Editing Jean-Jacques Rousseau (section)

===Return to Geneva===
On returning to Geneva in 1754, Rousseau reconverted to [[Calvinism]] and regained his official Genevan citizenship. In 1755, Rousseau completed his second major work, the ''Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men'' (the ''[[Discourse on Inequality]]''), which elaborated on the arguments of the ''Discourse on the Arts and Sciences''.
[[File:Elisabeth La Live de Bellgarde.jpg|left|thumb|upright|A contemporary portrait of the Countess of Houdetot]]
He also pursued an unconsummated romantic attachment with the 25-year-old [[Sophie d'Houdetot]], which partly inspired his [[epistolary novel]] ''[[Julie, or the New Heloise|Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse]]'' (also based on memories of his idyllic youthful relationship with Mme de Warens). Sophie was the cousin and houseguest of Rousseau's patroness and landlady [[Louise d'Épinay|Madame d'Épinay]], whom he treated rather high-handedly. He resented being at Mme. d'Épinay's beck and call and detested what he viewed as the insincere conversation and shallow atheism of the ''Encyclopédistes'' whom he met at her table. Wounded feelings gave rise to a bitter three-way quarrel between Rousseau and Madame d'Épinay; her lover, the journalist [[Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm|Grimm]]; and their mutual friend, Diderot, who took their side against Rousseau. Diderot later described Rousseau as being "false, vain as Satan, ungrateful, cruel, hypocritical, and wicked... He sucked ideas from me, used them himself, and then affected to despise me".{{Sfn | Damrosch | 2005 | p=304}}

[[File:Louise d'Epinay Liotard.jpg|upright|thumb|Mme d'Épinay by [[Jean-Étienne Liotard]], ''ca'' 1759 (Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva)]]

Rousseau's break with the ''Encyclopédistes'' coincided with the composition of his three major works, in all of which he emphasized his fervent belief in a spiritual origin of man's soul and the universe, in contradistinction to the [[materialism]] of Diderot, [[Julien Offray de La Mettrie|La Mettrie]] and [[Baron d'Holbach|D'Holbach]]. During this period, Rousseau enjoyed the support and patronage of [[Charles II François Frédéric de Montmorency-Luxembourg]] and the [[Louis François I de Bourbon, prince de Conti|Prince de Conti]], two of the richest and most powerful nobles in France. These men truly liked Rousseau and enjoyed his ability to converse on any subject, but they also used him as a way of getting back at [[Louis XV of France|Louis XV]] and the political faction surrounding his mistress, [[Madame de Pompadour]]. Even with them, however, Rousseau went too far, courting rejection when he criticized the practice of [[tax farming]], in which some of them engaged.{{Sfn | Damrosch | 2005 | p=357}}

Rousseau's 800-page novel of [[Sentimentality|sentiment]], ''[[Julie, or the New Heloise|Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse]]'', was published in 1761 to immense success. The book's rhapsodic descriptions of the natural beauty of the Swiss countryside struck a chord in the public and may have helped spark the subsequent nineteenth-century craze for Alpine scenery. In 1762, Rousseau published ''Du Contrat Social, Principes du droit politique'' (in English, literally ''[[The Social Contract|Of the Social Contract, Principles of Political Right]]'') in April. Even his friend [[Antoine-Jacques Roustan]] felt impelled to write a polite rebuttal of the chapter on Civil Religion in the ''Social Contract'', which implied that the concept of a [[Christian republic]] was paradoxical since Christianity taught submission rather than participation in public affairs. Rousseau helped Roustan find a publisher for the rebuttal.{{sfn|Rosenblatt|1997|pp=264–265}}

Rousseau published ''[[Emile, or On Education]]'' in May. A famous section of ''Emile'', "The Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar", was intended to be a defense of religious belief. Rousseau's choice of a Catholic vicar of humble peasant background (plausibly based on a kindly prelate he had met as a teenager) as a spokesman for the defense of religion was in itself a daring innovation for the time. The vicar's creed was that of [[Socinianism]] (or [[Unitarianism]] as it is called today). Because it rejected original sin and [[Revelation|divine revelation]], both Protestant and Catholic authorities took offense.{{NoteTag|Rousseau's biographer Leo Damrosch believes that the authorities chose to condemn him on religious rather than political grounds for tactical reasons.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005}}{{Page needed |date=June 2015}}}}

Moreover, Rousseau advocated the opinion that, insofar as they lead people to virtue, all religions are equally worthy, and that people should therefore conform to the religion in which they have been brought up. This religious [[indifferentism]] caused Rousseau and his books to be banned from France and Geneva. He was condemned from the pulpit by the Archbishop of Paris, his [[book burning|books were burned]] and warrants were issued for his arrest.{{sfn|Damrosch|2005|p=358}} Former friends such as [[Jacob Vernes]] of Geneva could not accept his views and wrote violent rebuttals.{{sfn|Blackwood|1842|p=165}}

A sympathetic observer, [[David Hume]] "professed no surprise when he learned that Rousseau's books were banned in Geneva and elsewhere". Rousseau, he wrote, "has not had the precaution to throw any veil over his sentiments; and, as he scorns to dissemble his contempt for established opinions, he could not wonder that all the zealots were in arms against him. The liberty of the press is not so secured in any country... as not to render such an open attack on popular prejudice somewhat dangerous."{{sfn|Gay|1977|p=72}}