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• Familiar Letters. By President De Montesquieu.
• Letter I.: To Father Cerati * of the Congregation of the Orators of Saint Philip At Rome.
• Letter II.: To the Same.
• Letter III.: To Monsieur L’abbé Venuti * , At Clerac.
• Letter IV.: To the Abbé Nicolini * , At Florence.
• Letter V.: To Mr. Cerati, At Pisa.
• Letter VI.: To Abbé Venuti At Clerac.
• Letter VII.: To Abbé De Guasco, At Turin.
• Letter VIII.: To the Count of Guasco, Colonel of Foot.
• Letter IX.: To the Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter X.: To the Same.
• Letter XI.: To the Same.
• Letter XII.: To the Countess De Pontac.
• Letter XIII.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XIV.: To Abbé De Guasco At Clerac.
• Letter XV.: To the Same.
• Letter XVI.: To the Same.
• Letter XVII.: To the Same.
• Letter XVIII.: To the Same.
• Letter XIX.: To the Same Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter XX.: To the Same.
• Letter XXI.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXII.: To Abbé De Guasco, At Aix.
• Letter XXIII.
• Letter XXIV.: To the Same.
• Letter XXV.: To the Same.
• Letter XXVI.: To the Same.
• Letter XXVII.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXVIII.: To Prince Charles Edward.
• Letter XXIX.: To the Grand Prior Solar, Ambassador From Malta, At Rome.
• Letter XXX.: To the Abbé and Count De Guasco, At Paris.
• Letter XXXI.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXXII.: To Abbé Venuti.
• Letter XXXIII.: To the Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter XXXIV.: To the Abbé Venuti, At Bourdeaux.
• Letter XXXV.: To Mr. Cerati.
• Letter XXXVI.: To Abbé Venuti.
• Letter XXXVII.: To Abbé Venuti.
• Letter XXXVIII: To the Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter XXXIX.: To Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter Xl.: to the Same.
• Letter Xli.: to the Same.
• Letter Xlii.: to the Same, At Bourdeaux.
• Letter Xliii.: to the Same.
• Letter Xliv.: to the Same Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter Xlv.: to the Same At Vienna.
• Letter Xlvi.: to the Same Abbé De Guasco At Vienna.
• Letter Xlvii.: to the Same, At Verona.
• Letter Xlviii.: to the Same.
• Letter Xlix.: to the Same, At Naples.
• Letter L.: to the Same.
• Letter Li.: to Mr. Cerati.
• Letter Lii.: to the Abbé Marquis Nicolini.
• Letter Liii.: to Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter Liv.: to the Same.
• Letter Lv.: to the Auditor Bertolini, At Florence.
• Letter Lvi.: to Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter Lvii.: a Billet to the Same.
• Letter Lviii.: to the Grand Prior Solar, At Turin.
• Letter Lix.: the Fragment of a Letter From M. De Montesquieu, to the King of Poland, Duke of Lorraine, to Solicit His Majesty For a Place In the Academy of Nantz.
• Letter Lx.: Fragment of the King of Poland’s Answer, to the Foregoing Letter.
• Letter Lxi.: to M. De Solignac, Secretary to the Literary Society At Nantz.
• Letter Lxii.: From M. De Montesquieu. to the Author of a Short View of the Philosophical Works of Lord Bolingbroke.
• Letter Lxiii.: to the Dutchess of Aiguillon.
• Letter Lxiv.: From the Dutchess of Aiguillon, to Abbé De Guasco.
• Letter Lxv.: an Article Taken From a Letter of Baron Secondat De Montesquieu, to the Abbé Count De Guasco.
• Letter Lxvi.: Article of a Letter to the Same.
• Miscellaneous Pieces of M. De Secondat, Baron De Montesquieu.
• An Oration Pronounced the 24th of January, 1728. By President Montesquieu: When He Was Received Into the French Academy, In the Room of the Late M. De Sacy.
• An Essay Upon Taste, In Subjects of Nature, and of Art.
• Of the Pleasures of the Soul.
• Of the Mental Faculties * .
• Of Curiosity.
• Of the Pleasures of Order.
• Of the Pleasures of Variety.
• Of the Pleasures of Symmetry.
• Of Contrasts.
• Of the Pleasures of Surprize.
• Of Different Causes That Produce Sensation.
• Of Sensibility.
• Of Delicacy.
• Of the Je Ne Scais Quoi.
• The Progression of Surprize.
• Of Beauties Which Result From an Embarrassment of the Soul.
• The Temple of Gnidus.
• The Preface.
• Canto I.
• Canto II.
• Canto III.
• Canto IV.
• Canto V.
• Canto VI.
• Canto VII.
• Cupid Distressed.
• Lysimachus.
• The Analysis of the Spirit of Laws. By M. D’alembert.
• A Defence of the Spirit of Laws. to Which Are Added, Some Explanations.
• Part I.
• Part II.
• The General Idea.
• Of the Counsels of Religion.
• Of Polygamy.
• On Climate.
• Of Toleration.
• Of Celibacy.
• A Particular Error Committed By the Critic.
• Of Marriage.
• Of Usury.
• “of Maritime Usury.
• Part III.: Some Explanations of the Spirit of Laws.

LETTER I.

To Father Cerati* of the Congregation of the Orators of Saint Philip at Rome.

I HAD the honour of writing to you by the last post, my reverend father; and now write to you again by this. I take a pleasure in doing every thing that may recal to your memory, a friendship which is to me so dear. I add to what I wrote to you concerning a certain affair . . . .† that if M. de Fouquet exacts more than the sum I seemed to fix you upon giving, you may enlarge it, and give more, and do in regard to every other condition, what may not appear obviously unreasonable. I know the Chevalier Lambert, a famous banker here, who tells me that there is a correspondence between him and Belloni. I shall forward immediately through his hands, whatever sum you may have agreed upon; for M. Fouquet’s will seems to me to be so whiffling and indeterminate, as to induce me to think that it is not worth while to proceed to any contract, until his fixed resolution be previously known* .

I am now in a country that but very little resembles that rest of Europe. We have not as yet been informed of the contents of the treaty with Spain. It is taken for granted that it has made no change in the quadruple alliance, excepting that the six thousand men which are to go into Italy to pay their court to Don Carlos, must consist of Spanish, but not of neutral troops.

There fly about here every day, as you must have heard, all forts of indecent and licentious printed papers. About a fortnight or three weeks ago I was extremely irritated at one, declaring that my Lord Cardinal of Rohan had caused to be brought from Germany, with great care and expence for the use of the people of his diocese, a machine, so constructed, that one might play at dice withal, shake them and throw them without receiving any impressive direction from the hand of a gamester, who before this invention might glide them out smoothly, or volly them off impetuously, just as he pleased, or occasion suited, by the energy of a most illicit knack, which established a fraudulent practice in what had been invented merely for a recreation of the mind. I own to you I am of opinion that so ridiculous a pleasantry could be started by none other but by an heretic or jansenist.

If there should appear in Italy any new printed work worthy of being read, pray do not keep it a secret from me. I have the honour to be with every degree of tenderness and friendship.

London, Dec. 21, 1729.

[* ]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.

[† ]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.

[* ]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.”