She had a tender and caressing air, a soft eye, a divine smile, light hair of uncommon beauty.

You could not see a finer head or bosom, finer arms or hands."[45] She was full of tricks and whimsies.

She could not endure the first smell of the soup and meats at dinner; when they were placed on the table she nearly swooned, and her disgust lasted some time, until at the end of half an hour or so she took her first morsel.[46] On the whole, if we accept the current standard of sanity, Madame de Warens must be pronounced ever so little flighty; but a monotonous world can afford to be lenient to people with a slight craziness, if it only has hearty benevolence and cheerfulness in its company, and is free from egoism or rapacious vanity.
This was the person within the sphere of whose attraction Rousseau was decisively brought in the autumn of 1729, and he remained, with certain breaks of vagabondage, linked by a close attachment to her until 1738.
It was in many respects the truly formative portion of his life.

He acquired during this time much of his knowledge of books, such as it was, and his principles of judging them.

He saw much of the lives of the poor and of the world's ways with them.