Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

[2] His misfortunes began with a club squabble at the Café Laurent, which was much frequented by literary men, and where he indulged in lampoons on his companions.

At the same time his poems, as yet printed only singly or in manuscript, acquired him a great reputation, due to the dearth of genuine lyrical poetry between Jean Racine and André Chénier.

He spent the rest of his life in foreign countries except for a clandestine visit to Paris in 1738; he refused to accept the permission to return which was offered him in 1716 because it was not accompanied by complete rehabilitation.

[2] Prince Eugene of Savoy and other persons of distinction took him under their protection during his exile, and at Soleure he printed the first edition of his poetical works.

The frigidity of conventional diction and the disuse of all really lyrical rhythm which characterize his period do not prevent his odes and cantatas from showing at times true poetical faculty, though cramped, and inadequate to explain his extraordinary vogue.