e doctrine that all power proceeds from the people, not because of
their nature and their historical organization into families and
communities, but because of an agreement by individuals to secure
public order, and that, consequently, the consent given they can
withdraw, the order they have created they can destroy. In this lay
not merely the germ, but the whole system of extreme radicalism, the
essence, the substance, and the sum of the French Revolution on its
extreme and doctrinaire side.

Rousseau had been the prophet and forerunner of the new social
dispensation. The scheme for applying its principles is found in a
work which bears the name of a very mediocre person, the Abbe Raynal,
a man who enjoyed in his day an extended and splendid reputation which
now seems to have had only the slender foundations of unmerited
persecution and the friendship of superior men. In 1770 appeared
anonymously a volume, of which, as was widely known, he was the
compiler. "The Philosophical and Political History of the
Establishments and Commerce of the Europeans in the Two Indies" is a
miscellany of extracts from many sources, and of short essays by
Raynal's brilliant acquaintances, on superstition, tyranny, and
similar themes. The reputed author had written for the public prints,
and had published several works, none of which attracted attention.
The amazing success of this one was not remarkable if, as some critics
now believe, at least a third of the text was by Diderot. However this
may be, the position of Raynal as a man of letters immediately became
a foremost one, and such was the vogue of a second edition published
over his name in 1780 that the authorities became alarmed. The climax
to his renown was achieved when, in 1781, his book was publicly
burned, and the compiler fled into exile.

By 1785 the storm had finally subsided, and though he had not yet
returned to France, it is supposed that through the friendship of Mme.
du Colombier, the friendly patroness of the young lieutenant,
communication was opened between the great man and his aspiring
reader.[13] "Not yet eighteen," are the startling words in the
letter, written by Buonaparte, "I am a writer: it is the age when we
must learn. Will my boldness subject me to your raillery? No, I am
sure. If indulgence be a mark of true genius, you should have much
indulgence. I inclose chapters one and two of a history of Corsica,
with an outline of the rest. If you approve, I wi