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According to a common reading of Rousseau, the fact that he estimated society to be necessarily corrupt would have lead him to promote the return to a state of nature accomplished by the means of an exile that in turn opened onto the possibilities of a coincidence with oneself. Against this vulgate, this article argues that an analysis of the gift, which is a theme that traverses the whole of Rousseau’s work, shows that it is the requirement of separation from oneself that constitutes the fundamental condition for a legitimate social pact. If one follows Rousseau through the developments of this ontological requirement of separation, one remarks how much the question of the gift provides a key to interpreting the complexity of his theory of legitimation.