to a
house in the Rue Platriere, nearly opposite to the Hotel de
la Poste. We mounted to the fourth story. We knocked, and
Madame Rousseau opened the door. "Come in, gentlemen," she
said, "you will find my husband." We passed through a very
small antechamber, where the household utensils were neatly
arranged, and from that into a room where Jean Jacques was
seated in an overcoat and a white cap, busy copying music.
He rose with a smiling face, offered us chairs, and resumed
his work, at the same time taking a part in conversation. He
was thin and of middle height. One shoulder struck me as
rather higher than the other ... otherwise he was very well
proportioned. He had a brown complexion, some colour on his
cheek-bones, a good mouth, a well-made nose, a rounded and
lofty brow, and eyes full of fire. The oblique lines falling
from the nostrils to the extremity of the lips, and marking
a physiognomy, in his case expressed great sensibility and
something even painful. One observed in his face three or
four of the characteristics of melancholy--the deep receding
eyes and the elevation of the eyebrows; you saw profound
sadness in the wrinkles of the brow; a keen and even caustic
gaiety in a thousand little creases at the corners of the
eyes, of which the orbits entirely disappeared when he
laughed.... Near him was a spinette on which from time to
time he tried an air. Two little beds of blue and white
striped calico, a table, and a few chairs, made the stock of
his furniture. On the walls hung a plan of the forest and
park of Montmorency, where he had once lived, and an
engraving of the King of England, his old benefactor. His
wife was sitting mending linen; a canary sang in a cage hung
from the ceiling; sparrows came for crumbs on to the sills
of the windows, which on the side of the street were open;
while in the window of the antechamber we noticed boxes and
pots filled with such plants as it pleases nature to sow.
There was in the whole effect of his little establishment an
air of cleanness, peace, and simplicity, which was
delightful.

A few days after, Rousseau returned the visit. "He wore a round wig,
well powdered and curled, carrying a hat under his arm, and in a full
suit of nankeen. His whole exterior was modest, but extremely neat."