Rousseau in Perspective

Abstract

Fleeing arrest in Paris any illusion Rousseau may have entertained of returning home to Geneva was quickly dashed. Emile was burnt in the city and a warrant issued for his arrest on 18th June. The Social Contract was banned in France. There was agitation against him in Berne and Neuchatel when he moved to these cities, and as the intolerance grew he became a homeless fugitive, denounced by clerical edicts and pursued by mobs, insulted and chased in the streets “as if I were a werewolf.”