Rousseau

Speaking confessionally, Rousseau announced: 'je commençai ma réforme par ma parure; je quittai la dorure.' Indeed, he claimed this not once, but several times: 'Je quittai le monde et ses pompes, je renonçai à toute parure ; plus d'épée, plus de montre, plus de bas blancs, de dorure, de coiffure'. This is not quitting 'the world', though; this is performing for the world in a different, less kitsch costume. It's not beginning one's reform so much as beginning what one performs.