wn ideas to others more in accordance
with observed phenomena. "He desired to be," writes a critic, "and
almost became, a pure intelligence in presence of eternal things."
How could he concern himself with the strifes and passions of a day
to whom the centuries were moments in the vast process of evolving
change? In Andre Chenier he found a disciple who would fain have been
the Lucretius of the new system of nature.

CHAPTER IV
ROUSSEAU--BEAUMARCHAIS--BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE--ANDRE CHENIER

I

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU the man is inseparable from Rousseau the
writer; his works proceed directly from his character and his life.
Born at Geneva in 1712, he died at Ermenonville in 1778. His childhood
was followed by years of vagabondage. From 1732, the date of his third
residence with Madame de Warens, until 1741, though his vagabondage
did not wholly cease, he was collecting his powers and educating his
mind with studies ardently pursued. During nine subsequent years in
Paris, in Venice, and elsewhere, he was working his way towards the
light; it was the period of his gayer writings, ballet, opera, comedy,
and of the articles on music contributed to the _Encyclopedie_: he
had not yet begun to preach and prophesy to his age. The great fourth
period of his life, from 1749 to 1762, includes all his masterpieces
except the _Confessions_. From 1762 until his death, while his temper
grew darker and his reason was disturbed, Rousseau was occupied with
apologetic and autobiographic writings.

His mother died in giving birth to Jean-Jacques. His father, a
watchmaker, filled the child's head with the follies of romances,
which they read together, and gave him through Plutarch's Lives a
sense of the exaltations of virtue. The boy's feeling for nature was
quickened and fostered in the garden of the pastor of Bossey. From
a notary's office, where he seemed an incapable fool, he passed under
the harsh rule of an engraver of watches, learning the vices that
grow from fear. At sixteen he fled, and found protection at Annecy,
under Madame de Warens, a young and comely lady, recently converted
to the Roman communion, frank, kind, gay, and as devoid of moral
principles as any creature in the Natural History. Sent to Turin for
instruction, Rousseau renounced his Protestant faith, and soon after
found in the good Abbe Gaime the model in part of his Savoyard vicar.
Some experience of domestic service was followed by a year at Annecy,