Note 4 — BOOK SECOND.

The feeling of a republican, of the "citizen of Geneva," justly shocked by monarchial superstitions. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had had, in fact, from the days of their first playthings, the degrading spectacle of a universal servility prostrated before their cradle. The sentiment here uttered was still uncommon and almost unknown when Rousseau wrote it. He did much toward creating it and making it popular.