ROUSSEAU, Jean Jacques.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Autograph manuscript leaf of notes, exploring the role of women in ancient Rome. A striking and apparently unpublished leaf of research notes from Rousseau's early career as a scholar for hire, a challenge to the traditional view of Rousseau as a thorough-going misogynist. From 1745 to 1751, Rousseau was employed as a secretary and informal assistant for Louise Dupin (1706-1799), a wealthy saloniste. There, he was largely put to work producing on-call research for Dupin's long-in-the-making Ouvrage sur les Femmes, a work which was ultimately never published. This extract focusses specifically on women's roles in the imperial power structure, both as legitimate routes to the throne (for male claimants marrying into the imperial family) and as rulers in their own right. Rousseau specifically highlights Plotina, wife of Trajan, as having "un genie capable des plus grandes choses" ("a genius capable of the greatest things").After Rousseau left Dupin's service, his research notes and drafts were transferred to the Château de Chenonceau, her country home in the Loire Valley. They remained there for almost two centuries, before being dispersed in a series of auctions from 1951 to 1958.

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