reeds he often offended. He had just published _Le Contrat
Social,_ "The Gospel,"; says M. Saint-Marc Girardin, "of the theory as to
the sovereignty of the state representing the sovereignty of the people."
The governing powers of the time had some presentiment of its danger;
they had vaguely comprehended what weapons might be sought therein by
revolutionary instincts and interests; their anxiety and their anger as
yet brooded silently; the director of publications (_de la librairie_),
M. de Malesherbes, was one of the friends and almost one of the disciples
of Rousseau whom he shielded; he himself corrected the proofs of the
_Emile_ which Rousseau had just finished. The book had barely begun to
appear, when, on the 8th of June, 1762, Rousseau was awakened by a
message from la Marchale de Luxembourg: the Parliament had ordered
_Emile_ to be burned, and its author arrested. Rousseau took flight,
reckoning upon finding refuge at Geneva. The influence of the French
government pursued him thither; the Grand Council condemned _Emile_.
One single copy had arrived at Geneva it was this which was burned by the
hand of the common hangman, nine days after the, burning at Paris in the
Place de Greve. "The Contrat Social has received its whipping on the
back of Emile," was the saying at Geneva. "At the instigation of M. de
Voltaire they have avenged upon me the cause of God," Jean Jacques
declared.

Rousseau rashly put his name to his book; Voltaire was more prudent.
One day, having been imprisoned for some verses which were not his, he
had taken the resolution to impudently repudiate the paternity of his own
works. "You must never publish anything under your own name," he wrote
to Helvetius; "La Pucelle was none of my doing, of course. Master Joly
de Fleury will make a fine thing of his requisition; I shall tell him
that he is a calumniator, that La Pucelle is his own doing, which he
wants to put down to me out of spite."

Geneva refused asylum to the proscribed philosopher; he was warned of
hostile intentions on the part of the magnific signiors of Berne.
Neuchatel and the King of Prussia's protection alone were left; thither
he went for refuge. Received with open arms by the governor, my lord
Marshal (Keith), he wrote thence to the premier syndic Favre a letter
abdicating his rights of burghership and citizenship in the town of
Geneva. "I have neglected nothing," he said, "to gain the love of my
compatriots; nobody co