"Locke refuted this doctrine: 'The paternal power is distinguished from the monarchic, every subject having the same right over his children that the monarch has over his own. Royalty exists only through the popular choice; and even the election was recalled at the ceremony of coronation, in which two bishops, pointing towards the king, asked both nobles and peasants whether they accepted him as such.'
"Therefore, authority comes from the people.
"'They have the right to do what they like,' says Helvetius; to 'change their constitution,' says Vattel; to 'revolt against injustice,' according to the contention of Glafey, Hotman, Mably, and others; and St. Thomas Aquinas authorises them to 'deliver themselves from a tyrant.' 'They are even,' says Jurieu, 'dispensed from being right.'"
Astonished at the axiom, they took up Rousseau's Contrat Social. Pécuchet went through to the end. Then closing his eyes, and throwing back his head, he made an analysis of it.
"A convention is assumed whereby the individual gives up his liberty.
"The people at the same time undertook to protect him against the inequalities of nature, and made him owner of the things he had in his possession."
"Where is the proof of the contract?"
"Nowhere! And the community does not offer any guaranty. The citizens occupy themselves exclusively with politics. But as callings are necessary, Rousseau is in favour of slavery. 'The sciences have destroyed the human race. The theatre is corrupting, money fatal, and the state ought to impose a religion under the penalty of death.'"
"What!" said they, "here is the pontiff of democracy."
All the champions of reform had copied him; and they procured the Examen du Socialisme, by Morant.