Note 254 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Cont. Soc., IV. viii. 203. As we have already seen, he had entreated Voltaire, of all men in the world, to draw up a civil profession of faith. See vol. i. 318.
In the New Heloïsa (V. v. 117, n.) Rousseau expresses his opinion that "no true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate, and if the law pronounced the penalty of death against atheists, I would begin by burning as such whoever should come to inform against another."