rly be attracted by this
fantastic thinker. In that notable work, "Le Contrat Social" (1762),
Rousseau called attention to the antique energy shown by the Corsicans
in defence of their liberties, and in a startlingly prophetic phrase
he exclaimed that the little island would one day astonish Europe. The
source of this predilection of Rousseau for Corsica is patent. Born
and reared at Geneva, he felt a Switzer's love for a people which was<
"neither rich nor poor but self-sufficing "; and in the simple life
and fierce love of liberty of the hardy islanders he saw traces of
that social contract which he postulated as the basis of society.
According to him, the beginnings of all social and political
institutions are to be found in some agreement or contract between
men. Thus arise the clan, the tribe, the nation. The nation may
delegate many of its powers to a ruler; but if he abuse such powers,
the contract between him and his people is at an end, and they may
return to the primitive state, which is founded on an agreement of
equals with equals. Herein lay the attractiveness of Rousseau for all
who were discontented with their surroundings. He seemed infallibly
to demonstrate the absurdity of tyranny and the need of returning to
the primitive bliss of the social contract. It mattered not that the
said contract was utterly unhistorical and that his argument teemed
with fallacies. He inspired a whole generation with detestation of the
present and with longings for the golden age. Poets had sung of it,
but Rousseau seemed to bring it within the grasp of long-suffering
mortals.

The first extant manuscript of Napoleon, written at Valence in April,
1786, shows that he sought in Rousseau's armoury the logical weapons
for demonstrating the "right" of the Corsicans to rebel against the
French. The young hero-worshipper begins by noting that it is the
birthday of Paoli. He plunges into a panegyric on the Corsican
patriots, when he is arrested by the thought that many censure them
for rebelling at all. "The divine laws forbid revolt. But what have
divine laws to do with a purely human affair? Just think of the
absurdity--divine laws universally forbidding the casting off of a
usurping yoke! ... As for human laws, there cannot be any after the
prince violates them." He then postulates two origins for government
as alone possible. Either the people has established laws and
submitted itself to the prince, or the prince has establishe