​Knocking on a great man's door - Manon's story.

When Manon Roland was 21 she heard that Rousseau was in Paris and decided to try and meet him. A friend of hers, a fellow Genevese provided the introduction and the reason for the visit: he's commissioned some music from Rousseau and she was to pick it up. So she wrote him a letter and went to his house, accompanied by her nanny.

She relates the visit in a letter to her friend Sophie, on 29 February 1776. 
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Thérèse Levasseur with Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

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When Manon knocked, the door was open by Therese Levasseur who asked her rudely what she wanted.

           - "To speak to Monsieur Rousseau - is this his home?"

- "What do you want with him?"

           - "An answer to a letter I wrote a few days ago."

- "Well, Miss, you can't speak to him. But you can go and tell the people who made you write - for surely you did not write this letter..."

          - "Pardon me?"

- "The hand itself is clearly a man's."

          - "Would you like to watch me write?"  Laughed Manon.
 
She did not see Rousseau, who was old and sick and saw no visitors anyway, but Manon went back home with, she says, the slight satisfaction that he found her letter well enough written that he thought it could not be by a woman.