Celebrity Graveland

June 28, 1712 – July 02, 1778

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in the early 1700s in what is now Switzerland. Losing his mother (died) as a newborn and his father (just…sort of left) somewhat later on, young J-J spent his early years surrounded by upper class artists and working class artisans. The lower his class surroundings became, the more interested he became in the inner workings of the society he lived in. He loved to watch the local militias drill in the square and sympathized with them over the the ruling class armies. He loved music and thought about becoming a priest.

His teens and 20s found him bopping around Europe and taking on…more mature…relationships. He eventually landed in Paris, fathered a bunch of children, started writing, and went on to change the continent of Europe forever.

Rousseau published novels and treatises. Some of his works portrayed a form of unitarian religion that enraged the governments of France and his native Geneva. He spent several years as a fugitive. French philosopher, Voltaire, offered sanctuary, but Rousseau declined. The two would maintain a strained relationship for much of the remainder of their lives.

He wrote several discourses covering a vast array of human experience. Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men and The Social Contract (among other works) along with Rousseau’s ideals of “general will” inspired much of the formation of the French Republic during the French Revolution of the 1790s – as well as other European thinkers and movements that followed.

Rousseau was a conflicted public figure. Beloved and admired by some, despised and critiqued by others. He died and was buried while convalescing at a friend’s estate in northern France after suffering a number of falls and head traumas. After the dust of the revolution had settled some, his admirers moved his remains to Paris to be laid alongside other titans of France in the crypt of the national monument.

Burial

The Panthéon – Paris, FRANCE

Specific Location

Entrance; To the right as you enter the crypt section. Directly across from Voltaire.

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