When the revolution came, and princes and nobles wandered in indigent exile, the disciples of Rousseau pointed in unkind triumph to the advantage these unfortunate wretches would have had if they had not been too puffed up with the vanity of feudalism to follow the prudent example of Emilius in learning a craft.  That Rousseau should have laid so much stress on the vicissitudes of fortune, which might cause even a king to be grateful one day that he had a trade at the end of his arms, is sometimes quoted as a proof of his foresight of troublous times.  This, however, goes too far, because, apart from the instances of such vicissitudes among the ancients, the King of Syracuse keeping school at Corinth, or Alexander, son of Perseus, becoming a Roman scrivener, he actually saw Charles Edward, the Stuart pretender, wandering from court to court in search of succour and receiving only rebuffs; and he may well have known that after the troubles of 1738 a considerable number of the oligarchs of his native Geneva had gone into exile, rather than endure the humiliation of their party.[301] Besides all this, the propriety of being able to earn one’s bread by some kind of toil that would be useful in even the simplest societies, flowed necessarily from every part of his doctrine of the aims of life and the worth of character.  He did, however, say, “We approach a state of crisis and an age of revolutions,” which proved true, but he added too much when he pronounced it impossible that the great monarchies of Europe could last long.[302] And it is certain that the only one of the great monarchies which did actually fall would have had a far better chance of surviving if Lewis XVI. had been as expert in the trade of king as he was in that of making locks and bolts.

From this semi-stoical ideal there followed certain social notions, of which Rousseau had the distinction of being the most powerful propagator.  As has so often been said, his contemporaries were willing to leave social questions alone, provided only the government would suffer the free expression of opinion in literature and science.  Rousseau went deeper.  His moral conception of individual life and character contained in itself a social conception, and he did not shrink from boldly developing it.  The rightly constituted man suffices for himself and is free from prejudices.  He has arms, and knows how to use them; he has few wants, and knows how to satisfy them.  Nurtured in the most absolute freedom, he can think of no worse ill than servitude.  He attaches himself to the beauty which perishes not, limiting his desires to his condition, learning to lose whatever may be taken away from him, to place himself above events, and to detach his heart from loved objects without a pang.[303] He pities miserable kings, who are the bondsmen of all that seems to obey them; he pities false sages, who are fast bound in the chains of their empty renown; he pities the silly rich, martyrs to their own ostentation.[304] All the sympathies of