entirely devoid of good qualities. Such offences could not be overlooked in so pure an age; and the king obliged the Academy to exclude La Bletterie from their society.739 That the punishment extended no further, was an instance of remarkable leniency; for Fréret, an eminent critic and scholar,740 was confined in the Bastille, because he stated in one of his memoirs, that the earliest Frankish chiefs had received their titles from the Romans.741 The same penalty was inflicted four different times upon Lenglet du Fresnoy.742 In the case of this amiable and accomplished man, there seems to have been hardly the shadow of a pretext for the cruelty with which he was treated; though, on one occasion, the alleged offence was, that he had published a supplement to the History of De Thou.743
Indeed, we have only to open the biographies and correspondence of that time, to find instances crowding upon us from all quarters. Rousseau was threatened with imprisonment, was driven from France, and his works were publicly burned.744 The celebrated treatise of Helvétius on the mind was suppressed by an order from the royal council: it was burned by the common hangman, and the author was compelled to write two letters, retracting his opinions.745 Some of the geological views of Buffon having offended the clergy, that illustrious naturalist was obliged to publish a formal recantation of doctrines which are now known to be perfectly accurate.746 The learned Observations on the History of France, by Mably, were suppressed as soon as they appeared;747 for what reason it would be hard to say, since M. Guizot, certainly no friend either to anarchy or to irreligion, has thought it worth while to republish them, and thus stamp them with the authority of his own great name. The History of the Indies, by Raynal, was condemned to the flames, and the author ordered to be arrested.748 Lanjuinais, in his well-known work on Joseph II., advocated not only religious toleration, but even the abolition of slavery; his book, therefore, was declared to be ‘seditious;’ it was pronounced ‘destructive of all subordination,’ and was sentenced to be burned.749 The Analysis of Bayle, by Marsy, was suppressed, and the author was imprisoned.750 The History of the Jesuits, by Linguet, was delivered to the flames; eight years later his Journal was suppressed; and, three years after that, as he still persisted in writing, his Political Annals were suppressed, and he himself was thrown into the Bastille.751 Delisle de Sales was sentenced to perpetual exile, and confiscation of all his property, on account of his work on the Philosophy of Nature.752 The treatise by Mey, on French Law, was suppressed;753 that by Boncerf, on Feudal Law, was burned.754 The Memoirs of Beaumarchais were likewise burned;755 the Eloge on Fénelon by La Harpe was merely suppressed.756 Duvernet having written a History of the Sorbonne, which was still unpublished, was seized and thrown into the Bastille, while the manuscript was yet in his own possession.757 The celebrated work of De Lolme on the English constitution was suppressed by edict directly it appeared.758 The fate of being suppressed, or prohibited, also awaited the Letters of Gervaise, in 1724;759 the Dissertations of Courayer, in 1727;760 the Letters of Montgon, in 1732;761 the History of Tamerlane, by Margat, also in 1732;762 the Essay on Taste, by Cartaud, in 1736;763 the Life of Domat, by Prévost de la Jannès, in 1742;764 the History of Louis XI., by Duclos, in 1745;765 the Letters of Bargeton, in 1750;766 the Memoirs on Troyes, by Grosley, in the same year;767 the History of Clement XI., by Reboulet, in 1752;768 the School of Man, by Génard, also in 1752;769 the Therapeutics of Garlon, in 1756;770 the celebrated thesis of Louis, on Generation, in 1754;771 the Treatise on Presidial Jurisdiction, by Jousse, in 1755;772 the Ericie of Fontanelle, in 1768;773 the Thoughts of Jamin, in 1769;774 the History of Siam, by Turpin, and the Eloge of Marcus Aurelius, by Thomas, both in 1770;775 the works on Finance by Darigrand in 1764; and by Le Trosne, in 1779;776 the Essay on Military Tactics, by Guibert, in 1772; the Letters of Boucquet, in the same year;777 and the Memoirs of Terrai, by Coquereau, in 1776.778 Such wanton destruction of property was, however, mercy itself, compared to the treatment experienced by other literary men in France. Desforges, for example, having written against the arrest of the Pretender to the English throne, was, solely on that account, buried in a dungeon eight feet square, and confined there for three years.779 This happened in 1749; and in 1770, Audra, professor at the college of Toulouse, and a man of some reputation, published the first volume of his Abridgment of General History. Beyond this, the work never proceeded; it was at once condemned by the archbishop of the diocese, and the author was deprived of his office. Audra, held up to public opprobrium, the whole of his labours rendered useless, and the prospects of his life suddenly blighted, was unable to survive the shock. He was struck with apoplexy, and within twenty-four hours was lying a corpse in his own house.780
It will probably be allowed that I have collected sufficient evidence to substantiate my assertion respecting the persecutions directed against every description of literature; but the carelessness with which the antecedents of the French Revolution have been studied, has given rise to such erroneous opinions on this subject, that I am anxious to add a few more instances, so as to put beyond the possibility of doubt the nature of the provocations habitually received by the most eminent Frenchmen of the eighteenth century.
Among the many celebrated authors who, though, inferior to Voltaire, Montesquieu, Buffon, and Rousseau, were second only to them, three of the most remarkable were Diderot, Marmontel, and Morellet. The first two are known to every reader; while Morellet, though comparatively forgotten, had in his own time considerable influence, and had, moreover, the distinguished merit of being the first who popularized in France those great truths which had been recently discovered in political economy by Adam Smith, and in jurisprudence by Beccaria.
A certain M. Cury wrote a satire upon the Duke d'Aumont, which he showed to his friend Marmontel, who, struck by its power, repeated it to a small circle of his acquaintance. The duke, hearing of this, was full of indignation, and insisted upon the name of the author being given up. This, of course, was impossible without a gross breach of confidence; but Marmontel, to do everything in his power, wrote to the duke, stating, what was really the fact, that the lines in question had not been printed, that there was no intention of making them public, and that they had only been communicated to a few of his own particular friends. It might have been supposed that this would have satisfied even a French noble; but Marmontel, still doubting the result, sought an audience of the minister, in
M. Bunsen (
This was at the very outset of his career: ‘En 1715, l'homme qui devait illustrer l'érudition française au xviiie siècle, Fréret, était mis à la Bastille pour avoir avancé, dans un mémoire sur l'origine des Français, que les Francs ne formaient pas une nation à part, et que leurs premiers chefs avaient reçu de l'empire romain le titre de
He was imprisoned in the Bastille, for the first time, in 1725; then in 1743, in 1750, and finally in 1751.
In 1743, Voltaire writes: ‘On vient de mettre à la Bastille l'abbé Lenglet, pour avoir publié des mémoires déjà très-connus, qui servent de supplément à l'histoire de notre célèbre De Thou. L'infatigable et malheureux Lenglet rendait un signalé service aux bons citoyens, et aux amateurs des recherches historiques. Il méritait des récompenses; on l'emprisonne cruellement à l'âge de soixante-huit ans.’
See the proceedings of the avocat-général, in
'Quatre mémoires … condamnés à être lacérés et brûlés par la main du bourreau.'
‘Supprimée par arrêt du conseil’ in 1771, which was the year of its publication. Compare
On the importance of this remarkable thesis, and on its prohibition, see
‘Il resta trois ans dans la cage; c'est un caveau creusé dans le roc, de huit pieds en carré, où le prisonnier ne reçoit le jour que par les crevasses des marches de l'église.’
