Philippe-Louis-Maximilien-Ernest-Ghislaine, comte de Sainte-Aldegonde

This chapter presents Jean-Jacques Rousseau's letter to Philippe-Louis-Maximilien-Ernest-Ghislaine, comte de Sainte-Aldegonde, on February 13, 1774. Rousseau begins the letter by saying that Sainte-Aldegonde makes him groan over human misery, claiming “what a sad and miserable philosophy is the one which, for the sake of the feigned search for I know not what metaphysical truth no less foreign than useless to man, makes you renounce reason, humanity, all your duties.” He claims that because Sainte-Aldegonde has been duped by a cajoler, Sainte-Aldegonde is ready to yield to despair. Sainte-Aldegonde's heart, “blinded by philosophical pride and deaf to the sweetest sentiments of nature, shuts itself off to the most genuine attachments, which are clothed in a simpler form.” Rousseau then advises Sainte-Aldegonde to “consent, from this moment on, to be the happiest of husbands and fathers, since that depends on you alone; to mistrust the aberrations of your head; entirely to leave to your excellent companion the governance of your child during its first years, without involving yourself in contradicting in any way nature's wish, which makes the mother alone necessary to the child until the age when it is appropriate for the father to get involved.”