Pierre-Alexandre DuPeyrou

This chapter focuses on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's letter to Pierre-Alexandre DuPeyrou on December 8, 1764. DuPeyrou had agreed to guarantee the financing of a collected edition of Rousseau's works. He had also asked Rousseau to explain the meaning of two B s that he had written in the margins of the article “Matter” in a copy of Voltaire's Philosophic Dictionary that Rousseau had returned to him. In his letter, Rousseau answers that the letter B signifies Bon , but since DuPeyrou did not transcribe the passages to which it relates, he cannot remember them. He then tells DuPeyrou that not only is he not a materialist, but he does not even remember being tempted for a single moment of his life to become one.