r flame of moral
enthusiasm, and a more eager care for the realisation of good and
virtuous ideals.

III.

The story of the circumstances of the publication of Emilius and the
persecution which befell its author in consequence, recalls us to the
distinctively evil side of French history in this critical epoch, and
carries us away from light into the thick darkness of political
intrigue, obscurantist faction, and a misgovernment which was at once
tyrannical and decrepit. It is almost impossible for us to realise the
existence in the same society of such boundless license of thought,
and such unscrupulous restraint upon its expression. Not one of
Rousseau's three chief works, for instance, was printed in France. The
whole trade in books was a sort of contraband, and was carried on with
the stealth, subterfuge, daring, and knavery that are demanded in
contraband dealings. An author or a bookseller was forced to be as
careful as a kidnapper of coolies or the captain of a slaver would be
in our own time. He had to steer clear of the court, of the
parliament, of Jansenists, of Jesuits, of the mistresses of the king
and the minister, of the friends of the mistresses, and above all of
that organised hierarchy of ignorance and oppression in all times and
places where they raise their masked heads,--the bishops and
ecclesiastics of every sort and condition. Palissot produced his
comedy to please the devout at the expense of the philosophers (1760).
Madame de Robecq, daughter of Rousseau's marshal of Luxembourg,
instigated and protected him, for Diderot had offended her.[74]
Morellet replied in a piece in which the keen vision of feminine spite
detected a reference to Madame de Robecq. Though dying, she still had
relations with Choiseul, and so Morellet was flung into the
Bastile.[75] Diderot was thrown for three months into Vincennes, where
we saw him on a memorable occasion, for his Letter on the Blind
(1748), nominally because it was held to contain irreligious doctrine,
really because he had given offence to D'Argenson's mistress by
hinting that she might be very handsome, but that her judgment on
scientific experiment was of no value.[76]

The New Heloisa could not openly circulate in France so long as it
contained the words, "I would rather be the wife of a charcoal-burner
than the mistress of a king." The last word was altered to "prince,"
and then Rousseau was warned that he would offend the Prince de Conti
and Mada