at least that, if they ever do have any, it will be so
much the worse for them.” This silly libel so enraged the performers
at the Opera that they hanged and burned its author in effigy.
Rousseau revenged himself by printing his clever satire entitled
Lettre d un symphoniste de V Academie Roy ale de Musique d ses cama-
rades de l orchestre. His Lettre d M. Burney is of a very different
type, and does full justice to the genius of Gluck. His articles on
| music in Vnz Encyclopedic deal very superficially with the subject;
and his Dictionnaire de Musique (Geneva, 1767), though admirably
written, is not trustworthy, either as a record of facts or as a col¬
lection of critical essays. In all these works the imperfection of
his musical education is painfully apparent, and his compositions
betray an equal lack of knowledge, though his refined taste is as
clearly displayed there as is his literary power in the Letters and Dic-
j tionary. His first opera, Les Muses Oalantes, privately prepared at
25
year with him, the Dijon academy, which had founded his
fame, announced the subject of “The Origin of In¬
equality,” on which he wrote a discourse which was un¬
successful, but at least equal to the former in merit.
During a visit to Geneva in 1754 Rousseau saw his old
friend and love Madame de Warens (now reduced in cir¬
cumstances and having lost all her charms), while after
abjuring his abjuration of Protestantism he was enabled
to take up his freedom as citizen of Geneva, to which his
birth entitled him and of which he was proud. Some time
afterwards, returning to Paris, he accepted a cottage near
Montmorency (the celebrated Hermitage) which Madame
d’Epinay had fitted up for him, and established him¬
self there in April 1756. He spent little more than a
year there, but it was a very important year. Here
he wrote La Nouvelle Heloise; here he indulged in the
passion which that novel partly represents, his love for
Madame d’Houdetot, sister-in-law of Madame d’lflpinay, a
lady still young and extremely amiable but very plain,
who had a husband and a lover (St Lambert), and whom
Rousseau’s burning devotion seems to have partly pleased
and partly annoyed. Here too arose the incomprehensible
triangular quarrel between Diderot, Rousseau, and Grimm
which ended Rousseau’s sojourn at the Hermitage. It is
impossible to discuss this at length here. The supposition
least favourable to Rousseau is that it was due to one of
his numerous fits of half-insane petulance and indignation
at the obligations which he was nevertheless always ready
to incur. That most favourable to him is that he was
expected to lend himself in a more or less complaisant
manner to assist and cover Madame d’^pinay’s adulterous
affection for Grimm. It need only be said that Madame
d’Jf]pinay’s morals and Rousseau’s temper are equally
indefensible by anyone who knows anything about either,
but that the evidence as to the exact influence of both
on this particular transaction is hopelessly inconclusive.
Diderot seems to have been guilty of nothing but thought¬
lessness (if of that) in lending himself to a scheme of the
Le Masseurs, mother and daughter, for getting Rousseau
out of the solitude of the Hermitage. At any rate Rous¬
seau quitted the Hermitage in the winter, and established
himself at Montlouis in the neighbourhood.
Hitherto Rousseau’s behaviour had frequently made him
enemies, but his writings had for the most part made him
friends. The quarrel with Madame d’Ppinay, with Diderot,
and through them with the philosophe party reversed this.
In 1758 appeared his Lettre a d’Alembert contre les Spectacles,
written in the winter of the previous year at Montlouis.
This was at once an attack on Voltaire, who was giving
theatrical representations at Les Delices, on D’Alembert,
who had condemned the prejudice against the stage in
the Encyclopedic, and on one of the favourite amuse¬
ments of the society of the day. Diderot personally
would have been forgiving enough. But Voltaire’s strong
point was not forgiveness, and, though Rousseau no
doubt exaggerated the efforts of his “enemies,” he
was certainly henceforward as obnoxious to the philo-
the house of La Popeliniere, attracted very little attention ; but Le
Devin du Village, given at Fontainebleau in 1752, and at the
Academie in 1753, achieved a great and well-deserved success.
Though very unequal, and exceedingly simple both in style and con¬
struction, it contains some charming melodies, and is written through¬
out in the most refined taste. His Pygmalion (1775) is a melodrama
without singing. Some posthumous fragments of another opera,
Daphnis et Ghloe, were printed in 1780 ; and in 1781 appeared Les
Consolations des Miseres de ma Vie, a collection of about one hundred
songs and other fugitive pieces of very unequal merit. The popular
air known as Rousseau’s Dream is not contained in this collection,
and cannot be traced back farther than J. B. Cramer’s celebrated
“Variations.” M. Castil-Blaze has accused Rousseau of extensive
plagiarisms (or worse) in Le Devin du Village and Pygmalion, but
apparently without sufficient cause. (W. S. R.)
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