Jean-Jacques Rousseau

My name is also, remarkably, Jean Jacques Rousseau. My early life was a troubled one. My mother died shortly after i was born due to birth complications. Throughout my childhood I received an informal education from my father. I learned to read and write, and a little bit of history, and I learned a lot about the Calvinist faith. When I was 13 my father got into a spot of trouble, and I was sent to live with an uncle. For several years I was apprenticed as a notary and then an engraver, but I left Geneva after three years. In Italy I received work and board from a French Baroness, who also happened to be a Catholic. Under her influence I converted to Catholicism, thus losing my citizenship of Geneva. In 1742, thinking I could establish myself with my new musical notation system, I left for Paris. There I befriended Denis Diderot, and when he was arrested and imprisoned for his writing, I realized how society corrupts humanity. This is when my real lifes work began. I believed in the natural goodness of humanity.
I developed strong ideas on education and on society. In Emile, translated to "On Education", I laid out how education would be most successful. The aim of education is to learn how to live righteously. The Social Contract outlines my ideas on society. Every person should have certain individual liberties. Both of these works were very controversial, and burned by governments. Catholic educators in France burned Emile, while in Geneva the Calvinist government did the same to The Social Contract. I fled persecution after my house was stoned, and took refuge with friend and fellow philosopher David Hume. For the rest of my life I was extremely paranoid of conspiracies against me. I lived the last years of my life under the patronage of two Frenchmen. In 1778, I died.