unsatisfied soul. It was the forerunner of "Corinne," "The Sorrows of
Werther," "Thaddeus of Warsaw," and all those sentimental romances which
amused our grandfathers and grandmothers, but which increased the
prejudice of religious people against novels. It was not until Sir
Walter Scott arose with his wholesome manliness that the embargo against
novels was removed.

The life which Rousseau lived at the Hermitage--reveries in the
forest, luxurious dinners, and sentimental friendships--led to a
passionate love-affair with the Comtesse d'Houdetot, a sister-in-law
of his patroness Madame d'Epinay,--a woman not only married,
but who had another lover besides. The result, of course, was
miserable,--jealousies, piques, humiliations, misunderstandings, and the
sundering of the ties of friendship, which led to the necessity of
another retreat: a real home the wretched man never had. This was
furnished, still in the vicinity of Montmorenci, by another aristocratic
friend, the Marechal de Luxembourg, the fiscal agent of the Prince de
Conde. And nothing to me is stranger than that this wandering, morbid,
irritable man, without birth or fortune, the father of the wildest
revolutionary and democratic doctrines, and always hated both by the
Court and the Church, should have found his friends and warmest admirers
and patrons in the highest circles of social life. It can be explained
only by the singular fascination of his eloquence, and by the extreme
stolidity of his worshippers in appreciating his doctrines, and the
state of society to which his principles logically led.

In this second retreat Rousseau had the _entree_ to the palace of the
Duke of Luxembourg, where he read to the friends assembled at its
banquets his new production, "Emile,"--a singular treatise on education,
not so faulty as his previous works, but still false in many of its
principles, especially in regard to religion. This book contained an
admirable and powerful impulse away from artificiality and towards
naturalness in education, which has exerted an immense influence for
good; we shall revert to it later.

A few months before the publication of "Emile," Rousseau had issued "The
Social Contract," the most revolutionary of all his works, subversive of
all precedents in politics, government, and the organization of society,
while also confounding Christianity with ecclesiasticism and attacking
its influence in the social order. All his works obtained a wide