Changes

Rousseau is believed to be the first to use the phrase ''Let them eat cake'', in book IV of his ''Confessions'', which would be falsely attributed to French queen [[Marie Antoinette]]. It is unclear, however, whether Rousseau actually made up the claim that a French queen said this phrase at all, or whether he was in fact referring to Marie Antoinette's predecessor.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/demystified/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake Did Marie-Antoinette Really Say “Let Them Eat Cake”?]</ref>

Rousseau is believed to be the first to use the phrase ''Let them eat cake'', in book IV of his ''Confessions'', which would be falsely attributed to French queen [[Marie Antoinette]]. It is unclear, however, whether Rousseau actually made up the claim that a French queen said this phrase at all, or whether he was in fact referring to Marie Antoinette's predecessor.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/demystified/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake Did Marie-Antoinette Really Say “Let Them Eat Cake”?]</ref>

 

==Personal Life and Morals==

==Personal Life and Morals==

In his private life Rousseau followed the principles of "nature" by being selfish, irresponsible and a callous exploiter of women. He never married, but had many mistresses and affairs throughout his life. As a young man, he had a liaison with an older woman named Mme de Warens. At the age of 32, he took up with an illiterate laundress, Therese Levasseur, who bore him eight children. Rousseau sent all of them to be brought up in an orphanage because, as he explained in the second volume of his own ''Confessions'', he was far too busy writing and being famous to rear or support children. As a modern critic comments "the famed theoretician of enlightened child rearing and family values recounted his decision to place in an orphanage the eight children he had sired by his common-law wife, Therese Levasseur." <ref> Gender and Utopia in the Eighteenth Century: Essays in English and French Utopian Writing, ed. Brenda Tooley, Routledge, 2016. </ref>

In his private life Rousseau followed the principles of "nature" by being selfish, irresponsible and a callous exploiter of women. He never married, but had many mistresses and affairs throughout his life. As a young man, he had a liaison with an older woman named Mme de Warens. At the age of 32, he took up with an illiterate laundress, Therese Levasseur, who bore him eight children. Rousseau sent all of them to be brought up in an orphanage because, as he explained in the second volume of his own ''Confessions'', he was far too busy writing and being famous to rear or support children. As a modern critic comments "the famed theoretician of enlightened child rearing and family values recounted his decision to place in an orphanage the eight children he had sired by his common-law wife, Therese Levasseur." <ref> Gender and Utopia in the Eighteenth Century: Essays in English and French Utopian Writing, ed. Brenda Tooley, Routledge, 2016. </ref>