completed in 1759, and published in 1761. The Social Contract was
published in the spring of 1762, and Emilius a few weeks later.
Throughout this period Rousseau was, for the last time in his life, at
peace with most of his fellows. Though he never relented from his
antipathy to the Holbachians, for the time it slumbered, until a more
real and serious persecution than any which he imputed to them,
transformed his antipathy into a gloomy frenzy.

The new friends whom he made at Montmorency were among the greatest
people in the kingdom. The Duke of Luxembourg (1702-64) was a marshal
of France, and as intimate a friend of the king as the king was
capable of having. The Marechale de Luxembourg (1707-87) had been one
of the most beautiful, and continued to be one of the most brilliant
leaders of the last aristocratic generation that was destined to sport
on the slopes of the volcano. The former seems to have been a loyal
and homely soul; the latter, restless, imperious, penetrating,
unamiable. Their dealings with Rousseau were marked by perfect
sincerity and straightforward friendship. They gave him a convenient
apartment in a small summer lodge in the park, to which he retreated
when he cared for a change from his narrow cottage. He was a constant
guest at their table, where he met the highest personages in France.
The marshal did not disdain to pay him visits, or to walk with him, or
to discuss his private affairs. Unable as ever to shine in
conversation, yet eager to show his great friends that they had to do
with no common mortal, Rousseau bethought him of reading the New
Heloisa aloud to them. At ten in the morning he used to wait upon the
marechale, and there by her bedside he read the story of the love, the
sin, the repentance of Julie, the distraction of Saint Preux, the
wisdom of Wolmar, and the sage friendship of Lord Edward, in tones
which enchanted her both with his book and its author for all the rest
of the day, as all the women in France were so soon to be
enchanted.[1] This, as he expected, amply reconciled her to the
uncouthness and clumsiness of his conversation, which was at least as
maladroit and as spiritless in the presence of a duchess as it was in
presences less imposing.

One side of character is obviously tested by the way in which a man
bears himself in his relations with those of greater social
consideration. Rousseau was taxed by some of his plebeian enemies with
a most unheroic deference to h