In all the Genevese there was an underlying tendency of this kind.

"Under a phlegmatic and cool air," wrote Rousseau, when warning his countrymen against the inflammatory effects of the drama, "the Genevese hide an ardent and sensitive character, that is more easily moved than controlled."[4] And some of the episodes in their history during the eighteenth century might be taken for scenes from the turbulent dramas of Paris.

But Isaac Rousseau's restlessness, his eager emotion, his quick and punctilious sense of personal dignity, his heedlessness of ordered affairs, were not common in Geneva, fortunately for the stability of her society and the prosperity of her citizens.

This disorder of spirit descended in modified form to the son; it was inevitable that he should be indirectly affected by it.

Before he was seven years old he had learnt from his father to indulge a passion for the reading of romances.