It is true that after Rousseau had published his trumpet-call in behalf of democratic rights, Voltaire began to waver. It has been remarked that "at the very time when he expressed an increasing ill-will against the person of the author of 'Emile,' he was irresistibly attracted to the principal doctrines of Rousseau. He entered, as if in spite of himself, into paths toward which his feet were never before directed. As if to revenge himself for coming under this salutary influence, he pursued Rousseau with blind anger."[41] He harshly attacked the Social Contract, but accepted the sovereignty of the people; saying that "civil government is the will of all, executed by a single one, or by several, in virtue of the laws which all have enacted." He, however, speedily restricted this democratic principle by confining the right of making laws to the owners of real estate. He declares that those who have neither house nor land ought not to have any voice in the matter. He now began (in 1764) to look forward to the end of monarchies, and to expect a revolution. Nevertheless, he plainly declares, "The pretended equality of man is a pernicious chimera. If there were not thirty laborers to one master, the earth would not be cultivated." But in practical and humane reforms Voltaire took the lead, and did good work. He opposed examination by torture, the punishment of death for theft, the confiscation of the property of the condemned, the penalties against heretics; secret trials; praised trial by jury, civil marriage, right of divorce, and reforms in the direction of hygiene and education.