A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume...

81Id. iv, 92–93. ↑

82 Maury, Hist. de l’ancienne Académie des Inscriptions, 1864, pp. 312–13. ↑

83Journal historique de Barbier, 1847–56, iv, 304. ↑

84 Astruc, we learn from D’Alembert, connected their decline with the influence of the new opinions. “Ce ne sont pas les jansenistes qui tuent les jésuites, c’est l’Encyclopédie.” “Le maroufle Astruc,” adds D’Alembert, “est comme Pasquin, il parle quelquefois d’assez bon sens.” Lettre à Voltaire. 4 mai, 1762. ↑

85 Cp. pref. (La Vie de Salvien) to French tr. of Salvian, 1734, p. lxix. I have seen MS. translations of Toland and Woolston. ↑

86 MS. statement, in eighteenth-century hand, on flyleaf of a copy of 1755 ed. of the Grands hommes, in the writer’s possession. ↑

87 Lettre à D’Alembert, 16 Octobre, 1765. ↑

88 Of the works noted below, the majority appear or profess to have been printed at Amsterdam, though many bore the imprint Londres. All the freethinking books and translations ascribed to d’Holbach bore it. The Arétin of Abbé Dulaurens bore the imprint: “Rome, aux dépens de la Congrégation de l’Index.” Mystifications concerning authorship have been as far as possible cleared up in the present edition. ↑

89 Given by Brunet, who is followed by Wheeler, as appearing in 1732, and as translated into English, under the title Dying Merrily, in 1745. But I possess an English translation of 1713 (pref. dated March 25), entitled A Philological Essay: or, Reflections on the Death of Freethinkers.... By Monsieur D——, of the Royal Academy of Sciences in France, and author of the Poetae Rusticantis Literatum Otium. Translated from the French by Mr. B——, with additions by the author, now in London, and the translator. [A note in a contemporary hand makes “B” Boyer.] Barbier gives 1712 for the first edition, 1732 for the second. Rep. 1755 and 1776. ↑

90 There is no sign of any such excitement in France over the translation as was aroused in England by the original; but an Examen du traité de la liberté de penser, by De Crousaz, was published at Amsterdam in 1718. ↑

91 This was probably meant to point to the Abbé de Marsy, who died in 1763. ↑

92 The Abbé Sepher ascribed this book to one Dupuis, a Royal Guardsman. ↑

93 This “prose poem” was not an intentional burlesque, as the ecclesiastical authorities alleged; but it did not stand for orthodoxy. See Grimm’s Correspondance, i, 113. ↑

94 “A eu les honneurs de la brûlure, et toutes les censures cumulées des Facultés de Théologie, de la Sorbonne et des évêques.” Bachaumont, déc. 23, 1763. Marsy, who was expelled from the Order of Jesuits, was of bad character, and was hotly denounced by Voltaire. ↑

95 See Grimm, Corr. v. 15. ↑

96 A second edition appeared within the year. “Quoique proscrit presque partout, et même en Hollande, c’est de là qu’il nous arrive.” Bachaumont, déc. 27, 1764. ↑

97 Bachaumont, mai 7, 1767. ↑

98 “Se repand à Paris avec la permission de la police.” Bachaumont, 13 fév. 1766. ↑

99 “Il est facile de se convaincre que les parties les plus importantes et les plus solides de cet ouvrage sont empruntées aux travaux de Burigny.” L.-F. Alfred Maury, L’ancienne Académie des Incriptions et bellet-lettres, 1864, p. 316. Maury leaves it open question whether the compilation was made by Burigny or by Naigeon. The Abbé Bergier accepted it without hesitation as the work of Fréret, who was known to hold some heretical views. (Maury, p. 317.) Barbier confidently ascribes the work to Burigny. ↑

100 The mystification in regard to this work is elaborate. It purports to be translated from an English version, declared in turn by its translator to be made “from the Greek.” It is now commonly ascribed to Naigeon. (Maury, as cited, p. 317.) Its machinery, and its definite atheism, mark it as of the school of d’Holbach, though it is alleged to have been written by Fréret as early as 1722. It is however reprinted, with the Examen critique des Apologistes, in the 1796 edition of Fréret’s works without comment; and Barbier was satisfied that it was the one genuine “philosophic” work ascribed to Fréret, but that it was redacted by Naigeon from imperfect MSS. ↑

101Notice sur Henri Meister, pref. to Lettres inédites de Madame de Staël à Henri Meister, 1903, p. 17. ↑

102 “Deux nouveaux livres infernaux ... connus comme manuscrits depuis longtemps et gardés dans l’obscurité des portefeuilles....” Bachaumont, 22 mars, 1769. ↑

103 Bachaumont, Mémoires Secrets, déc. 20, 1767. ↑

104Id. Jan. 18, 1768. ↑

105 So Pidansat de Mairobert in his preface to the first ed. (1777) of the Mémoires Secrets of Bachaumont, continued by him. See pref. to the abridged ed. by Bibliophile Jacob. ↑

106 As to the authorship see above, p. 241. ↑

107La Certitude des preuves du Christianisme (1767). 2e édit. 1768, Avertissement. ↑

108 In the short essay Le Philosophe, which appeared in the Nouvelles Libertés de Penser, 1743 and 1750, and in the Recueil Philosophique, 1770. In the 1793 rep. of the Essai sur les préjugés (again rep. in 1822) it is unhesitatingly affirmed, on the strength of its title-page and the prefixed letter of Dumarsais, dated 1750, that that book is an expansion of the essay Le Philosophe, and that this was published in 1760. But Le Philosophe is an entirely different production, which to a certain extent criticizes les philosophes so-called. The Essai sur les préjugés published in 1770 is not the work of Dumarsais; it is a new work by d’Holbach. This was apparently known to Frederick, who in his rather angry criticism of the book writes that, whereas Dumarsais had always respected constituted authorities, others had “put out in his name, two years after he was dead and buried, a libel of which the veritable author could only be a schoolboy as new to the world as he was puzzle-headed.” (Mélanges en vers et en prose de Frederic II, 1792, ii, 215). Dumarsais died in 1754, but I can find no good evidence that the Essai sur les préjugés was ever printed before 1770. As to d’Holbach’s authorship see the Œuvres de Diderot, ed. 1821, xii, 115 sq.—passage copied in the 1829–31 ed. of the Correspondance littéraire of Grimm and Diderot, xiv, 293 sq. In a letter to D’Alembert dated Mars 27, 1773, Voltaire writes that in a newly-printed collection of treatises containing his own Lois de Minos is included “le philosophe de Dumarsais, qui n’a jamais été imprimé jusqu’à present.”

This seems to be a complete mistake. ↑

109 Grimm (iv, 86) has some good stories of him. He announced one day that he had ound twenty-five fatal flaws in the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, the first being that the dead do not rise. His scholarly friend Nicolas Boindin (see above, p. 222) said: “Dumarsais is a Jansenist atheist; as for me, I am a Molinist atheist.” ↑

110 On two successive pages the title Messiah is declared to mean “simply one sent” and simply “anointed.” ↑

111 Like Buffier and Huard, however, he strives for a reform in spelling, dropping many doubled letters, and writing home, bone, acuse, fole, apelle, honête, afreux, etc. ↑

112Abriss einer Geschichte der Umwälzung welche seit 1750 auf dem Gebiete der Theologie in Deutschland statt gefunden, in Tholuck’s Vermischte Schriften, 1839, ii, 5. The proposition is repeated pp. 24, 33. ↑

113 The exceptions were books published outside of France. ↑

114 Madame de Sévigné, for instance, declared that she would not let pass a year of her life without re-reading the second volume of Abbadie. ↑

115Le Déisme refuté par lui-même (largely a reply to Rousseau), 1765; 1770, Apologie de la religion chrétienne; 1773, La certitude des preuves du christianisme. In 1759 had appeared the Lettres sur le Déisme of the younger Salchi, professor at Lausanne. It deals chiefly with the English deists, and with D’Argens. As before noted, the Abbé Gauchat began in 1751 his Lettres Critiques, which in time ran to 15 volumes (1751–61). There were also two journals, Jesuit and Jansenist, which fought the philosophes (Lanson, p. 721); and sometimes even a manuscript was answered—e.g. the Réfutation du Celse moderne of the Abbé Gautier (1752), a reply to Mirabaud’s unpublished Examen critique. ↑

116 Alison, History of Europe, ed. 1849, i, 180–81. ↑

117 The Jesuits were expelled from Portugal in 1759; from Bohemia and Denmark in 1766; from the whole dominions of Spain in 1767; from Genoa and Venice in the same year; and from Naples, Malta, and Parma in 1768. Officially suppressed in France in 1764, they were expelled thence in 1767. Pope Clement XIII strove to defend them; but in 1773 the Society was suppressed by papal bull by Clement XIV; whereafter they took refuge in Prussia and Russia, ruled by the freethinking Frederick and Catherine. ↑

118 See the Correspondance de Grimm, ed. 1829–31, vii, 51 sq. ↑

119 This apologetic work, after having been praised by the censor and registered with privilège du roi in November, 1772, was officially suppressed on Jan. 17, 1773, and, it would appear, reissued in that year. ↑