Lettres écrites de la montagne

Two volumes in 1 octavo volume of (5) leaves, 334 pp.; (1) leaf, 226 pp., (1) catalogue leaf, (1) errata leaf

Porphyry calf, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, smooth spine decorated with gilt fillets and fleurons, red morocco title piece, gilt fillet on the edges, marbled edges. Contemporary binding.

200 x 122 mm.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Letters Written from the Mountain. By J.-J. Rousseau.

Amsterdam, Marc Michel Rey, 1764.

First edition.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote these nine letters in response to the Letters from the Countryside in which Tronchin, Attorney General of the Geneva Council, explained the reasons that led him to issue an arrest warrant against Rousseau as the author of Emile, “this impious, scandalous, reckless book, full of blasphemy and slander against religion.”

Rousseau, moreover, gave a very complete explanation of the circumstances that led to this publication in his Confessions.

To these accusations, Rousseau responds that he locates the essence of Christianity not so much in orthodoxy as in the practice of evangelical precepts, starting with that of tolerance. Rousseau hardly believes that Christianity could serve as a state religion, given that its doctrine of universal love stands in direct opposition to such a position.

Rousseau then defends himself from the accusation of impiety for having questioned the necessity of miracles. He then denies the Geneva Council the necessary competence to judge matters of religion, while noting that his judges condemned his books without realizing that he, Rousseau, offered the Swiss constitution as a model to Europe, and had even indicated ways to keep it free of all abuses.

In his sixth letter, Rousseau reiterates the thesis already presented in the Social Contract: sovereignty resides in the various members of society united by a common agreement, which obliges them to give up some of their liberties to guarantee the rest. He uses this occasion to accuse members of the Geneva Council of transferring all forms of government from the hands of magistrates elected by the people into their own hands. Furthermore, as a kind of party had formed in Geneva to support Rousseau and had unsuccessfully tried to protest the decisions of the Petit Conseil, Jean-Jacques goes on the offensive and declares that his conviction was a violation of the law, since he was not even able to exercise the right of protest enshrined in the Geneva Constitution by the edict of 1707.

Finally, he accuses this government, which slanders the defenders of legality and condemns them one after another, of tyranny—so as to discourage those who aspire to improve the conduct of public affairs.

Valuable copy of a sought-after work, preserved in its fine contemporary binding.