Thérèse Levasseur

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (October 2014) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

View a machine-translated version of the French article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Thérèse Levasseur]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Thérèse Levasseur}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Thérèse Levasseur
Marie Thérèse Levasseur Veuve de Jean Jacques Rousseau, by Johann Michael Baader, aquarelle, 1791.
Born	(1721-09-21)21 September 1721 Orléans, France
Died	12 July 1801(1801-07-12) (aged 79) Le Plessis-Belleville, France
Nationality	French
Spouse	Jean-Henri Bally (1779–1801, her death)
Partner	Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1745–1778; his death)
Children	5

Portrait of Marie-Thérèse Le Vasseur by E. Charryère, after a sepia by Naudet.

Marie-Thérèse Levasseur ([tɛ.ʁɛz lə.va.sœʁ]; 21 September 1721 – 12 July 1801; also known as Thérèse Le Vasseur, Lavasseur) was the domestic partner, mistress, wife and widow of Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Biography

Thérèse Le Vasseur came from a respected family that had fallen on hard times; her father had a small official position relating to currency in Orléans, which he lost by 1744, and her mother was a shop-keeper; this business having failed,^[1]^[2] Thérèse and her mother moved to Paris to find work, and were later joined by her father.

Le Vasseur met Rousseau in Paris in 1745. Le Vasseur was working as a laundress and chambermaid at the Hotel Saint-Quentin in the rue des Cordiers, where Rousseau took his meals. She was 24 years old at the time, he was 33. According to Rousseau, Thérèse bore him five children, all of whom were given to the Enfants-Trouvés foundling home, the first in 1746 and the others in 1747, 1748, 1751, and 1752. Thérèse is described in Rousseau's Confessions as a woman of low intelligence, exploited by her family.

They went through a legally invalid marriage ceremony at Bourgoin on August 29, 1768. Therese provided Rousseau with support and care, and when he died, she was the sole inheritor of his belongings, including manuscripts and royalties.

After Rousseau's death in 1778, she married Jean-Henri Bally, a valet of René de Girardin, in November 1779. They lived together in Le Plessis-Belleville until her death in 1801.

References

^ Rousseau, Colwyn Edward Vulliamy, Kennikat Press, 1972, p. 86
^ Glendon, Mary ANN (1993). "Les lettres inedites de Marie-Thérèse le Vasseur". Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art (18/19): 165–172. JSTOR 42744485.

Jean-Daniel Candaux, Thérèse Levasseur ou les avatars d'une image (1762-1789). In: Cahiers Isabelle de Charrière/Belle de Zuylen Papers 7, 2012 p. 99-108.
Giovanni Incorvati, Translations dissymétriques: crimes et droits d’un couple dans la Correspondance de Rousseau, in : Jacques Berchtold and Yannick Séité (eds.), Lire la correspondance de Rousseau, Droz, Genève 2007 (Annales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau, XLVII), p. 75-123.
Guyot, Charly, Plaidoyer pour Thérèse Levasseur (Neufchâtel: Ides et Calendes, 1962).
Therese Levasseur, Rousseau's companion for 33 years
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and informal education
Mount Lavasseur