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In his Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne (written ca.1770-1771), Rousseau was not only opposed to the Russian supporters but above all to his rival in the republican camp, the abbé de Mably, who had also been asked to take sides by the Polish confederates. The comparison of their competing proposals highlights the strength and originality of Rousseau’s Republican project. While in the wake of Machiavelli’s and Montesquieu’s republican theory, Rousseau breaks fresh ground in making a close connection between the restoration of Ancient magnanimity, the strengthening of national singularity and the exaltation of patriotic sentiment. He opposes a very coherent model of republican institution against Mably’s constitutional solutions. What mattered above all for Rousseau was not to establish a stable political regime or a well-balanced constitution, but to insure that souls could be shaped after the mould of the Republic.