of the _ancien regime_ in France. Montesquieu's teaching inspired
the group of moderate reformers who in 1789 desired to re-fashion the
institutions of France on the model of those of England. But popular
sentiment speedily swept past these Anglophils towards the more
attractive aims set forth by Voltaire.

This keen thinker subjected the privileged classes, especially the
titled clergy, to a searching fire of philosophic bombs and barbed
witticisms. Never was there a more dazzling succession of literary
triumphs over a tottering system. The satirized classes winced and
laughed, and the intellect of France was conquered, for the
Revolution. Thenceforth it was impossible that peasants who were
nominally free should toil to satisfy the exacting needs of the
State, and to support the brilliant bevy of nobles who flitted gaily
round the monarch at Versailles. The young King Louis XVI., it is
true, carried through several reforms, but he had not enough strength
of will to abolish the absurd immunities from taxation which freed the
nobles and titled clergy from the burdens of the State. Thus, down to
1789, the middle classes and peasants bore nearly all the weight of
taxation, while the peasants were also encumbered by feudal dues and
tolls. These were the crying grievances which united in a solid
phalanx both thinkers and practical men, and thereby gave an immense
impetus to the levelling doctrines of Rousseau.

Two only of his political teachings concern us here, namely, social
equality and the unquestioned supremacy of the State; for to these
dogmas, when they seemed doomed to political bankruptcy, Napoleon
Buonaparte was to act as residuary legatee. According to Rousseau,
society and government originated in a social contract, whereby all
members of the community have equal rights. It matters not that the
spirit of the contract may have evaporated amidst the miasma of
luxury. That is a violation of civil society; and members are
justified in reverting at once to the primitive ideal. If the
existence of the body politic be endangered, force may be used:
"Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do
so by the whole body; which means nothing else than that he shall be
forced to be free." Equally plausible and dangerous was his teaching
as to the indivisibility of the general will. Deriving every public
power from his social contract, he finds it easy to prove that the
sovereign power, vested in all t