Rousseau and Revolution

Chapter 1
Why Rousseau Mistrusts Revolutions:
Rousseau’s Paradoxical Conservatism
Blaise Bachofen
Introduction
On the topic of Rousseau and revolution there is a long history of misunderstanding.
As the commentator Jean Roussel has shown in Jean-Jacques
Rousseau en France après la Révolution (Jean-Jacques Rousseau in France After the
Revolution), Rousseau’s philosophy was taken over and distorted by the various
factions during the revolutionary struggle. 1 During Rousseau’s lifetime,
Voltaire had already referred to him as ‘the little rebel’, and called him the
author of an ‘Unsocial Contract’. 2 Yet, on many occasions Rousseau had
quite clearly stated his position on the principle of revolution. Affected in
his childhood by violent uprisings in Geneva, he developed the utmost mistrust
of civil unrest. In Book I of The Confessions, for example, he writes:
When they took up arms in 1737, I was at Geneva, and saw the father
[Barillot] and his son quit the same house armed, the one going to the
townhouse, the other to his quarters, almost certain to meet face to face in
the course of two hours, and prepared to give or receive death from each
other. This unnatural sight made so lively an impression on me, that I solemnly
vowed never to interfere in any civil war, nor assist in deciding any
internal dispute by arms, either personally or by my infl uence. (Rousseau,
1928, 324)
Later on in Book IX we read:
When I heard of the attempt of a madman [he’s speaking of Damien’s
attempt to kill Louis XV], when de Leyre and Madame d’Epinay spoke to
me in letters of the trouble and agitation which reigned in Paris, how
thankful was I to Heaven for having placed me at distance from all such