{xxxvi} Chronology
| 1651 | Hobbes publishes De Cive |
| 1671–1678 | Pierre Nicole’s Essais de morale offers a crucial account of how self-interest and amour propre can lead to a semblance of virtuous behavior |
| 1689 | Locke publishes Two Treatises of Government |
| 1695 | Bayle begins publication of his Historical and Critical Dictionary |
| 1712 | Rousseau is born in Geneva June 28; mother, Suzanne, dies July 7 |
| 1714 | Mandeville publishes The Fable of the Bees |
| 1722 | Rousseau’s father, Isaac, flees Geneva to avoid arrest; Rousseau boards with a brother and sister, Jean-Jacques and Gabrielle Lambercier |
| 1725 | Rousseau is apprenticed to an engraver, Abel Ducommun |
| 1728 | Rousseau runs away from Geneva, meets Mme de Warens, goes to Turin, and formally converts to Catholicism |
| 1729 | Rousseau moves in with Mme de Warens in Annecy |
| 1730 | Rousseau tries to become a music teacher in Lausanne and Neuchâtel |
| 1731 | Rousseau visits Paris, returns to Mme de Warens, now in Chambéry, and tries out as clerk in land survey office |
| 1734 | Voltaire publishes Letters Concerning the English Nation |
| 1735 | Rousseau moves to Les Charmettes, a country house rented by Mme de Warens |
| 1737 | Rousseau visits Montpellier |
| 1738 | Rousseau is supplanted in Mme de Warens’ affections by Jean-Samuel-Rodolphe Wintzenried |
| 1740 | Rousseau becomes tutor to the sons of M. de Mably in Lyons |
| 1742 | Rousseau moves to Paris, aspiring to write music |
| 1743 | Rousseau becomes secretary to the French ambassador in Venice |
| 1744 | Rousseau leaves Venice, returns to Paris, and becomes friends with Diderot |
| 1745 | Rousseau meets Thérèse Levasseur, who will bear him five children, all abandoned |
| 1746 | Rousseau is employed as secretary and researcher by Mme Dupin |
| 1747 | Rousseau’s father dies |
| 1748 | Montesquieu publishes The Spirit of the Laws |
| {xxxvii} 1749 | Rousseau conceives the argument of the first Discourse (Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts) on the road to Vincennes |
| 1750 | The first Discourse wins the Academy of Dijon’s prize and appears in print |
| 1751 | First volume of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie is published |
| 1754 | Rousseau visits Geneva and converts back to Protestantism |
| 1755 | Publication of the second Discourse, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men, and of the third, Discourse on Political Economy |
| 1756 | Rousseau and Levasseur move to The Hermitage |
| 1757 | Rousseau breaks with Diderot and other leading philosophes |
| 1758 | Rousseau moves to Montmorency; publishes Letter to d’Alembert on the Theater, completing his break with the leading figures of the French Enlightenment; Helvétius publishes De l’esprit, which is promptly condemned |
| 1759 | Rousseau becomes friends with the Duke and Duchess of Luxembourg; Voltaire publishes Candide; the Encyclopédie is officially suppressed |
| 1761 | Rousseau publishes Julie, or the New Héloïse |
| 1762 | Rousseau publishes the Social Contract and Émile; both are condemned in Paris and Geneva; he flees France and settles near Neuchâtel, Switzerland |
| 1763 | Rousseau renounces his Genevan citizenship |
| 1764 | Rousseau publishes an attack on the Genevan authorities, Letters Written from the Mountain; Voltaire reveals the secret of Rousseau’s abandoned children |
| 1765 | Rousseau is driven from Neuchâtel and finds temporary refuge on the Île de Saint-Pierre; last volume of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie is published |
| 1766 | Rousseau moves to England (to Wootton in Staffordshire) and begins writing The Confessions |
| 1767 | Rousseau flees to France, living here and there under an assumed name, protected by the Prince of Conti |
| 1768 | Rousseau goes through a form of marriage (which is not legally valid) with Levasseur |
| 1770 | Rousseau resumes his real name and moves to Paris |
| 1771 | Rousseau gives readings from The Confessions but is ordered by the authorities to stop |
| 1772 | Rousseau begins work on Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques |
| 1776 | Rousseau begins work on The Reveries of the Solitary Walker; is knocked over in the street by a huge dog and never fully recovers |
| {xxxviii} 1778 | Rousseau moves to Ermenonville, outside Paris, where he dies July 2 |
| 1780 | Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques is published |
| 1782 | First half of The Confessions is published; democratic uprising in Geneva |
| 1789 | Second half of The Confessions is published; the French Revolution begins |
| 1793 | Execution of King Louis XVI (January 21) |
| 1794 | Execution of Robespierre, followed by the transfer of Rousseau’s remains to the Panthéon in Paris |
| 1801 | Death of Thérèse Levasseur |