Quiz: The Confessions

All 50 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. Where did Rousseau decide to set the story of his two imaginary friends?

   In the forest of Montmorency, near the Hermitage At Vevey, birthplace of Mme de Warens In the valleys of Thessaly On the Borromean Islands in Lake Maggiore
2. 2. What happened when the Prince of Conti played chess with Rousseau at Mont Louis?

   The prince won easily and teased Rousseau Rousseau beat the prince twice over The game was interrupted by Madame de Boufflers Rousseau lost on purpose to please the prince
3. 3. What was Rousseau wrongly punished for at Bossey?

   Telling lies about his cousin Bernard Diverting water from the pastor’s walnut tree Stealing asparagus from the gardener’s beds Breaking Mlle Lambercier’s comb
4. 4. What was the Encyclopédie at first intended to be?

   A dictionary of music edited by Rousseau A translation of Chambers’s Cyclopaedia A sequel to James’s Medical Dictionary A periodical called le Persifleur
5. 5. What did the Maréchal de Luxembourg ask Rousseau as the storm over his books gathered?

   Whether the Contract attacked Choiseul Whether he had sent copies of Emile to Geneva Whether he had attacked the Jesuits in Emile Whether he intended to go to England
6. 6. What work did Rousseau plan to compile on the island?

   A treatise on fishing in the lake A dictionary of botanical terms A history of the canton of Bern A Flora Petrinsularis
7. 7. How did Rousseau title his reply to Tronchin's Letters Written from the Country?

   Letters Written from the Mountain Letters from the Lake Letters to the People of Geneva The Vision of Peter of the Mountain
8. 8. What sentence in Diderot’s Fils naturel offended Rousseau?

   Solitude is the school of genius Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains Only the wicked man is alone The philosopher must live among men
9. 9. Whom did Rousseau accuse of giving him the stolen ribbon?

   Mademoiselle Pontal, the lady’s maid Another footman of the household Marion, the young cook M. Lorenzi, the steward
10. 10. What did the Inquisitor at Turin ask Rousseau after his abjuration?

    Whether he had read Calvin Whether he would become a priest Whether his father knew where he was Whether his mother was damned
11. 11. How did Rousseau explain the word “fiert” in the motto of the house of Solar?

    As Old French for “he strikes” As an old spelling of the word “proud” As an Italian word meaning “fierce” As a copyist’s error that should be corrected
12. 12. How did Madame de Luxembourg try to recover one of Rousseau’s children?

    She advertised for the child in the Paris gazettes She asked Thérèse’s mother to identify the child at the hospital She asked the police lieutenant to search every parish register Her valet La Roche searched the hospital with the cipher he had left
13. 13. What was Rameau’s objection to Rousseau’s system of notating music in figures?

    It made transposition into other keys impossible It had already been invented, long before, by a monk named Souhaitti It was good for vocal music but quite useless for instruments Reading figures demanded a mental step too slow for performance
14. 14. How did Rousseau learn of the intimacy between Claude Anet and Mme de Warens?

    He found letters between them hidden in her writing desk A servant gossiped about it in the kitchen Anet took laudanum after a quarrel, and she confessed Anet told him himself while they were out botanising together
15. 15. What post did Mme de Warens obtain for Rousseau at Chambéry at the end of Book IV?

    Secretary in the land survey Tutor to the intendant’s children Clerk to the judge major, M. Simon Music master at the cathedral of Chambéry
16. 16. What was to be the subject of the book Rousseau planned as Morale sensitive?

    How outward influences on the senses dispose us to virtue The education of a girl to be a good wife and mother A critique of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre’s political projects The history of music and its moral effects on nations
17. 17. Why, according to Rousseau, could he get no redress in Paris for his treatment by the ambassador?

    He had signed away his salary before leaving Venice Madame de Beuzenval persuaded the minister against him As a Genevan, he had no claim on French protection There was no written evidence against the ambassador
18. 18. Where does Rousseau say he first conceived the idea of his Institutions politiques?

    At Geneva, during his visit there in 1754 At Turin, in the hospice of the catechumens At Venice, observing its much-praised government At Les Charmettes, reading with Mme de Warens
19. 19. What name did Rousseau adopt when he set up as a music master at Lausanne?

    Vaussore de Villeneuve M. de Courtilles Monsieur Dudding Monsieur Venture de Villeneuve
20. 20. Whom did Rousseau name as the author of the anonymous libel accusing him of abandoning his children?

    M. de Montmollin, the pastor of Môtiers D'Alembert The pastor Vernes His old acquaintance the Abbé de Mably
21. 21. What did Rousseau do when M. Le Maître collapsed in a fit in a street in Lyon?

    He carried him back to their inn He fetched a doctor and stayed by his side He took him to Father Cato’s convent He slipped away and abandoned him
22. 22. Which flower, glimpsed on the first day at Les Charmettes, did Rousseau recognise with rapture nearly thirty years later?

    Primroses Periwinkle Lily of the valley Violets
23. 23. What was Rousseau reading on the road to Vincennes when he “became a different man”?

    Plutarch’s life of the Roman consul Fabricius The Dijon Academy’s prize question in the Mercure de France A letter from Diderot, then a prisoner at Vincennes The proof sheets of the first volume of the Encyclopédie
24. 24. Who first sent Rousseau to Mme de Warens at Annecy?

    Pastor Lambercier, his old teacher at Bossey His uncle Gabriel Bernard, the engineer M. de Pontverre, curé of Confignon Bishop de Bernex of Geneva
25. 25. Which Roman’s deed did the boy Rousseau act out at table by holding his hand over a hot chafing-dish?

    Mucius Scaevola Aristides Brutus Cato the Younger
26. 26. What story does Rousseau tell about a princess who began reading Julie on a ball night?

    She threw it aside after a few pages and went dancing She read until four in the morning and gave up going to the ball She ordered copies for every guest at the ball She took the book to the ball and read it in her carriage
27. 27. Who did Rousseau discover was taking the fruit from M. d’Épinay’s garden at the Hermitage?

    The gardener, who sold it in Paris Mme le Vasseur’s grandchildren from Paris Servants from the château of La Chevrette Dormice, as the gardener had claimed
28. 28. Why did Rousseau hesitate before taking refuge at Môtiers in Neuchâtel?

    He had promised Thérèse to settle in Paris The house offered to him there was unfurnished He had shown aversion to the King of Prussia He feared the Calvinist clergy of the Val de Travers
29. 29. On what condition did Rousseau give the laces he made to young women at their marriages?

    That they nurse their own children That they never wear French fashions That they read Emile aloud to their husbands That they attend church every Sunday
30. 30. What first set Rousseau and the ambassador Montaigu at odds over money in Venice?

    Rousseau was found to have sold the embassy’s ciphers Montaigu refused to pay for Rousseau’s journey from Paris to Venice Rousseau lent embassy money to Captain Olivet Montaigu wanted a share of the secretary’s passport fees
31. 31. What did Mme d’Épinay try to obtain from Thérèse?

    Mme d’Houdetot’s letters to Rousseau The manuscript of the first parts of Eloisa Rousseau’s letters from Diderot The key to the Hermitage
32. 32. What identity did Rousseau assume on the road to Montpellier?

    A Parisian music master travelling south An Irish physician A Genevan watchmaker returning home An English Jacobite named Dudding
33. 33. Which two priests does Rousseau say he combined to make the Savoyard Vicar of Emile?

    M. Gâtier and M. Gaime M. Gras and M. Gâtier The Abbé de Gouvon and M. de Bernex M. de Pontverre and M. Gaime
34. 34. What did Zulietta tell Rousseau after he remarked on her imperfection?

    That she had mistaken him for the Spanish secretary To return to France and his music To leave women alone and study mathematics That she would never see him again unless he paid her
35. 35. What finally made Rousseau leave Geneva and his apprenticeship?

    Finding the city gates shut on him a third time His master dismissed him for engraving counterfeit medals He ran away with his cousin Bernard to seek work in Turin His father sent for him to Nyon
36. 36. Where did Rousseau go when he left the Hermitage in December 1757?

    To M. Mathas’s little house at Mont Louis Back to his old lodging in Paris with Thérèse To Mme d’Houdetot’s house at Eaubonne To Geneva with Mme d’Épinay
37. 37. What thought did Rousseau speak aloud the day after Anet’s death that made Mme de Warens burst into tears?

    That Anet had been unfaithful to her with a servant That he would inherit Anet’s clothes, especially a black coat That Anet had died through Grossi’s neglect That the botanic garden scheme was now ruined
38. 38. How did Rousseau send his letter on Voltaire’s poem on the Lisbon earthquake?

    By having it printed in Holland by Rey Directly to Voltaire at Les Délices by post Through Diderot, who was to read it first Through Dr Tronchin, to deliver or destroy
39. 39. Where did Rousseau retreat after leaving Môtiers?

    Potsdam, at the King of Prussia’s court Yverdon, with the Roguin family The Earl Marischal’s castle of Colombier The island of St. Peter in the Lake of Bienne
40. 40. What did Rousseau do on entering the territory of Bern?

    He wrote at once to Madame de Luxembourg to announce his safety He changed his name to avoid the authorities He burned the papers he had brought from Montmorency He got out, kissed the ground and hailed a land of liberty
41. 41. What did Rousseau do with his unfinished Institutions Politiques?

    He turned it into the fifth book of Emile He salvaged the Social Contract and burned the rest He gave the manuscript to Malesherbes for safekeeping He sold it to Rey to be completed at a later date
42. 42. Why was Rousseau’s portmanteau confiscated at the French customs post of Les Rousses?

    It held Micheli du Crest’s memorial on the fortifications A Jansenist parody of Racine was found in a waistcoat pocket It contained contraband Genevan watches hidden in his linen He had no passport for entering France
43. 43. Why did Corsican leaders ask Rousseau for ideas on their institutions?

    The Social Contract had praised them as the one people fit for laws He had published a short history of the Corsican revolt Paoli had met him at Neuchâtel in 1763 He had served as secretary to the French ambassador in Corsica
44. 44. How did Rousseau announce publicly his break with Diderot?

    With an open letter in the Mercure de France By quoting Ecclesiasticus in a note to his new work By telling the story at Madame d’Épinay’s dinner By asking Saint-Lambert to announce it in Paris
45. 45. What did Rousseau take to Paris at the end of Book VI, hoping to make his fortune?

    An opera in the Italian style, half written A treatise on botany and medicinal herbs A plan for a royal botanic garden at Chambéry A system of writing music in numbers
46. 46. Who was the governor of Neuchâtel who became Rousseau's protector and “father”?

    Colonel Roguin, his friend at Yverdon The Duke de Choiseul, the French minister George Keith, the exiled Earl Marischal of Scotland The Prince de Conti, his old patron
47. 47. Why did the peasant on the road to Lyons first offer Rousseau only skimmed milk and barley bread?

    He suspected Rousseau of being a thief or a spy It was a fast day, and the Church forbade meat and wine He feared tax officials would ruin him if he seemed prosperous He had nothing else in the house to offer
48. 48. How does Rousseau say he thought of himself when he sent his children to the Foundling Hospital?

    As a member of Plato’s republic As a Christian obeying the custom of the Church As a Genevan citizen following his country’s laws As a disciple of Locke’s method of education
49. 49. Why did Rousseau avoid being presented to the king after the Devin du village?

    The Duke d’Aumont withdrew the invitation at the last moment He had already left Paris for Geneva Diderot advised him that accepting would offend the philosophes He feared his infirmity, and a pension would cost his independence
50. 50. How does Rousseau describe the writing of the Letter to d’Alembert?

    By revising an old draft he had begun in Venice By dictating it to Thérèse over several months in Paris In the Luxembourgs’ Little Castle during a summer In three winter weeks, in an open alcove at the end of his garden