Biography of Rousseau

Jean Jacques Rousseau was born in, then city state, Geneva in 1712.  His mother died shortly after his birth and he was raised by his father, who was a watchmaker.  His father encouraged him to read and also helped him develop a love of music.  In his teens he was apprenticed to a notary and then to an engraver who apparently beat him.  He ran away and ended up in the neighboring region of Savoy.

While in Savoy he was introduced to a woman named Françoise-Louise de Warens, who, unbeknownst to Rousseau, was paid to convert Protestants to Catholicism.  She began to work on Rousseau.  Per Wikipedia:

In converting to Catholicism, both De Warens and Rousseau were likely reacting to Calvinism's insistence on the total depravity of man. Leo Damrosch writes, "an eighteenth-century Genevan liturgy still required believers to declare ‘that we are miserable sinners, born in corruption, inclined to evil, incapable by ourselves of doing good'."[7] De Warens, a deist by inclination, was attracted to Catholicism's doctrine of forgiveness of sins.

They eventually became lovers.  While with de Warens, Rousseau had access to her large library and was part of her circle of educated men.  He studied philosophy, music and mathematics. 

When he was 27 he moved to France.  While there he tried to sell the French on a new kind of musical notation but it was rejected.  The Academy was apparently impressed by him.  He then spent time as a secretary to the French ambassador to Venice.  This exposed him to Italian opera and also created a distrust in political doings.

Rousseau developed a relationship with a seamstress named Therese Levesseur.  They had a number of children.  Rousseau convinced her to give each one to a foundling hospital, perhaps in hopes that they would receive a better education there(!).  Later he was heavily criticized for this. 

While in Paris, Rousseau became friends with the French philosopher Diderot and began to publish his thoughts.  He wrote about music and philosophy and in a couple of years became so prominent that the king offered him a lifetime pension.  Rousseau turned it down and gained some notoriety in doing so.

In 1754 Rousseau returned to Geneva and converted back to Calvinism.  He wrote a number of novels and in 1762 he published 'Of the Social Contract'.  He also wrote a number of other works, some of which angered both Catholics and Protestants.  He had to run and in 1765 he ended up in Great Britain, a guest of David Hume. 

Rousseau snuck back into France and married Levesseur.  He wrote 'The Confessions' but wasn't allowed to publish it.  In 1772 he was invited to help write a constitution for Poland.  He died in 1778.  Rousseau was highly influential on the French Revolution and in 1794 his remains were moved to the Parthenon in Paris