philosophy of Christianity, that insurrection of justice in favour of
the weak, had glided from the lips of Louis XIV. into the ear of his
grandson. Fénélon educated another revolution in the Duke of Burgundy.
This the king perceived when too late, and expelled the divine seduction
from his palace. But the revolutionary policy was born there; there the
people read the pages of the holy archbishop: Versailles was destined to
be, thanks to Louis XIV. and Fénélon, at once the palace of despotism
and the cradle of the Revolution. Montesquieu had sounded the
institutions, and analysed the laws of all people. By classing
governments, he had compared them, by comparing he passed judgment on
them; and this judgment brought out, in its bold relief, and contrast,
on every page, right and force, privilege and equality, tyranny and
liberty.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, less ingenious, but more eloquent, had studied
politics, not in the laws, but in nature. A free but oppressed and
suffering mind, the palpitation of his noble heart had made every heart
beat that had been ulcerated by the odious inequality of social
conditions. It was the revolt of the ideal against the real. He had been
the tribune of nature, the Gracchus of philosophy--he had not produced
the history of institutions, only its vision--but that vision descended
from heaven and returned thither. There was to be seen the design of God
and the excess of his love--but there was not enough seen of the
infirmity of men. It was the Utopia of government; but by this Rousseau
led further astray. To impel the people to passion there must be some
slight illusion mingled with the truth; reality alone was too chilling
to fanaticise the human mind; it is only roused to enthusiasm by things
something out of nature. What is termed the ideal is the attraction and
force of religions, which always aspire higher than they mount; this is
how fanaticism is produced, that delirium of virtue. Rousseau was the