Note 964 — Chapter VII

Napoleon said to Stanislas Girardin respecting Rousseau, ‘sans lui la France n'auroit pas eu de révolution.’ Holland's Foreign Reminiscences, Lond. 1850, p. 261. This is certainly an exaggeration; but the influence of Rousseau was, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, most extraordinary. In 1765, Hume writes from Paris: ‘It is impossible to express or imagine the enthusiasm of this nation in his favour; … no person ever so much engaged their attention as Rousseau. Voltaire and every body else are quite eclipsed by him.’ Burton's Life of Hume, vol. ii. p. 299. A letter written in 1754 (in Grimm, Correspond. vol. i. p. 122) says that his Dijon Discourse ‘fit une espèce de révolution à Paris.’ The circulation of his works was unprecedented; and when La Nouvelle Héloïse appeared, ‘les libraires ne pouvaient suffire aux demandes de toutes les classes. On louait l'ouvrage à tant par jour, ou par heure. Quand il parut, on exigeait douze sous par volume, en n'accordant que soixante minutes pour le lire.’ Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. ii. p. 361. For further evidence of the effect produced by his works, see Lerminier, Philos. du Droit, vol. ii. p. 251; Mém. de Roland, vol. i. p. 196, vol. ii. pp. 337, 359; Mém. de Genlis, vol. v. p. 193, vol. vi. p. 14; Alison's Europe, vol. i. p. 170, vol. iii. p. 369, vol. iv. p. 376; Mém. de Morellet, vol. i. p. 116; Longchamp, Mém. sur Voltaire, vol. ii. p. 50; Life of Romilly, vol. i. p. 267; Mem. of Mallet du Pan, vol. i. p. 127; Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 482; Cassagnac, Causes de la Rév. vol. iii. p. 549; Lamartine, Hist. des Girondins, vol. ii. p. 38, vol. iv. p. 93, vol. viii. p. 125; Wahrheit und Dichtung, in Göthe's Werke, Stuttgart, 1837, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 83, 104; Grimm, Correspond. Lit. vol. xii. p. 222; De Staël, Consid. sur la Rév. vol. ii. p. 371.