opposition was hydra-headed. Not long after his flight, the Sorbonne condemned
Ãmile
and censured Rousseau. Next, Christophe de Beaumont, archbishop of Paris, condemned
Ãmile
for the views expressed in the fourth part of the book, the âProfession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicarâ: this affected Rousseau the more because he had always respected de Beaumont. He hit back with
Letter to Christophe de Beaumont,
a trenchant forty-thousand-word defense of his religious views. When, under pressure from the French, the twenty-five-member Genevan ruling Petit Conseil prohibited the letter from being published, the formerly âproud citizenâ of Geneva resigned his citizenship in disgust.
Rousseau now became caught up in the bitter political conflict that had riven the city-state for over thirty years, between its traditional ruling oligarchy that controlled the Petit Conseil (and were supported byFrance) and the disenfranchised bourgeoisie, the Party of Liberty, as Rousseau calls them in the
Confessions.
The Party of Liberty had added Rousseauâs treatment by the Petit Conseil to their campaigning grievances. The prosecutor general Jean-Robert Tronchin (whom Rousseau loathed but whose intellect he never underestimated) entered the fray as the councilâs champion. With
Letters from the Country,
published anonymously in the autumn of 1763, Tronchin defended Genevaâs customary mode of government and alleged that Rousseau posed a deadly danger to both church and state. The adherents of the Party of Liberty were left reeling.
Initially, Rousseau himself stood apart from the political battle. But the Party of Liberty pressed him to intervene, and with some hesitation he took on Tronchin with
Letters Written from the Mountain.
This polemical rejoinder, printed in 1764, robustly condemned the censorship of his work and charged the executive body in Geneva with despotism: they had trampled on the cityâs traditions, and destabilized its delicate balance of powers.
Rousseauâs original hesitation on intervening was justified: all prospect of a quiet life vanished. In the
Confessions,
he remarks wryly, âThere seemed to be general astonishment in Geneva and Paris that such a monster as I could be permitted to breathe.â
This exchange with Tronchin also caused a final and irreversible break with Voltaire. In late 1764,
Sentiments des citoyens sur les lettres écrites de la montagne
[Views of the Citizens on
Letters Written from the Mountain
] hit at Rousseau with a viciously personal attack that he saw on the last day of the year. It was anonymous, but in the literary culture of the day, that was no surprise. Authors used anonymity to shield themselves from assault or a challenge to a duel, and in France, the omnipresence of one hundred royal censors stimulated evasive tactics. Anonymity, pseudonyms, printing in Holland and smuggling over the border, disguising works of philosophy or pornographic fiction as history or lettersâthese were all commonplaces of publishing.
Although Rousseau immediately accused a Genevan pastor (and old acquaintance) of being the author, on grounds of the pamphletâs Calvinist style,
Sentiments
is now generally accepted as being from Voltaireâs pen. It painted Rousseau as heartless, ungrateful, and hypocritical. Some of the âsecretsâ it exposed about him, such as the abandonment of his children, were true; others were disingenuous or downright falsehoods.
The pamphlet asked whether this âwriter is a scholar who debates with scholars? No. He is the author of an opera and two unsuccessful plays.â It also claimed Rousseau was syphilitic and charged him with responsibility for the recent death of his mother-in-law. Rousseau was described as a man âwho still bears the deadly marks of his debauchery and who in the costume of a mountebank drags with him from village to village and from mountain to mountain the wretched woman whose
Ãmile
and censured Rousseau. Next, Christophe de Beaumont, archbishop of Paris, condemned
Ãmile
for the views expressed in the fourth part of the book, the âProfession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicarâ: this affected Rousseau the more because he had always respected de Beaumont. He hit back with
Letter to Christophe de Beaumont,
a trenchant forty-thousand-word defense of his religious views. When, under pressure from the French, the twenty-five-member Genevan ruling Petit Conseil prohibited the letter from being published, the formerly âproud citizenâ of Geneva resigned his citizenship in disgust.
Rousseau now became caught up in the bitter political conflict that had riven the city-state for over thirty years, between its traditional ruling oligarchy that controlled the Petit Conseil (and were supported byFrance) and the disenfranchised bourgeoisie, the Party of Liberty, as Rousseau calls them in the
Confessions.
The Party of Liberty had added Rousseauâs treatment by the Petit Conseil to their campaigning grievances. The prosecutor general Jean-Robert Tronchin (whom Rousseau loathed but whose intellect he never underestimated) entered the fray as the councilâs champion. With
Letters from the Country,
published anonymously in the autumn of 1763, Tronchin defended Genevaâs customary mode of government and alleged that Rousseau posed a deadly danger to both church and state. The adherents of the Party of Liberty were left reeling.
Initially, Rousseau himself stood apart from the political battle. But the Party of Liberty pressed him to intervene, and with some hesitation he took on Tronchin with
Letters Written from the Mountain.
This polemical rejoinder, printed in 1764, robustly condemned the censorship of his work and charged the executive body in Geneva with despotism: they had trampled on the cityâs traditions, and destabilized its delicate balance of powers.
Rousseauâs original hesitation on intervening was justified: all prospect of a quiet life vanished. In the
Confessions,
he remarks wryly, âThere seemed to be general astonishment in Geneva and Paris that such a monster as I could be permitted to breathe.â
This exchange with Tronchin also caused a final and irreversible break with Voltaire. In late 1764,
Sentiments des citoyens sur les lettres écrites de la montagne
[Views of the Citizens on
Letters Written from the Mountain
] hit at Rousseau with a viciously personal attack that he saw on the last day of the year. It was anonymous, but in the literary culture of the day, that was no surprise. Authors used anonymity to shield themselves from assault or a challenge to a duel, and in France, the omnipresence of one hundred royal censors stimulated evasive tactics. Anonymity, pseudonyms, printing in Holland and smuggling over the border, disguising works of philosophy or pornographic fiction as history or lettersâthese were all commonplaces of publishing.
Although Rousseau immediately accused a Genevan pastor (and old acquaintance) of being the author, on grounds of the pamphletâs Calvinist style,
Sentiments
is now generally accepted as being from Voltaireâs pen. It painted Rousseau as heartless, ungrateful, and hypocritical. Some of the âsecretsâ it exposed about him, such as the abandonment of his children, were true; others were disingenuous or downright falsehoods.
The pamphlet asked whether this âwriter is a scholar who debates with scholars? No. He is the author of an opera and two unsuccessful plays.â It also claimed Rousseau was syphilitic and charged him with responsibility for the recent death of his mother-in-law. Rousseau was described as a man âwho still bears the deadly marks of his debauchery and who in the costume of a mountebank drags with him from village to village and from mountain to mountain the wretched woman whose
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