Editing Jean-Jacques Rousseau (section)

===French Revolution===
[[File:Nicolas-Henri Jeaurat de Bertry - Allégorie révolutionnaire - P1345 - Musée Carnavalet.jpg|thumb|[[Allegory]] of the French Revolution in honor of Rousseau, by [[Nicolas Henri Jeaurat de Bertry]] (1794). The final version of the painting was offered to the [[National Convention]]]]
[[Robespierre]] and [[Louis Antoine de Saint-Just|Saint-Just]], during the [[Reign of Terror]], regarded themselves to be principled egalitarian republicans, obliged to do away with superfluities and corruption; in this they were inspired most prominently by Rousseau.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Everdell |first=William R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HPEqlNkCGvcC&dq=everdell+end+of+kings&pg=PA148 |title=The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans |date=2000-04-15 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-22482-4 |language=en}}</ref> According to Robespierre, the deficiencies in individuals were rectified by upholding the 'common good' which he conceptualized as the collective will of the people; this idea was derived from Rousseau's ''General Will''. The revolutionaries were also inspired by Rousseau to introduce Deism as the new official [[civil religion]] of France:
{{blockquote| Ceremonial and symbolic occurrences of the more radical phases of the Revolution invoked Rousseau and his core ideas. Thus the ceremony held at the site of the demolished Bastille, organized by the foremost artistic director of the Revolution, [[Jacques-Louis David]], in August 1793 to mark the inauguration of the new republican constitution, an event coming shortly after the final abolition of all forms of feudal privilege, featured a cantata based on Rousseau's democratic pantheistic deism as expounded in the celebrated "Profession de foi d'un vicaire savoyard" in book four of ''Émile''.{{Sfn|Israel|2002|p=717}}}}
Rousseau's influence on the French Revolution was noted by [[Edmund Burke]], who critiqued Rousseau in ''[[Reflections on the Revolution in France]]'', and this critique reverberated throughout Europe, leading [[Catherine the Great]] to ban his works.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Barran |first1=Thomas |title=Russia Reads Rousseau: 1762–1825 |date=2002 |publisher=Northwestern UP |page=188}}</ref> This connection between Rousseau and the French Revolution (especially the Terror) persisted through the next century. As François Furet notes that "we can see that for the whole of the nineteenth century Rousseau was at the heart of the interpretation of the Revolution for both its admirers and its critics."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Furet |first1=François |title=Legacy of Rousseau |page=172}}</ref>