Endmatter

Endnotes

^†2 M. Cerati was descended from a noble family in Parma. John Gaston, the last Grand Duke of Tuscany, had appointed him of the order of St. Stephen, and Proveditor to the university of Pisa. M. de Montesquieu, in his tour through Italy, became acquainted with him at Cardinal de Polignac’s.

^†3 A jesuit returned from China with M. Mezzabarba. This missionary had protested against the Chinese rites, and spoke to the Pope according to his conscience. Some time after the said declaration he observed to his Holiness, that the air of the college did not agree with him: whereupon Benedict XIII. made him a bishop, in partibus, and assigned to him an apartment in the Propaganda. M. de Montesquieu became very intimate with him at the Cardinal de Polignac’s, and entered since into a treaty with him in favour of Abbé Duval his secretary, for the resignation of a benefice in Britany, which this prelate had obtained from the court of Rome.

^†4 The frequent difficulties, one after the other, which M. Fouquet contrived relative to the pension, or the sum of money to be stipulated for it, made M. de Montesquieu declare, “It is easy to see that gentleman has not as yet shaken off the old dust.”

^†5 It was he carried the copy of the Persian Letters into Holland, and had them printed there to the author’s great expence, who never derived any profit from them.

^†6 This learned Italian sprung from a distinguished house in Tortona, was sent into France by the Chapter of St. John de Latran, as vicar-general of the abbey of Clerac, which Henry the Fourth conferred upon this Chapter after his absolution. He was next promoted to the Provostship of Leghorn by the Emperor, as Grand Duke of Tuscany, but is now retired to his native country.

^†7 When the Abbé Marquis Nicolini, who was but a moderate admirer of the ministry of Lorraine, received orders not to return to Tuscany, M. de Montesquieu on hearing the news, cried out—“O I am sure my friend Nicolini must have uttered some bold truth.”

^†8 Abbé Venuti had scarce been invested with the administration of the abby of Clerac, when a party in Rome was formed against him, and by the very chapter that had sent him, in order to work his being recalled. And the interfering of Cardinal de Tencin was procured, to effectually injure him. The chief complaint urged against Venuti, was, that the remittances out of the revenue of the abbey were not sufficient, which default was laid to his account; although the complained of deficiency was caused by the considerable tenths, or tythes with which the abbey was taxed, besides the occasional disbursements for repairing, and other processes; in the defraying of which, a part of the revenue was unavoidably employed. He was not moreover looked upon with a favourable eye by the missionary Jesuits, appointed since the reign of Henry the Fourth, to preach on all festivals, and on Sundays in the abbey-church in this town, which, in despite of such political precaution of the fathers, has continued ever since to be entirely inhabited by Protestants, without there being one instance to be quoted of a single Huguenot’s being made a convert to the Romish persuasion.

^†9 Minister to the king of Sardinia.

^†10 The president had made a present of this work to the Abbé, on taking leave of him at Turin, without telling who was the author. But he has told him since with this farther information, that it was the execution of an idea which had been suggested to him in the company of Mademoiselle de Clermont, Princess of the Blood, whom he had the honour of frequently visiting; and that the sole intent of it was to make a poetical picture of pleasure.

^†11 On the day of Madam de Tencin’s death, President Montesquieu on going out of his antechamber, said to the brother of Count de Guasco, who was with him, Now you may write to your brother, that Madam de Tencin is authoress of the Count de Cominges, and of the Siege of Calais; which two works she wrote jointly with her nephew, M. de Pontvel. I believe there were only Mr. Fontenelle and I who knew this secret.

^†12 Actually a lieutenant-general, and heretofore commander of Dresden during the last war.

^†13 Under his ministry, the court of Turin, in the preceding war, had forsaken its alliance with the court of Vienna, to form a new one with that of France. It is pretended that the Marquis d’Ormea upon this occasion, bad proposed a premium for a negotiation with the court of Vienna; that he should pass over to its service, and enjoy a considerable post, of which the emperor Charles the VI. gave notice to the king of Sardinia, by sending to Turin under another pretext;—The Prince of T— who was to inform the king, without the minister forming the least surmise about his real commission.

^†14 L’Esprit des loix, the Spirit of Laws.

^†15 The Spirit of Laws.

^†16 He was most amenable to critical remarks, for on the moment that any word, phrase, or passage was objected to, he did not hesitate to correct, alter, or elucidate, and in fine to remove every the least appearance of a difficulty.

^†17 A lady at Bourdeaux, as conspicuous for her wit, and connections with literary persons, as she had been formerly for her beauty.

^†18 He had just married his daughter to M. de Secondat of Agen, gentleman, and a branch of his family, with a view of continuing the estate in his house in case that his son, who had been married for several years, should continue to have no children. Mademoiselle de Montesquieu was a very great assistant to her father in his composing the Spirit of Laws, by the daily lectures of books she made to him, thereby to ease his stipendiary reader. The authors the least inviting to be read, such as Beaumanoir, Joinville, and others of that species, did not disgust her. She used to divert herself with them, and often to infuse a pleasantry into her lectures, by repeating the words that appeared the most ridiculous.

^†19 Title of the first magistrates of the city of Bourdeaux. They made this present to Abbé Venuti, as a tributary acknowledgment in behalf of their fellow citizens, for the inscriptions, and other compositions, which this gentleman had made on the occasion of the rejoicings at Bourdeaux, at the Dauphiness, daughter of the king of Spain’s passing through that city.

^†20 The same that have been mentioned in the preceding letter.

^†21 The Spirit of Laws.

^†22 Rustic satires of prince Cantimir.

^†23 This Lord having come to Paris during the war, was sent a prisoner to the Bastile.

^†24 In the general chapter held by the congregation of the Oratorians, a spiritual war was declared against the appeal to the Bull Unigenitus, and the wearing wigs made of goats hair, which some made use of instead of large calots, or leather caps.

^†25 The Spirit of Laws.

^†26 The principal labourer at the country seat of M. de Montesquieu.

^†27 It is here, as so often already, the Spirit of Laws, to which M. de Montesquieu alludes.

^†28 This passage glances at the affair of Asti, where nine French battalions were made prisoners by the king of Sardinia.

^†29 They related to the history of Clement de Gout, who was bishop of Cominges, afterwards archbishop of Bourdeaux, and since pope.

^†30 This history has never appeared.

^†31 The tomb of this pope is in the collegiate church of Useste, near Bazas, where he was buried in a lordship belonging to the family of de Gout.

^†32 Some historians have advanced that Brunissende, Countess of Perigord, was the mistress of Clement, when he was archbishop of Bourdeaux, and that he continued to distinguish her with marks of favour during his papacy.

^†33 Both articles were true; for this minister perceiving that his influence at court diminished daily, he fell into a slow and consumptive malady, of which he expired in the midst of tortures and agonizing groans.

^†34 The Abbé le Beuf was a prebendary of Auxerre, and a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. He obtained two or three premiums from this academy. His dissertations abound with useful researches, but are very heavily written. The play upon his name cannot be made to sound so well in English as in French. Vous miterez en cela L’Abbé le Beuf, mais vous ne serez pas ausi Beuf que lui.

^†35 Then perpetual secretary of the Academy.

^†36 The Chevalier Caldwell, an Irish gentleman, having stopt for some time at Toulouse, used to amuse himself with catching birds out of the city. As he was observed to go out early in the morning, and ramble about the city followed by a little boy, that often held in his hand paper and a pencil, the capitouls (chief magistrates of that city) suspected in their great wisdoms, that he was thus busied in taking the plan of Toulouse, at a time too when France was at war with England. They had him arrested in consequence; and as on searching his pockets, there was found a drawing of the machine employed by him in learning to catch birds, and several cards, besides a catalogue of words on them, which were the names of birds, that the examiners did not understand, because written in English. This confirmed their every surmize of an hostile intention, and the suspected Caldwel was put into confinement, until such time as that he should make his innocence known; the great absurdity of such a suspicion appears, and lasted until such time too, as somebody was found bold enough to be bail, and answer for his good conduct.—The cream of the jest is, that Toulouse is not a fortified placed.

^†37 First president of the Court of Aides at Montpellier, counsellor of state, and member of the Academy of Sciences. He discovered the secret of spinning the webs of spiders, and making stockings thereof; and also of extracting drops from them equal to those used in England against the apoplexy. He also discovered the means of rendering the Indian chesnuts useful, in feeding swine, and making a powder of them.—He had a very curious cabinet of antiquities.

^†38 The intendant of Languedoc.

^†39 The subject for the premium proposed by the Academy, was to explain in what consisted the nature and the extent of the Autonomy that was enjoyed by cities under subjection to a foreign power.

^†40 Mr. Sarasin Resident from Geneva, who was returning to his own country, and through whose hands the author sent a manuscript of the Spirit of Laws to Mr. Barillot, a printer in that city. Professor Vernet took upon himself the care of inspecting the edition, in which he thought he might be allowed the liberty of altering some words; at such a wanton measure, the author was much piqued, and caused the discarded words to be reinstated in the Paris edition.

^†41 The author shews in this chapter the necessity of a stadtholder as an integral part of the constitution of that republic. But England had brought matters about so, as to have the Prince of Orange invested with that high power, which was by no means agreeable to France, then at war with Britain, because she had profited of the weakness of the acephalous government (that is without a head) of the Dutch, to hurry on her conquests in Flanders.

^†42 The temple of Gnidus, which he had secretly caused to be requested of him.

^†43 The subject proposed was, The state of letters in France, under the reign of Lewis the Eleventh. The advice of Mr. de Montesquieu having been followed, his correspondent obtained a third premium from the academy. The merit of this dissertation is unknown, because it is not to be found in the edition of that author’s dissertations printed at Tournay.

^†44 As fast as he composed it he threw it into the fire, the several compiled memoirs which he had formed, for to assist him in the progress of this work. But his secretary made a more cruel sacrifice to the flames. Having misunderstood M. de Montesquieu’s directions to throw into the fire his foul copy of the history of Lewis the Eleventh; of which he had just finished a comparative lecture with that of the fair copy, he blunderingly threw the latter into the fire. And the author next morning, at sight of the foul copy on his table, threw it into the fire, from a notion that his secretary had forgotten to burn it: and by this unlucky accident we are deprived of the history of one of the most interesting reigns on the annals of the French monarchy, and written too by the pen that was the most capable of displaying it. This disaster did not happen in the last malady of M. de Montesquieu, as M. Freron has advanced in his periodical publications; but in the year 1739, or 1740, because M. de Montesquieu related this very lamentable event to one of his friends, on the occasion of an history of Lewis the Eleventh, published by M. du Clos, and which did not appear till some time after, in the year 1740.

^†45 The Temple of Gnidus.

^†46 This glances at an Italian translation of the poem on religion, by the Abbé Venuti.

^†47 What gave rise to this joke, was a traveller’s arriving in Languedoc precisely at the time when the Austrian and Piedmontese troops had passed the Var. He was asked of what part in Italy he was a native, to which question he jestingly replied, “Of the Republic of St. Marino,” a place that has nothing to do with belligerent powers?

^†48 He had been physician to the late regent, and was the best oculist at that time in France. He retired to Auteuil, and chose to reside in the house of Boileau, his former friend, at whose decease he purchased it. In allusion to these two possessors, M. de Montesquieu, as he was walking one day with M. Gendron made a couplet, which he jokingly said, ought to be placed over the grand entrance door, the meaning is.—“In this abode, Apollo always ready to come to our assistance, quits the art of rhyming, to practice that of curing.”

^†49 Alluding to the victories he had obtained over the English troops during an heroic expedition in the hereditary realms of his forefathers.

^†50 He was then a Marquis only; but after his embassy to England, was created a Duke and Peer of France.

^†51 When M. de Solar had read the Spirit of Laws for the first time, he said, “that is a Book will cause great revolutions in the minds of the French,” and this among others is a striking proof of the soundness of his judgment.

^†52 Author of the life of Charlemaine, and of several works written for the theatre.

^†53 M. de Rastignac, one of the most illustrious prelates of his time in France.

^†54 The Count de Colbert d’Estouteville, was grandson of the great Colbert, a man of wit, but of a very singular cast. He resolved on translating Dante into French. This project had been a long time executed in prose, on which he wanted to consult some able Italian. This translation has never been printed.

^†55 This translator had inserted in his text several thoughts and passages taken from the various commentaries upon this poet. Contrary to promise, he did not always prove tractable to the corrections he was advised to make, which put an end to the reading, and their meeting any more upon the subject.

^†56 It is a very extraordinary one, and very short, he says, that in his infancy, the attendant woman charged with the care of him, frequently spoke of Paradise, Hell, Purgatory, without giving him any distinct notions of what they were; and that as he grew up, his preceptor often repeated the same words without throwing any light on them: that when he was arrived at the years of maturity, he consulted several theologists about their precise meaning, who left him equally in the dark. But on his travelling in Italy, he found in the first poet of that country satisfactory information concerning the nature of those three abodes in the other world, and that determined him to translate the work into French for the good of his fellow citizens.

^†57 He one day put a question to M. de Chauvelin, then keeper of the seals, concerning a suit of law he was then carrying on relative to the ducal title of d’Eouteville, which was contested with him. The minister, in his reply, made use of these words, “Sir, I tell you, that neither the King, the Cardinal, nor I, will ever consent,”—upon which d’Estouteville replied immediately, — “upon my word, Sir, you have placed the King between a pretty couple of ear-bobs, you and the Cardinal.—I am the son and grandson of ministers, yet if either my father or grand-father had presumed to make use of such impertinent terms, they would have been sent to a mad-house.”—He then withdrew.

^†58 The first work that was published on the discoveries of the Herculaneum.

^†59 The Countess de Pantac.

^†60 Madam de Pontac.

^†61 A Bourdeaux lady who had a passion for learning; and particularly for natural history; of whose curiosities she was making a valuable collection.

^†62 Il trionfo literario della Francia. The literary triumph of France, where in the article of M. de Montesquieu it is said, “if a soul so great as his could have been found in the senate of Rome, her liberty would still survive to the shame of tyrants. His name will last longer than the Tarpeian Rock, and his glory will never fade while Themis delivers her oracles on the judicial benches of France; or that the Gods shall preserve to mortals the foremost of their gifts, that of thinking.”

^†63 A very learned Academician, and one of the first clerks in the office of foreign affairs in Paris. He was well known for his various mortifications, because in quality of royal censor he had given his approbation for printing the book, entitled L’Esprit. He died in the year 1762.

^†64 The Poem of Abbé Venuti, is dedicated to M. de Puysieux, who was then the minister of foreign affairs.

^†65 An idle punning on the name of Beuf, as already taken notice of; but these familiar letters were not designed by their author for the press.

^†66 He was perpetual secretary to the academy of Bourdeaux, a man of wit, very amiable, and possessed of extensive literature. But he was of a wavering disposition when any thing was to be written or published; which is the reason that the memoirs of this academy are so much in arrears, and that we are deprived of many masterly performances written by himself, and that are buried.

^†67 This alludes to some literary difficulties, because the fore-mentioned secretary of the academy, would never take the trouble of arranging the memoirs in proper order, for the better presenting of them to the publick’s eye.

^†68 Marquis d’Argenson, the former minister of foreign affairs, after his dismission, gave a dinner to his brother members on all the meeting days of the academy, thus to indemnify himself with the company of literary men for the want of employment; and Abbé de Guasco, lately admitted into the Academy of Inscriptions, was enlisted in the number of this convivial band.

^†69 This is an humorous allusion to the very singular study of a gentleman in Languedoc, whose favourite object was to know the genealogy of all the families, which he had any knowledge of, and this was the common subject of his conversation with literary men. Abbé Benardi in a late tour through that part of France, paid a visit to this gentleman in his patrimonial castle, and enriched his mind with a very extensive genealogical erudition, which he never failed to display on his return to Paris. He was wont to go sometimes, and, as he thought, to favour M. de Montesquieu with a discharge of it; which unwished-for communication was very unwelcome, and made him often lose precious hours.

^†70 A learned English gentleman, through sickness become quite blind; was an excellent Latin poet, and during his sojournment at Paris, undertook to translate the Temple of Gnidus into Latin verse; but there hat not appeared more than the first canto.

^†71 The work of Abbé Venuti. Mr. Vespasiano gave a new translation of Mr. de Montesquieu’s Temple of Gnidus in the Italian language in the year 1766, in twelves.

^†72 Mention has been already made of this writer, who was very conversant in the history of the modern literature of France, but very prolix in his own writings, and in his letters. Dying, he left a great number of manuscripts upon anonymous, and pseudonymous authors.

^†73 Librarian of Cardinal de Rohan, at the Hotel de Soubize, where he used to assemble, one day in every week, several learned gentlemen to converse on literary subjects. M. de Montesquieu on his first arrival at Paris, used to frequent that society: but on finding that father Tournemine would fain reign arbitrary master there, and force every other person’s opinion to strike to his: the young auditor withdrew himself from it by degrees, and did not keep his reason a secret. At which the Jesuit’s pride was so stung that he left no stone unturned to prejudice Cardinal de Fleury against the author of the Persian Letters, M. de Montesquieu has been often heard to say, that in order to revenge himself on this troublesome man, he never took any other method but to ask of those who were near and talking to him—Who is this father Tournemine, I have never heard of him? This fretted the Jesuit, who was passionately fond of same.

^†74 There was to the amount of several excellent literary volumes, read in that society, and collected by its institutor father Desmoletz, librarian of the oratorians; in whose department the several authors used to assemble. The Jesuits, ever declared enemies to the Oratorians, having misrepresented in odious colours, mere literary assemblies, as most dangerous meetings, on account of the theological disputes carried on there; they were supprest; and to the very great detriment of making farther advances in literature.

^†75 Or Lord Cornbury, the last male descendant from the famous Chancellor Hyde, very much beloved in France, where he had resided for several years, and died of a consumption, greatly regretted by all those who had the happiness of knowing his excellent character, and the cultivated talents of his mind.

^†76 The ancient city of Industria, whose rains were discovered near the banks of the Po, in Piedmont. But the discovery has not been productive of many rich articles of antiquity. The most valuable that have been found are an elegant brazen Tripos, some medals, and some inscriptions.

^†77 Not to answer any criticism on the Spirit of Laws.

^†78 A property in the lordship of Aiguillon; was the cause of a law process, that had lasted for a length of time, about the determining of the franc Aleu. This affair was very near causing a breach between M. de Montesquieu and the Duchess d’Aiguillon, his old friend, which made him very desirous of speedily terminating this business.

^†79 Then commissary from England for the barrier-negociation at Brussels; and actually the minister plenipotentiary at Berlin: a man of ability, and of a very amiable character. Mr. d’Ayrolles was minister from the same court at Brussels.

^†80 The reader is not to be surprized at our author’s making so frequent mention of wine, because in that article consisted the principal part of his yearly income.

^†81 A subsidy which the court of Vienna had contracted with the Dutch for the garrisons of the barrier-towns.

^†82 The doctors of Sorbonne, after having detained for a long time, The Spirit of Laws, thought proper to suspend their censure.

^†83 A Barnabite friar.

^†84 A lady who founded the floral games in the fourteenth century. Her statue is preserved with honour at the town-house, and crowned annually with flowers.

^†85 Wife to a treasurer of France who cultivated poetry.

^†86 M. de Tourni, intendant of the province of Guienne, to whom Bourdeaux was indebted for its most brilliant decorations, in order to complete a plan of buildings according to his own scheme, and in a straight line, had screened the academy’s elegant Hotel, which the members opposed, and gained their cause against the intendant, in the court of justice, which they applied to.

^†87 In a short tract on estimation by M. de Montesquieu, that author in speaking of Prince Eugene, said, “that the public was no more jealous of that Prince’s great wealth, than they are of that which shines in the Temple of the Gods.” The Prince was so pleased with this adulatory expression, that he honoured M. de Montesquieu with a most distinguished reception on his arrival at Vienna, and admitted him into a most social intimacy during his stay there.

^†88 The singularity of this castle deserves a short note. It is an hexagonal edifice with a drawbridge, surrounded with deep double trenches, through which flows a living stream. The trenches are defended, with an edging of freestone. It was built in the reign of Charles the Seventh, to serve as a stronghold in the Old Castle-form. It was then in the possession of Messieurs de Claude, whose last heiress was married to one of the ancestors of M. de Montesquieu. The interior parts of this castle are in effect not very pleasing, from the nature of its construction; but M. de Montesquieu has greatly ornamented the exterior parts, and all the approaches towards this antique mansion, which he has enriched with plantations of his own forming.

^†89 Ambassador from Sardinia to the court of Versailles, a man of much wit, and a greater dealer in truth than is desired in modish assemblies.

^†90 He used to say of her, that she was equally qualified to make a mistress, a wife, or a friend.

^†91 The author of this piece was M. de la Beaumelle.

^†92 He told some friends, that if he were actually to publish these Letters, he would omit some, in which the fire of youth had hurried him too far; that being obliged by his father to pass all the day upon the code of law, with which he was wont to be so fatigued at night, that by way of relaxing amusement he would set about composing a Persian letter, which flowed from his pen, without any intensity of meditation, or force of study.

^†93 He was then a major general in the Austrian service: had been chosen in the last war to act as a quarter master general for the Bohemian Army: through which station he shared in the victory of Planian. The reputation which he acquired in the memorable defence of Dresden, and of Schweidnitz, proves that M. de Montesquieu was well skilled in men. He died of an apoplectic fit at Konigsberg, where he was detained prisoner of war, then in the rank of general in chief of the infantry, and knight of the grand cross of the military order of Maria Theresa. The Empress queen honoured him with marks of the sincerest regret. The loss of this brave general to whom even the enemies paid the greatest respect during his captivity, and at his death; which might have perhaps been superseded, if the honourable testimonies which the king of Prussia gave of his capacity after the siege of Schweidnitz had been accompanied with the grace of letting him go to the baths for his recovery, according to a convention made, but verbally indeed, between him and the hostile general, upon surrendering the place.

^†94 Keeper of the emperor’s private library, this man was the more deserving of esteem, because born in a situation that removed him far from the culture of letters; he improved his mind in all useful knowledge without any instructive assistance, and by the mere dint of his own superior talents.

^†95 It was to him that the booksellers of Vienna owed the permission of of selling L’Esprit des Loix; whose even bringing into Vienna had been hindered by a precedent censure of the Jesuits. But the baron Van Sweiten is not only the Esculapius of that imperial city, in the quality of first physician to the court; but is also the Apollo that presides over the Austrian muses, as much by his other quality of imperial librarian (which function, by an usage peculiar to this court, is united to that of first physician) as by that of the president of the censure of books, and studies in that country. Notwithstanding the satiric stroke in Voltaire’s dialogues against the two administrations joined in this learned doctor, Vienna is indebted to him for some useful alterations made in the course of literary studies there; and that illustrious poet is indebted to this very gentleman, that his universal history against all expectation was allowed to be in the hands of every body, through the imperial territories.

^†96 The name could not be read, the writing being all effaced.

^†97 He was intimately connected with Marquis de Breille, his brother the commander de Solar, and the Marquis de Saint Germain, all three ambassadors from Sardinia, the first at Vienna, the two others at Paris. They were all three men of the first class in merit.

^†98 The Spirit of Laws being mentioned at an ambassador’s dinner, he declared that he looked upon it, as the work of a bad citizen. How, replied a friend of his! Montesquieu a bad citizen? For my part, added he, I look upon The Spirit of Laws to be the work of a good subject; for what greater proof can be given of love and fidelity to our Masters, than to inform and enlighten them.

^†99 There was just published at that time a small pamphlet, entitled The Tomb of the Sorbonne, under the name of Abbé de Prade.

^†100 King Stanislaus had them both aggregated to his academy of Nancy.

^†101 The custom of the court of Vienna is not to appoint a preceptor in chief for the princes of the blood, but only respective preceptors for each particular department in which the royal pupils are to be instructed.

^†102 The empress had just granted (through the solicitation of Abbé de Guasco) a cross of distinction bearing on it the imperial eagle, with the cypher of the name of Maria Theresa, to the chapter of Tournay, the most ancient of the low countries, and into which no person can be admitted without giving proofs of nobility. Her majesty had also fixed the requisite number of the nobility to be proved for admission into the class of nobles, and ordered a prohibition against any person’s entering into the class of Graduates, without having gone through a regular course of study during five years in the university of Lorraine.

^†103 The first was on the occasion of a work he had published, concerning which a nobleman observed to him, it was not becoming a man of family to own himself an author. The second was from a military gentleman of the highest rank, who said to the Abbé’s brother, when speaking of an assiduity in the lecture of books, that he professionally made books; and books added he, are but of little use in war: I have never read any, and yet I have been promoted to the first rank of military preferment.

^†104 This alludes to his departure from Berlin, and the disgraceful adventure at Frankfort.

^†105 The Printer of his works at Paris.

^†106 Then the imperial minister at Naples, and actually the minister plenipotentiary from the states of Lombardy at Milan; a great admirer of M. de Montesquieu’s work, and a friend to the literary men of every nation.

^†107 Librarian of the Roman College, and keeper of the cabinet of antiquities which father Kirker left to this college.

^†108 At Rome this Father had great share in the affairs of the constitution unigenitus. He was a broker in medals; his favourite project was known of making a new saint Augustin to oppose the Augustin of Jansenius. His principles on that head are so extravagant, as to make the paradoxes of Father Hardonin seem innocent reveries in comparison, and the doctrine of Pelagianism must spring up anew to the full extent of its meaning.

^†109 There was a dispute arisen between the Court of Naples, and the order of Malta—on account of some monastical rights, which the King of Sicily pretended to stretch to that Island.

^†110 M. de Montesquieu cast the city of Bourdeaux in a suit of law, which obtained for him eleven hundred acres of uncultivated downs, where he set about forming plantations, coppices, and farm-houses, agriculture having become the principal occupation of his leisure hours. He had made a present of one hundred acres of this unreclaimed ground to his friend, that he might freely put in practice all notional projects in agriculture; but that gentleman’s departure from la Brede, and engagements since in other places, have hindered the scheme from being carried into execution, and therefore the allotted ground remained untilled, and in a fallow state.

^†111 His Holiness told him, that he had in his hands a letter by which that Monarch had promised Clement XI. that he would order his then clergy to retract from the deliberation concerning the four propositions of the clergy of France, in the year 1682; that this letter which he set so high a value on, he had the greatest difficulty to get from Cardinal Hannibal Albani Camerlingue; and that by way of an equivalent for it, he was obliged to grant him, but not without some scruple of conscience (as he said) certain dispensations which this cardinal insisted upon. Father le Tellier, the confessor, went at the same time to find Cardinal Polignac, and told him that the King of France being determined to maintain the Pope’s infallibility throughout his dominions, he prayed his eminence would lend a vigorous hand, to which the Cardinal replied, “Father, if you undertake any such thing, you will soon destroy the king.” This answer caused a suspension of the Confessor’s intriguing politics, relative to that affair.

^†112 Peter D—, was footman to the son of M. de Montesquieu, while he was at the College of Louis le grand. Having learned a tittle Latin, he said, he felt a vocation for an ecclesiastical life, and through the intercession of a lady, he obtained from the Bishop of Bayon, of whose diocese he was a native, permission for taking on the priestly habit. When become a beneficed clergyman he came to Paris, to solicit M. de Montesquieu’s patronage, to recommend him to the Count de Maurepas for a better benefice, that was then vacant. He entreated the president would be so good, as to take and deliver for him a petition to the minister, which began in the following odd manner. Peter D— Priest of the Diocese of Bayon, heretofore employed by the deceased Bishop to discover the sinister plots of the Jansenists; those perfidious miscreants, who acknowledge not the sovereignty of the King, nor the supremacy of the Pope, &c. M. de Montesquieu having read with astonishment so extraordinary a prelude, folded up the petition and returning it to his Client, said—“Go Sir, and present it yourself, it will do you honour, no doubt, and have a much better effect, than if presented by me”—But before you set off, you may go into the kitchen, and breakfast with my servants—which act of humiliation the pious Mr. D— never failed practising, on the frequent visits he used to make to his former master—and yet this wretch rose sometime after, to the dignity of being treasurer to the Chapter of a Cathedral Church in Britany.

^†113 A native of Ireland, the president’s housekeeper in Paris, and who was very zealous in the cause of the Pretender.

^†114 This romance has not been printed since his death. The manuscript copy is in the hands of his son, the Baron de Secondat. The art of sound policy, with which it abounds, loseth as much by this suppression, as does conjugal love on which the work is founded.

^†115 He hesitated whether he should reduce the memoirs of his voyages into the form of letters or of plain narrative. But death having prevented, we are deprived hitherto of so valuable a work, and written by a philosophical traveller, who knew how to intellectually penetrate into those objects over which others but inconsiderately glance, with a transitory and unenquiring eye.

^†116 These two learned gentlemen did not agree in some points relating to the Chinese, in the favour of whom Mr. de Mairan declared, on the authority of Father Paranin, a Jesuit’s letter, of whose veracity M. de Montesquieu doubted not a little. As soon as the voyage of Admiral Anson appeared, the latter triumphantly exclaimed, “I had always said that the Chinese were not such very honest men, as the missionary Jesuits would fain make us to believe them through the channel of their edifying letters.

^†117 This letter was sent to M. de Montesquieu at the same time with that of the perpetual secretary written in the name of the academy. The secretary remarked to him, that the society had seen with the greatest joy, the letter written by him to his majesty. “You demand, Sir, from our academy a favour, which she would have been very desirous to have first solicited from you; if an adopted usage had not prevented it. We think ourselves very happy to be anticipated by you in our desires. You, Sir, more than any body else can make us enter into the spirit of our laws, and teach us to fulfil the views of that great monarch whom you revere, and whom to please and render content is our foremost with; one step, and not the least laudable towards that patriotic intent is to have enrolled you one of our academy, which we do with the greater satisfaction, as by that means we can acquit ourselves towards his majesty, in part of the immense debt of gratitude we owe his royal and paternal goodness”, &c. The satisfaction which the academy witnessed, in so cheerfully answering the desire of M. de Montesquieu was soon encreased, by that great author’s sending to them a manuscript entitled Lysimachus It was accompanied with the following letter, addressed to the secretary of the society. Therein is contained the reason why he had preferred this to any other subject.

^†118 Besides this declaration, the King of France dispatched one of his lords from court to bring him news of the President’s situation.

^†119 This friendly assistance contributed towards procuring him some ease in his incurable distemper, and the public may perhaps be hereafter obliged to it, for the recovery of some literary treasures from the pen of so illustrious a writer, which probably it must otherwise be for ever deprived of. It was discovered one day, that while the dutchess of Aiguillon was gone home to dine, Father Routh, a Jesuit, a native of Ireland, and confessor to the sick, came unsummoned. On finding the President alone with his secretary, he made the latter quit the room, and locked himself in with the patient. The Dutchess of Aiguillon who returned immediately after dinner, on seeing the secretary in the antechamber, asked what was the meaning of his being there. He replied, “That Father Routh had ordered him to withdraw, having as he said something to say to the President in private.” Alarmed at this, the Dutchess approaching softly towards the door of the chamber, heard M. de Montesquieu speaking with some emotion; she immediately knocked at, and the Jesuit opened the door; to whom she rebukingly said, “Why thus torment a dying man? Then the President added, “Here, madam, is Father Routh, who wants me to deliver up to him the key of my bureau, that be may carry off my papers.” The Dutchess reproached him severely for such ill-timed and brutal behaviour—All the excuse he offered, was, that he must obey the order of his superiors. However, he was sent off with contempt, and without obtaining his errand.

It was this meddling Jesuit, who after the President’s decease, in a fictitious letter to Mr. Gautier, then Nuncio from the Pope, made M. de Montesquieu to declare, that the force of all his writings, sprang from a desire of novelty, of being singular in opinion, of being thought a genius superior to vulgar prejudices and common maxims, of attracting the applause of those fashionable people, who give the ton, are ever ready to extol and patronise those works which encourage them to shake off all moral yoke, and religious dependency. This Father Routh had the impudence to publish the said forged declaration, so foreign from the known sincerity of that great writer, in the Utrecht Gazette, immediately after his death.

^†120 This gentleman, a very intimate friend of M. de Montesquieu, had applied very closely to the medical art, which he practised merely through a liking for that study, and to serve his friends. He has furnished more articles to the Encyclopedia, than any other author.

^†121 This friendly gentleman had written to him that Mr. Cerati, and Abbé Nicolini, although they were not members of the Academy of Bourdeaux, were desirous of joining in the offer which had already been made by him to contribute towards the expence of erecting a marble statue, to the memory of M. de Montesquieu, and which should be executed by the ablest sculptors in Italy, to be a suitable ornament for the assembly room. This offer was made, in order to facilitate a resolution of the academy to erect such a monument, but was retarded through deficiency of cash in their coffer.

^†122 M. de Montesquieu was never desirous of having himself painted, and it was not without much difficulty that he was prevailed on by the entreaties of Abbé de Guasco, when at Bourdeaux with him, to let a young Italian painter, who was then passing through that city from Spain, to execute a picture of him, which that gentleman now has: it bears a tolerable resemblance to, and is the only one existing, that was taken from nature. He has been often heard to say, that the young artist declared to him, he had never painted any person, whose physiognomy changed so much from one moment to another, or who had so little patience in accommodating his countenance.

^†123 The title of this article is, De l’Esprit, a word which includes not only the mind, but almost all its faculties. Indeed the difference of the two languages renders it perhaps impossible to do justice to our author in translating this essay.

^†124 Accommodés.

^†125 One on the ninth of October 1749; and the other on the 16th of the same month.

^†126 Book i. chap. 1.

^†127 Ibid.

^†128 Book i. Chap. 1.

^†129 Book i. Chap. 2.

^†130 The second piece, of October 16, 1749, p. 165.

^†131 Ibid.

^†132 The piece of the 9th of October 1749, page 162.

^†133 Book i. chap. 2.

^†134 Book i. chap. 1.

^†135 The piece of the 9th of October 1749, p. 162.

^†136 See the piece of October 9, 1749, page 165. “The Stoics admitted the existence of only one God: but this God was no other than the soul of the universe. They maintained, that all beings, up to the First cause, were united together in the manner of a chain; a fatal necessity drew the whole. They denied the immortality of the soul, and made the sovereign happiness consist in living conformably to nature. This is the foundation of the system of natural religion.”

^†137 See the first piece of October 9, 1749, page 161, at the end of the first column.

^†138 Book xxiv. chap. 6.

^†139 That is, Book xxiv. Chap. 7.

^†140 Book xvi. chap. 4.

^†141 The piece of October 9, 1749, page 164.

^†142 Book xiii. chap. 21.

^†143 The second piece, p. 166.

^†144 Maris & fœminæ conjunctio, individuam vitæ societatem continens.

^†145 Usury and interest among the Romans signified the same thing.

^†146 Book xxii.

^†147 Book xxii.

^†148 Book xxii.

^†149 Nam prim ò duodecim tabulis sanctum, ne quis unciario fœnore ampliùs exerceret. Annal. lib. vi.

^†150 Usurarum species ex assis partibus denominantur: quod ut intelligatur, illud scire oportet, sortem omnem ad centenarium numerum revocari; summam autem usuram esle, cum pars sortis centesima singulis mensibus persolvitur. Et quoniam istâ ratione summa hæc usura duodecim aureos annuos in centenos efficit, duodenarius numerus jurisconsultos movit, ut assem hunc usurarium appellarent. Quemadmodùm hic as non ex menstrua sed ex annuâ pensione æstimandus est; similiter omnes ejus partes ex anni ratione intelligendœ sunt: ut si unus in centenos annuatim pendatur, unciaria usura; si bini, sextans; si terni, quadrans; si quaterni, triens; si quini, quincunx; si seni, semis; si septeni, septunx; si octoni, bes; si novem, dodrans; si deni, dextrans; si undeni, deunx; si duodeni, as. Lexicon J. Calvini. Coloniæ Allobrogum, anno 1622, apud Petrum Balduinum, in verbo Usura, p. 960.

^†151 De modo usurarum, Lugduni Batavorum ex officina Elxeviriorum, anno 1639. p. 269, 270, & 271; particularly these words, Undè verius sit unclarium fœnus eorum, vel uncias usuras, ut eas quoque appellats infrà ostendam, non unciam dare menstruam in centum, sed annum.

^†152 Argumentum legis xlvii.

^†153 Præfectus legionis ff. de administratione & pericule tutoris.

^†154 The piece of the 9th of October, 1749, p. 164.

^†155 The third and last note of Book xxii. chap. 22. and the last of the third note.

^†156 Pro aris.

^†157 Credite, Pisones, isti tabulæ fore librum
Persimilem, cujus, velut ægri somnia, vanæ
Fingentur species.
Horat, de Arte Poetica.

^†158 Diodorus, lib. xviii. p. 601. Rhodoman’s edition.