2004

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Parc Jean Jacques Rousseau, Ermenonville, France.

 

The Marquis Réne de Girardin came into possession of the estate at Ermenonville near Paris in 1772, and immediately set to work on improvements, creating a farm, and parks to north and south of the Chateau.  Drawing on the sensibilities of philosopher, poet and gardener, the place would be beautiful, evocative and natural.

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Ermenonville was to represent the happiest condition of rural society liberating the instinct to solitary contemplation.  The spirit that gave it shape was, to an important degree, that invested in the writings of the celebrated philosopher and intinerant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, exemplified in such texts as The Social Contract, and Emile.

 

In 1778, Rousseau accepted Girardin’s invitation to come to live on the estate.  When, only six weeks later, on 4th July, Rousseau died there, Girardin, with pomp and ceremony buried him on an artificial island, in the lake of the North Park, the Ile des Peupliers.  This site, became a shrine and place of pilgrimage.  Queen Marie Antoinette came to pay homage to the writer whose doctrine of nature she so much admired.  Paradoxically Robespierre also came to worship at the shrine of the man whose works had become the philosophical cornerstone of the French Revolution. 

 

Rousseau’s final book, Reveries of the Solitary Walker, which he was still working on when he died, is a retrospective contemplation of his life and the major philosophical issues that had concerned him throughout. The work, which is divided into ten chapters or ‘Walks’, reflects on what he sees as his contribution to the public good and how he and his work had been misunderstood.