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He was born at Paris, the son of a shoemaker, and was well educated. As a young man, he gained favour with Boileau, who encouraged him to write. Rousseau began with the theatre, for which he had no aptitude. A one-act comedy, Le Café, failed in 1694, and he was not much happier with a more ambitious play, Le Flatteur (1696), or with the opera of Venus et Adonis (1697). He tried in 1700 another comedy, Le Capricieux, which had the same fate. He then went with Tallard as an attaché to London, and, in days when literature still led to high position, seemed likely to achieve success.
His misfortunes began with a club squabble at the Café Laurent, which was much frequented by literary men, and where Rousseau indulged in lampoons on his companions. A shower of libellous and sometimes obscene verses was written by or attributed to him, and at last he was turned out of the café. At the same time his poems, as yet only singly printed or in manuscript, acquired him a great reputation, due to the dearth of genuine lyrical poetry between Jean Racine and André de Chénier. He had in 1701 been made a member of the Académie des inscriptions; he had been offered, though he had not accepted, profitable places in the revenue department; he had become a favourite of the libertine but influential côterie of the Temple; and in 1710 he presented himself as a candidate for the Académie française.
A copy of verses, more offensive than ever, was handed round, and gossip maintained that Rousseau was its author. Legal proceedings of various kinds followed, and Rousseau ascribed the lampoon to Joseph Saunin . In 1712Events Treaty of Aargau signed between Catholic and Protestants. Introduced Protestant faith in Switzerland. Thomas Newcomen builds the first piston-operated steam engine at Tipton, Staffordshire, UK. Ongoing events Great Northern War ( 1700- 1721) War of Rousseau was prosecuted for defamation of character, and, on his non-appearance in court, was condemned to perpetual exile. He spent the rest of his life in foreign countries except for a clandestine visit to Paris in 1738; he refused to accept the permission to return which was offered him in 1716 because it was not accompanied by complete rehabilitation.
Prince Eugène and then other persons of distinction took him under their protection during his exile, and he printed at Soleure the first edition of his poetical works. VoltaireFrancois-Marie Arouet ( November 21, 1694— May 30, 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, deist and philosopher. Biography Voltaire was born in Paris to Francois Arouet and Marie-Marguerite Daumart or D'Aumard. and he met at BrusselsBrussels ( French: Bruxelles Dutch: Brussel German: Brussel is a major city in Belgium and its capital. Overview Brussels is first of all a city located in the middle of Belgium and its capital, but it sometimes also refers to the main municipality of the in 1722Events Abraham De Moivre states De Moivre's theorem connecting trigonometric functions and complex numbers Publication of the first book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Fall of Persia's Safavid dynasty during a bloody revolt of the Afghani people. July 25. Voltaire's Le Pour et le contre is said to have shocked Rousseau, who expressed his sentiments freely. At any rate the latter had thenceforward no fiercer enemy than Voltaire. His death elicited from Jean-Jacques Lefranc, marquis de PompignanJean-Jacques Lefranc, marquis de Pompignan ( August 7, 1709 1784), was a French poet. He was born at Montauban, where his father was president of the cour des aides and Jean-Jacques, who also went into law, took over the position in 1745. The same year he, an ode that was perhaps better than anything of Rousseau's own work. That work may be roughly divided into two sections. One consists of formal and partly sacred odes and cantatas of the stiffest character, of which perhaps the Ode a la fortune is the most famous; the other of brief epigrams, sometimes licentious and always, or almost always, ill-natured.
As an epigramAn epigram is a short poem with a clever twist at the end or a concise and witty statement. Poetic epigrams Or, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, :::What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole;Its body brevity, and wit its soul. This form originated in Ancient Grmatist Rousseau is only inferior to his friend Alexis PironAlexis Piron ( July 9, 1689 January 21, 1773), was a French epigrammatist and dramatist. He was born at Dijon, where his father, Aime Piron, was an apothecary. Piron senior wrote verse in the Burgundian patois''. Alexis began life as clerk and secretary t. The frigidity of conventional diction and the disuse of all really lyrical rhythm which characterize his period do not prevent his odes and cantatas from showing at times true poetical faculty, though cramped, and inadequate to explain his extraordinary vogue. Few writers were so frequently reprinted during the 18th century, but even in his own century La HarpeJean-Francois de la Harpe ( November 20, 1739 February 11, 1803), French critic, was born in Paris of poor parents. His father, who signed himself Delharpe, was a descendant of a noble family originally of Vaud. Left an orphan at the age of nine, La Harpe had arrived at a truer estimate of his real value when he said of his poetry: "Le fond n'est qu'un lieu common chargé de declamations et même d'idées fausses."
Besides the Soleure edition mentioned above Rousseau published another issue of his work in London in 1723.