Philosopher, author, composer, botanist. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born into a Protestant family of watchmakers in Geneva, Switzerland. The Rousseau family was of French origin, but was exiled to Switzerland because of their faith. His mother died nine days after his birth, and his father died when Jean-Jacques was ten years old. He was largely raised by his uncle, who was a Protestant pastor, and by another clergyman. His uncle apprenticed him to an engraver. At the age of 16, Jean-Jacques immigrated to Annecy in France, where he met the Baroness de Warens, who became his tutor and mistress. The baroness had recently converted to Catholicism, and Jean-Jacques did the same. Their relationship was the inspiration for his book "La Nouvelle Héloise." Jean-Jacques eventually moved to Paris, where he lived with a servant with whom he had five children. He put all of his children in orphanages, an act which he later regretted. While in Paris, he turned his attention to music, working on a system of musical notation, and to philosophical writing. He fell in love with Louise d'Epinay and fled Paris for Montmorency. In 1752, he was presented to King Louis XV for whom he wrote a one-act opera, "Le Devin du village." His two early books, "Émile, ou De l'éducation" and "Le Contrat social" were considered highly radical and were banned in France, the Netherlands, Geneva, and Berne. Rousseau's view was that man is born good and is corrupted by society. He encouraged love and tolerance over order and discipline in child rearing, and emphasized the rights of individuals within society. Rousseau's arch-enemy, philosophically and politically, was the wealthy and sophisticated Voltaire. After seeing and ridiculing Rousseau's opera "Le Devin du village," Voltaire snidely commented that the work proves that the bad are destined to live alone. Rousseau's retort was that only the good can live alone. Increasingly sensitive to criticism, Rousseau came to believe that people were plotting against him. He wrote his remarkable "Confessions," which opens with the memorable scene of Rousseau admitting to his faults while defending his sincerity, and inviting God to gather other men around him and daring them to say "I was better than this man." At the end of his life, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a broken man. An admirer of his writings, the Marquis de Girardin, offered him a home on his estate in Ermenonville and gave him the job of cataloging the plants and flowers on his extensive property. After his days of work as a botanist, Rousseau wrote down his thoughts, which after his death were gathered into a volume entitled "Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire." In his reflections, Rousseau made the poignant comment that when he looked back on his life and saw how his efforts to do good to his fellow man were mocked, he realized that in order to do good for others, one must first be true to oneself. Rousseau died from a fit of apoplexy (a cerebral hemorrhage) at Ermenonville and was buried there. Rousseau's views on the individual's position within society brought him to be considered one of the fathers of the French Revolution. The new French nation created the Pantheon as the final resting place for its great citizens, and, in 1794, Rousseau's remains were moved there with grand ceremony, thereby officially designating him one of the glories of France. A wall of his sarcophagus is decorated with the image of an arm emerging from a door and holding a lighted torch. In an ironic twist of fate, Rousseau's crypt is located next to that of his arch-enemy, Voltaire. He has a cenotaph sculpture created by Jacques-Philippe Le Sueur and located on the ile des Peupliers at the Ermenonville Park.