ature: how cringing are his compatriots to their
conquerors: they are no longer the enemies of tyrants, of luxury, of
vile courtiers: the French have corrupted their morals, and when "la
patrie" no longer survives, a good patriot ought to die. Life among
the French is odious: their modes of life differ from his as much as
the light of the moon differs from that of the sun.--A strange
effusion this for a youth of seventeen living amidst the full glories
of the spring in Dauphine. It was only a few weeks before the ripening
of cherries. Did that cherry-idyll with Mdlle. de Colombier lure him
back to life? Or did the hope of striking a blow for Corsica stay his
suicidal hand? Probably the latter; for we find him shortly afterwards
tilting against a Protestant minister of Geneva who had ventured to
criticise one of the dogmas of Rousseau's evangel.

The Genevan philosopher had asserted that Christianity, by enthroning
in the hearts of Christians the idea of a Kingdom not of this world,
broke the unity of civil society, because it detached the hearts of
its converts from the State, as from all earthly things. To this the
Genevan minister had successfully replied by quoting Christian
teachings on the subject at issue. But Buonaparte fiercely accuses
the pastor of neither having understood, nor even read, "Le Contrat
Social": he hurls at his opponent texts of Scripture which enjoin
obedience to the laws: he accuses Christianity of rendering men slaves
to an anti-social tyranny, because its priests set up an authority in
opposition to civil laws; and as for Protestantism, it propagated
discords between its followers, and thereby violated civic unity.
Christianity, he argues, is a foe to civil government, for it aims at
making men happy in this life by inspiring them with hope of a future
life; while the aim of civil government is "to lend assistance to the
feeble against the strong, and by this means to allow everyone to
enjoy a sweet tranquillity, the road of happiness." He therefore
concludes that Christianity and civil government are diametrically
opposed.

In this tirade we see the youth's spirit of revolt flinging him not
only against French law, but against the religion which sanctions it.
He sees none of the beauty of the Gospels which Rousseau had
admitted. His views are more rigid than those of his teacher.
Scarcely can he conceive of two influences, the spiritual and the
governmental, working on parallel lines, on d