The Social Contract

Rousseau publishes The Social Contract and Émile, prompting their condemnation

Paris burned Émile. Geneva added The Social Contract to the same fire and threatened to arrest its own celebrated citizen if he returned.

April and May 1762: two books, a month apart

Du contrat social, ou Principes du droit politique appeared in April 1762 from Marc-Michel Rey in Amsterdam. Émile, ou De l'éducation followed at the end of May.

The first Paris-printed editions of Émile carried a Hague imprint naming Jean Néaulme, concealing Nicolas-Bonaventure Duchesne's Paris production. Néaulme did produce a separate Amsterdam edition, but only after the Paris printing.

9 June in Paris, 19 June in Geneva

On 9 June the Parlement of Paris ordered Émile lacerated and burned and issued an arrest order against Rousseau. The judgment did not order The Social Contract burned with it.

On 12 June, before news of the Paris ruling reached Geneva, the city's Petit Conseil seized copies of both works from booksellers. On 19 June it condemned both, prohibited their printing, sale and distribution, and ordered the executioner to tear and burn them before the town hall.

Anyone in Geneva holding a copy had three days to surrender it, and the council resolved that Rousseau should be arrested if he entered Genevan territory.

The religion, more than the politics

Authorities focused especially on religious teaching. Émile's "Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar" advanced natural religion and rejected miracles, and The Social Contract's chapter on civil religion joined theology to political authority.

Geneva also regarded the political argument as an implicit challenge to its own government. Its prosecutor-general, Jean-Robert Tronchin, prepared the conclusions on which the Petit Conseil acted.

Rousseau fled French jurisdiction to escape arrest and could not safely return to Geneva. Thirteen French editions of The Social Contract are reported for 1762–1763.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited

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What the sources leave uncertain

This is a year-level composite, not a single-day event: publication occurred in April and May, the Paris judgment on 9 June, the Geneva seizure on 12 June and the Genevan condemnation on 19 June.
Émile’s bibliography is unusually complicated. The earliest Paris editions falsely named Jean Néaulme and used foreign imprints; a genuine Amsterdam edition followed. “Published at The Hague” describes an imprint, not necessarily the physical printing place.
Sources distinguish Paris’s formal condemnation of Émile from Geneva’s condemnation of both books. Broad statements that Paris burned both are incorrect.