By 22 June the weather had cleared sufficiently for Byron and Shelley to feel that they could set out on an expedition which they must have been thinking about for days. In normal circumstances, they might well have felt obliged to take Polidori with them but on the 15th he had sprained his ankle, jumping off a wall, and three days later the injury was much worse, incapacitating him. The two poets could therefore go off on their trip without having to experience any unease about leaving him behind. What they had planned was a literary pilgrimage in honour of Rousseau. When they first arrived in Geneva both the Shelley party and Byron had made independent visits to view the statue of Rousseau which then stood in the Planpalais, a small park or walking area just outside the city walls. Looking at the figure, Byron caustically suggested that it must have been constructed from the stones which Rousseau's fellow citizens had thrown at him. Familiar with the Confessions as he was, he probably knew that it was not in Geneva that the stones were thrown but in the tiny principality of Neufchâtel which, in the eighteenth century, was controlled by the King of Prussia and therefore a safer haven for Rousseau than most others in the region. Yet there was a metaphorical truth in what Byron said in that the Genevan authorities had banned Emile and made it clear that its author would not be welcome should he ever decide to return to his home town.

As Byron and Shelley set out on their trip, Emile was hardly in the forefront of their minds and neither were Rousseau's Confessions.