#JJ did not respond to that invitation dbdbjsjdnd

[tabellae-rex-in-sui]

Did Frederick know JJ? Did they get along at all?

Hsnsjsjdb They never met in person, but JJ did write him some short letters and Fritz knew JJ's works. Unsurprisingly, the Philosopher King did not like Jean-Jacques Rousseau's beliefs on life and politics lol. In 1762, JJ needed a country to live in, as he had been exiled from a couple already, and since Fritz advertised Prussia as an Enlightened haven for philosophers, JJ wrote a letter to Fritz (but maybe didn't send it):

"I have said a good deal that is bad about you, and perhaps I will again. However, I have been driven from France, from Geneva, and from the canton of Berne, and I come seeking asylum in your territories."

—July 1762, JJ Rousseau to Frederick

He then met Fritz' friend and confident Lord Marschall Keith and they hit it off. Keith was actually a fan of JJ's and acted as a liaison between JJ and Fritz. He even referred to JJ as his son and JJ called him his father. Fritz granted JJ and Thérèse asylum in Môtiers near Neuchâtel. As for his feelings towards JJ, he makes himself very clear in the letter to Keith where he agrees to help JJ:

"Your letter, my dear my lord, about Rousseau of Geneva gave me much pleasure. I see we think alike; we must relieve this poor wretch, who sins only by having odd opinions, but which he believes to be good. I will send you a hundred crowns, which you will have the kindness to give him for what he requires for his needs. I believe, by giving him things in kind, that he will accept them rather than money. If we didn't have the war, if we weren't ruined, I would have him build a hermitage with a garden, where he could live as he thinks our forefathers lived. I confess that my ideas are as different from his as is the finite from the infinite; he would never persuade me to graze the grass and crawl. It is true that all this Asian luxury, this refinement of good food, voluptuousness and softness, is not essential to our preservation, and that we could live with more simplicity and frugality than we do; but why renounce the pleasures of life, when one can enjoy them? The true philosophy, it seems to me, is that which, without prohibiting use, is content to condemn abuse; you have to know how to do without everything, but not give up anything. I confess to you that many modern philosophers displease me by the paradoxes they announce. They want to tell new truths, and they spout errors that offend common sense. I stick to Locke, my friend Lucretius, my good Emperor Marcus Aurelius; these people have told us everything we can know, apart from Epicurus' physics, and everything that can make us moderate, good and wise. After that, it is pleasant that we are told that we are all equal, and that consequently we must live like savages, without laws, without society and without police, that the fine arts have harmed morals, and other paradoxes so unsustainable. I believe that your Rousseau missed his vocation; he was doubtless born to become a famous cenobite, a Father of the desert, famous for his austerities and his macerations, a Stylite. He would have performed miracles, he would have become a saint, and he would have added to the enormous catalog of Martyrology; but at present he will only be regarded as a singular philosopher, who resurrects after two thousand years the sect of Diogenes. There's no need to graze grass, nor to fall out with all the philosophers of his contemporaries. Defunt Maupertuis told me of him a feature that characterizes him well. On his first trip to France, Rousseau lived in Paris on what he earned from copying music. The Duc d'Orléans learned that he was poor and unhappy, and gave him some music to transcribe in order to have an opportunity of doing him some liberality. He sent him fifty louis; Rousseau took five, and returned the rest, which he never wished to accept, although they pressed him, saying that his work was not worth more, and that the Duc d'Orléans could better employ this sum by giving it to people poorer and lazier than him. This great disinterestedness is unquestionably the essential foundation of virtue; thus I judge that your savage has morals as pure as the inconsistent spirit"

— 1 September 1762, Frederick to Lord Marschall Keith

He and Thérèse were mostly happy there, but the locals didn't like their presence and regarded them as strange foreigners with royal protection (Frederick was not particularly well liked in the region either). This is also where JJ started wearing his long robe and making lace, joking that he had become a woman, which was also not approved of by the locals. Even more than all that, he was living with an unmarried woman, Thérèse. JJ claimed that Thérèse was the daughter of a friend who had entrusted her to him upon his death, but no one bought the lie and rumors spread about them being lovers and even of Thérèse being pregnant (she wasn't, but they obviously were lovers). They also faced religious hostility, JJ was made to reaffirm his Calvinist faith in writing but Thérèse attended Catholic mass across the French boarder every week, the locals tried to pressure JJ to re-reaffirm his Calvinism and JJ refused. JJ of course published some controversial writing, which again pissed off the locals, specifically ones criticizing religion and he was accused of blasphemy. He refused Fritz' offer of largesse, asking him if there weren't more needy subjects under his rule who could make better use of it. He also implored him to end the war.

"You want to give me bread; are there not any of your subjects lacking it? Remove from before my eyes this sword which dazzles and wounds me; she has done her duty only too well, and the scepter is abandoned. [...] May I see Frederick the Just and the Dreaded covering his States with a numerous people of which he is the father, and J.-J. Rousseau, the enemy of kings, will go to die at the foot of his throne."

— 30 October 1762, JJ Rousseau to Frederick

At this point V made it public that JJ had abandoned his 5 children, and spread other rumors about him too, some true (like him abandoning his kids) some false (like him killing Thérèse's mother). Rocks were thrown through JJ's windows in the middle of the night and people even threatened to shoot him. Frederick sent off a reminder to the region, to respect his protection of Rousseau. But eventually, everything became too much, and JJ and Therese were compelled to leave in 1765. After they left, an effigy of JJ was found in the market, attached to it was a satirical document saying that he had disgraced Thérèse, and condemning the "Bavarian castrato" (Frederick) who brought him there. Frederick invited him to Potsdam, but JJ declined.

A year later, Frederick added in a letter to Voltaire:

"P.S. You ask me what I think of Rousseau of Geneva. I think he is unhappy and to be pitied. I don't like his paradoxes or his cynical tone. Those of Neufchâtel used it badly towards him: we must respect the unfortunate one; only perverse souls overwhelm them."

— December 1766, Frederick to Voltaire