Jean-Jacques! You surprise me! Have you dared to sneak a jab at my beloved Voltaire in your Confessions?

Ah, I do say it may be so—in reading your book today for the second time I came across within the first fifteen pages a phrase I’d missed the first time—the phrase, “…we ceased to cultivate our little gardens…”

A trifle, my good readers say? Ah! But if you look at the last line in Voltaire’s Candide you will see the (rather famous) phrase, “‘that is well said,’ replied Candide, ‘but we must cultivate our garden,'” expressing Voltaire’s ideas that to have a good life, one must work without philosophizing too greatly.
Considering Rousseau finished his Confessions in 1770 and Voltaire’s Candide was completed in 1762 (the latest date I could find), and taking into consideration the strained relationship between the two men that is evident in their correspondences between each other, this arises suspicion in me as to whether or not this was a deliberate yet subtle jab at Voltaire’s Candide.

Is this a glossed-over quip? Or am I just blathering on in my usual manner?

Who’s to say?

Though I vote on the latter.