ABSTRACT
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was first shown into a very large hall containing only a few chairs and a wooden altar surmounted by a crucifix. There he found gathered four or five ragged knaves who looked more like a gang of convicts than “aspirants to the state of children of God.” Jean-Jacques collected altogether a little over twenty francs in small change, and he was then dismissed with good wishes and exhortations to live the life of a good Christian. He lived parsimoniously, subsisting chiefly on brown bread, milk, cheese, and eggs, but his purse lightened rapidly and he soon felt the pressing necessity of finding some work by which to earn the little money he needed to keep alive. Jean-Jacques was considerably annoyed by the ignominious end of his adventure. He was entering on his seventeenth year, and, as he himself remarks, his lack of occupation combined with his physical condition and his youth to upset his emotional balance.
