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LETTER II.: To the Same. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 4 Familiar Letters; Miscellaneous Pieces; The Temple of Gnidus; A Defence of the Spirit of Laws [1777]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 4.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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LETTER II.

To the Same.

FATHER Cerati, you are my benefactor.—Like Orpheus, you make rocks to follow you. I have informed Abbé Duval* , that I do not mean he should abuse the politeness of Mr. Fouquet, but that he should continue his pursuit, and that whatever might be the result, should in a friendly manner be shared between them both.

Rome is then at last delivered from the mean tyranny of Benevento, and the reins of pontifical supremacy are no longer guided by such vile hands. All those upstart coxcombs, S. Marie at their head, have disappeared, and are retired to their native cottages, there to entertain their kindred with recitals of their former insolence. Coscia has nothing now left but his money and his gout. Let all those of the Benevento party be hanged who have robbed; in order that the prophecy may be accomplished on their chief, Vox in Rama audita est; Rachel plorans filios suos, noluit consolari, quia non sunt.

Give us a Pope with a sword like St. Paul, but not with a rosary like St. Dominick, or with a knapsack like St. Francis.—Arouse from your lethargy—exoriare aliquis. Are you not ashamed to shew us still the old chair of St. Peter with a broken back, and all over worm-eaten? Are people to look upon your coffer, in which, forsooth, are such magazines of spiritual treasure as on a quackish box of orvietan or mithridat? To say the truth, you make a fine use of your infallibility by employing it to prove that Quenel’s book is worth nothing; but you do not presume to exert it in deciding that the Emperor’s pretensions upon Parma and Placentia are groundless. Your triple crown resembles very much to the laurel one, which Cæsar put on to cover his baldness. Present my acts of adoration to Cardinal de Polignac. I was three days ago received a member of the Royal Society of London; where there was mention made of a letter from Mr. Thomas Dhisam to his brother, desiring to know the sentiments of that learned body concerning the astronomical discoveries of M. Bianchini. Embrace on my behalf, if you please, Abbé, the dear Abbé Nicolini.—I salute you, dear father, with all my heart.

[* ]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.