But Rousseau did not like teaching and was a bad teacher, and after a visit to Les Charmettes, finding that his place there was finally occupied, he once more went to Paris in 1741. He was not without recommendations. But a new system of musical notation which he thought he had discovered was unfavourably received by the Academie des sciences, where it was read in Aug. 1742, and he was unable to obtain pupils, though the paper was pub lished in 1743 under the title of Dissertation sur la musique moderne. Madame Dupin, however, to whose house he had ob tained the entry, procured him the honourable if not very lucrative post of secretary to M. de Montaigu, ambassador at Venice. With him he stayed for about 18 months, and had as usual infinite complaints to make of his employer and some strange stories to tell. At length he threw up his situation and returned to Paris His Literary Triumphs.—Up to this time—that is to say, till his 33rd year—Rousseau's life, though continuously described by himself, was of the kind called subterranean, and the account of it must be taken with considerable allowances. From this time, however, his general history can be checked and followed with reasonable confidence. On his return to Paris he renewed his relations with the Dupin family and with the literary group of Diderot, to which he had already been introduced by M. de Mably's letters. He had an opera, Les Muses galantes, privately represented; he copied music for money, and received from Madame Dupin and her son-in-law M. de Francueil a small but regular salary as secretary. He lived at the Hotel St. Quentin for a time, and once more arranged for himself an equivocal domestic establishment. His mistress, whom towards the close of his life he married after a fashion, was Therese le Vasseur, a servant at the inn, whom he first met in 1743. She had little beauty, no education or understanding, and few charms that his friends could discover, besides which she had a detestable mother, who was the bane of Rousseau's life. But he made himself happy with her, and (according to Rousseau's account, the accuracy of which has been questioned [see F. Macdonald, J. J. Rousseau, 1906]) five children were born to them, who were all consigned to the foundling hospital. This disregard 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 from 1741 onwards he became more and more familiar, admitted him as a contributor to the Encyclopedie, for which he wrote the articles on music and political economy. He formed new musical projects, and he was introduced by degrees to many people of rank and influence, among them Madame d'Epinay, to whom in 1747 he was intro duced by her lover M. de Francueil.
It was not, however, till 1749 that Rousseau made his mark as a writer. 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 superior ity of the savage state, won the prize, and, publishing his essay (Discours sur les arts et sciences) next year, became famous. The anecdotage as to the origin of this famous essay is volumi nous. 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 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 re ceiver-general's office. But he resigned it either from conscien tiousness, or crotchet, or nervousness at responsibility, or in dolence, or more probably from a mixture of all four. He went back to his music-copying, but the salons of the day were de termined 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 successful. He received ioo louis for it, and he was ordered to come to court next day. This meant the cer tainty 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 un successfully. In the same year, however, a letter Sur la musique francaise, in which he indulged in a violent tirade against French music, again had a great vogue. Finally, for this was an important year with him, the Dijon academy, which had founded his fame, announced the subject of "The Origin of Inequality," on which he wrote a discourse which was unsuccessful, but at least equal to the former in merit. During a visit to Geneva in 1754 he abjured his abjuration of Protestantism and was enabled to take up his freedom as citizen, to which his birth entitled him and of which he was proud. Shortly afterwards, returning to Paris, he accepted a cottage near Montmorency (the celebrated Hermitage) which Madame d'Epinay had fitted up for him, and established himself there in April 2756. Here he wrote La Nouvelle Heloise; here he indulged in the passion which that novel partly repre sents, his love for Madame d'Houdetot, sister-in-law of Madame d'Epinay. Here too arose the obscure triangular quarrel be tween Diderot, Rousseau and Frederick Melchior Grimm, which ended Rousseau's sojourn at the Hermitage. 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'Epinay's passion for Grimm. At any rate, Rousseau quitted the Hermitage in the winter of 1757-58, 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'Epinay, 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 Daces, on D'Alembert, who had condemned the prejudice against the stage in the Encyclopedie, and on one of the favourite amusements of the society of the day, and Rousseau was hence forward as obnoxious to the philosophe coterie as to the orthodox party. He still, however, had no lack of patrons—he never had— though his perversity made him quarrel with all in turn. The duke and duchess of Luxembourg made his acquaintance, and he was industrious in his literary work—indeed, most of his best books were produced during his stay in the neighbourhood of Montmorency. A letter to Voltaire on his poem about the Lisbon earthquake embittered the dislike between the two, being sur reptitiously published. La Nouvelle Helase appeared in the same year (176o), and it was immensely popular. In 1762 appeared the Contrat social at Amsterdam, and Emile, which was published both in the Low Countries and at Paris. For the latter the author received 6,000 livres, for the Contrat 1,000.