ABSTRACT
Mademoiselle du Chatelet had advised Jean-Jacques Rousseau to make the trip from Lyons to Chambery either by stagecoach or on horseback, for some time at least after he rejoined Madame de Warens, he would have to behave himself with circumspection and be on his guard against attacks of his passion for playing vagabond. The operas of Rameau began at the time to excite discussion, and Jean-Jacques, having heard of Rameau’s treatise on harmony, developed a strong desire to have it. The sort of sacrificial ceremony which was to take place, arranged with such solemnity, was nothing like the ecstatic experience his imagination pictured when he thought of the fulfillment of love. “Mamma” succeeded in discovering the true nature of her dear “little one,” and tried to adapt it to the canons of society. The refined delicacy of his sensibilities should have vested him with aristocratic quality of a kind.
