Geneva, 1712. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born with the rank of citizen of Geneva from Suzanne Bernard, who died nine days post-partum, and Issac Rousseau, who was exiled when the young Rousseau was 10 years of age. Prior to his father’s exile, he was put in the care of a pastor, with the legacy his father gave him: appraisal of republican patriotism and readings of Plutarch and others.
He then left the city at 16, and with the guidance of Francoise-Louise de la Tour, Baronne de Waren, where Rousseau eventually trained to be a Catholic priest for a while. He then did a brief career change to itinerant musician, music copyist and a teacher. He came back to Madame de Waren in Chambéry 1731 where he became her lover for a while, and then her household manager.
He took her with him when he went to Lyon in 1740 to become a tutor, where he made first contact with French Enlightenment figures, Condillac and d’Alembert. Two years later after having a new system of music rejected, he met Diderot and in 1744 he was the secretary to the French Ambassador for a while where he worked on music and contributed to the Encyclopédie.
A year later he met a laundry-maid, Thèrése Levasseur who would eventually become his wife. According to Rousseau, he had five children who were hospitalized, leading to Rousseau leaving to go get the milk.
After leaving, in 1749, he submitted the First Discourse to the competition, where the objective was to determine if the development of the science and arts corrupted or improved public morals. He won first place, saying it corrupts civic virtue and individual moral character. Winning first prize got his work published which ignited his fame and criticism.
In 1754 he converted to Calvinism to redeem his citizenship so he could attain his hereditary status as Citizen of Geneva. A year later he wrote the Second Discourse which did not win a prize but was the start of his developing theories of human social development and moral psychology.
A year later, Rousseau got busy as he left Paris and began writing his more important works: Julie, Emile, and the Social Contract. Unfortunately for him, Julie made the banned novels list for its menage-a-trois nature, and the Social Contract was banned in Geneva under the guise of religious heterodoxy. This caused him to once again leave Geneva and seek refuge in Switzerland. Like his father, fleeing the country was his way of not getting arrested.
He later died in 1778, after having completed autobiographical texts, pursued botany and music. His body ultimately ended up in the Panthéon in Paris. He lived life as we should — living a life fulfilled.