269 - ROUSSEAU (Jean-Jacques), 1712–1778.

ROUSSEAU (Jean-Jacques), 1712–1778. Autograph manuscript, no place, no date [circa 1745–1751], 1 p., in-4. Reading notes for Madame Dupin’s work on the condition of women. At the top, an autograph reference: “Barre Vol. 6, p. 6. / note” and the date “1251.” Large rust-colored stain. A valuable insight into Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s work as Madame Dupin’s secretary, focusing on the inheritance of principalities by women and the absence of the Salic Law in the Netherlands. In his reading of historian Joseph Barre’s work, Rousseau notes that “The Salic Law was not observed in Flanders, Hainaut, Holland, nor in the other provinces that have since been called the Netherlands.” He goes on to observe that daughters succeeded men, thus allowing these territories to pass successively among different sovereign houses. He cites as an example Margaret II of Hainaut (1310–1356), sister of William IV, who inherited the counties of Hainaut and Holland in 1345 and had married Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria: “Margaret, Countess of Holland, brought this province into the House of Bavaria after the death of her brother, William IV, who was killed by the Frisians. She was the wife of Emperor Louis of Bavaria."" The folio is part of the extensive body of research undertaken by Rousseau while he was working, between 1745 and 1751, for Louise-Marie-Madeleine Dupin (1706–1799). Hired as a secretary, he undertook numerous readings and note-taking assignments for her on behalf of her extensive, unpublished work on women, in which Mme. Dupin sought, in particular, to defend women’s status and to discuss the historical and legal arguments invoked in favor of their inferiority. The surviving manuscripts clearly show that the Salic Law was one of the themes of this research. In its original Charavay slipcase (no. 40015).