ate. Authors and books were arbitrarily sent by _lettres de
cachet_ to the Bastille or Vincennes. Yet in spite of all repression,
a generation of daring, witty, emancipated thinkers in Paris was
elaborating a weapon of scientific, rationalistic and liberal doctrine
that cut at the very roots of the old _regime_. "I care not whether a
man is good or bad," says the Deity in Blake's prophetic books, "all I
care, is whether he is a wise man or a fool." While France was in
travail of the palingenesis of the modern world, the futile king was
trifling with his locks and keys and colouring maps, the queen playing
at shepherdesses at Trianon or performing before courtiers, officers
and equerries the _roles_ of Rosina in the _Barbier de Seville_ and of
Colette in the _Devin du Village_, the latter composed by the
democratic philosopher, whose _Contrat Social_ was to prove the Gospel
of the Revolution.[158] Jean Jacques Rousseau, the solitary,
self-centred Swiss engraver and musician, has described for us in
words that will bear translation how an ineffaceable impression of the
sufferings of the people was burnt into his memory, and the fire of an
unquenchable hatred of their oppressors was kindled in his breast.
Journeying on foot between Paris and Lyons, he was one day diverted
from his path by the beauty of the landscape, and wandered about,
seeking in vain to discover his way. "At length," he writes, "weary,
and dying of thirst and hunger, I entered a peasant's house, not a
very attractive one, but the only one I could see. I imagined that
here as in Switzerland every inhabitant of easy means would be able to
offer hospitality. I entered and begged that I might have dinner by
paying for it. The peasant handed me some skim milk and coarse barley
bread, saying that was all he had. The milk seemed delicious and I ate
the bread, straw and all, but it was not very satisfying to one
exhausted by fatigue. The man scrutinised me and judged by my
appetite the truth of the story I had told. Suddenly, after saying
that he perceived I was a good, honest youth and not there to spy upon
him, he opened a trap door, descended and returned speedily with some
good wheaten bread, a ham appetising but rather high, and a bottle of
wine which rejoiced my heart more than all the rest. He added a good
thick omelette and I enjoyed a dinner such as those alone who travel
on foot can know. When it came to paying, his anxiety and fears again
seized him; h