Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a philosopher, writer and composer during the 18th century.

He was one of the of the  along with his critic, Voltaire, and their ideas influenced the French Revolution. At one point, he also lived in the town of Saint-Denis.

The Saint-Marcel district of Paris was made famous thanks to Rousseau's description of the area: "I had imagined a city of a most imposing appearance, as beautiful as it was large, where one could see only splendid streets and palaces of marble or gold. As I entered the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, I saw nothing but dirty, stinking little streets, wretched black houses, a general air of squalor and poverty, beggars, carters, menders of clothes, sellers of herb-drinks and old hats. All this so affected me at the outset that all the real magnificence I have since seen in Paris has not been sufficient to efface my first impression, and I have always retained a secret aversion against living in the capital."

Rousseau died in 1778. That year, the sculptor Marie Tussaud made her first wax figures of Rousseau and Voltaire.