stery is
shown. Yet of the more elaborate passages of this kind in other writers
few can surpass the best things of the _Nouvelle Heloise_, the
_Confessions_, and the _Reveries_. There is nothing novel to readers of
the present day in such things, though they are seldom done so happily.
But to the readers of Rousseau's day they were absolutely novel. It is
in this that the main literary importance of Rousseau consists, though
it must not be forgotten that he is in many ways a master of French
prose. His contemporaries made use of his Genevan origin to find fault
with his style; but with a few insignificant exceptions the criticism
has no foundation. It has been very frequently renewed, and sometimes
with little better reason, in the case of Swiss authors.

Round these chiefs of the Encyclopaedic movement were grouped many lesser
men, some of whom will be most conveniently noticed here. Marmontel,
Morellet, and Saint-Lambert, whose chief importance lay in other
directions, were contributors. The Chevalier de Jaucourt, a man of no
original power, but a hack-writer of extraordinary aptitude, took
considerable part in it. There were others, however, who, partly within
and partly without the range of the Encyclopaedia, had no small share in
the promotion of what has been called the _philosophe_ movement. Some
of these have found their place under the head of Essayists. There is,
however, one remarkable division, which must be treated here--the
division of economists--before we pass to the philosophers properly so
called, who either continued the metaphysics of Locke in a directly
materialist sense, or who, restraining themselves to sensationalism,
made the most of the English philosopher in that direction.

[Sidenote: Political Economists. Vauban, Quesnay, etc.]

The science of 'Political Arithmetic,' as it was first called in
England, had a somewhat earlier birth in France than in England itself.
It is remarkable that the complete establishment of the royal authority
under Louis XIV. preceded but by a very few years the examination of the
economic condition of the kingdom by unsparing examiners. The two chief
of these, both of whom fell into disgrace for their doings, were the
great engineer Vauban, and the great theologian Fenelon. The latter was
attracted to the subject chiefly by compassion for the sufferings of the
people, and expressed his opinion in a manner more rhetorical than
scientific. Vauban's course was natur