Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the son of a Protestant watchmaker. His mother died shortly after birth, he spent his youth under the care of his uncle. After an unsuccessful apprenticeship in a law firm and an engraver, he began in 1728 an adventurous wandering life. From 1745 he lived in Paris and began an affair with the laundress Thérèse Levasseur, whom he married after 25 years together. He was a friend of d'Alembert, Diderot and Voltaire. 1754 he traveled to Geneva and lived from 1756 in Montmorency at Madame d'Epinay. In 1766 he accepted an invitation of the English philosopher Hume to England, but returned in 1767 back to France, where he again began a restless wandering life. In 1770 he settled in Paris, where he lived in seclusion from his work as Notenkopist.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau