Rousseau à Montpellier L’anti-voyage thérapeutique

The tale of Rousseau’s journey to Montpellier (Confessions, livre VI) can be read as a demystification of the literary topos of the therapeutic voyage. A strategy masterminded by Madame de Warens in order to remove Rousseau from his new-found idyll with Wintzenried, the voyage is presented in the autobiography as a fiasco (except at the sexual level), as the reason for the return to his mother’s bosom, and even as the origin of his adventurous intellectual career, rather than as life-saving.