FOOTNOTES:
[18] Introduction to l'Arcadie.
[19] That is Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's account of the conversation. In reality, Rousseau had not visited le Forez. He had been tempted to go there, but was dissuaded from his project by "a landlady" whom he consulted as to the route he should follow, and whose description prevented him from going to seek Dianas and Sylvanders amongst a population of blacksmiths. (The Confessions, year 1732.)
[20] Literary Correspondence, April, 1785.
[21] Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had developed his ideas upon the education of women, long before the publication of the Études de la Nature, in a speech delivered in 1777, without success, at an academical meeting in the country. Some of the details given here are borrowed from this Discours sur l'Education des femmes.
[22] The celebrated academician to whom allusion is made in this passage is Pierre Bouguer, who took part in the scientific expedition sent to the equator in 1736 to determine the shape of the earth. The quotation which follows is taken from his Traité de la Navigation, Book II., Chap. xiv.