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Rousseau, Jean Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Rousseau, Jean Jacques ro͞osōˈ [key], 1712–78, Swiss-French philosopher, author, political theorist, and composer. Rousseau's influence on posterity has been equaled by only a few, and it is...

Rousseau, Henri

(Encyclopedia)Rousseau, Henri äNrēˈ ro͞osōˈ [key], 1844–1910, French primitive painter, b. Laval. He was entirely self-taught, and his work remained consistently naive and imaginative. Rousseau was called L...

Rousseau, Théodore

(Encyclopedia)Rousseau, Théodore ro͞osōˈ [key], 1812–67, French landscape painter; leader of the Barbizon school. He first received recognition in the Salon of 1848 and was commissioned by the state to paint...

Waldeck-Rousseau, René

(Encyclopedia)Waldeck-Rousseau, René rənāˈ väldĕkˈ-ro͞osōˈ [key], 1846–1904, French statesman. Belonging to the republican left, he was twice minister of the interior (1881, 1883–85), and in 1884 he w...

Faguet, Émile

(Encyclopedia)Faguet, Émile āmēlˈ fägāˈ [key], 1847–1916, French literary critic and historian. His prolific studies stimulated interest in French intellectual history of the 17th, 18th, and 19th cent. His...

Smith College

(Encyclopedia)Smith College, at Northampton, Mass.; undergraduate for women, graduate coeducational; chartered 1871, opened 1875 through a bequest of Sophia Smith. The first president, Laurenus Clark Seelye, was in...

social contract

(Encyclopedia)social contract, agreement or covenant by which men are said to have abandoned the “state of nature” to form the society in which they now live. The theory of such a contract, first formulated by ...

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques Henri

(Encyclopedia)Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques Henri zhäk äNrēˈ bĕrnärdăNˈ də săN–pyĕrˈ [key], 1737–1814, French naturalist and author. He was a friend of Rousseau, by whom he was strongly influen...

Moreau, Jean-Michel

(Encyclopedia)Moreau, Jean-Michel môrōˈ [key], 1741–1814, French draftsman and engraver, called Moreau le jeune. He is noted for his charming illustrations of the work of Voltaire, Molière, and Rousseau and ...

Dessalines, Jean Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Dessalines, Jean Jacques zhäN zhäk dĕsälēnˈ [key], c.1758–1806, emperor of Haiti (1804–6), born a slave. A shrewd general, he served under Toussaint Louverture in the wars that liberated Hai...