ABSTRACT
The courageous political pamphleteer was gone; not the courage, but the impulse to persuade people to a rational polity, was diminished. The liberal philosopher adjusted himself to resigned existence in a time of reaction. Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi/Portuguese origin. Spinoza resumed his philosophic labors. The various circumstances surrounding Spinoza's visit to the French headquarters indicate that the "mob" was probably correct in supposing that Spinoza had gone on some political mission. Spinoza's outline of a constitution for an aristocratic republic was designed to safeguard the control of the patrician class, and to provide checks against any monarchist or democratic tendencies. The whole story concerning Lieutenant-Colonel Stouppe's personal interest in obtaining Spinoza a pension from the French king was, in all likelihood, fabricated as the official version for the unofficial purpose of negotiation. Stouppe was hardly a person whom Spinoza could have regarded as a personal friend. Stouppe assailed Spinoza's effort to found liberalism on economic rationality.
