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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow LETTER III.: To Monsieur L'Abbé Venuti * , at Clerac. - Complete Works, vol. 4 Familiar Letters; Miscellaneous Pieces; The Temple of Gnidus; A Defence of the Spirit of Laws

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LETTER III.: To Monsieur L’Abbé Venuti * , at Clerac. - 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]

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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 III.

To Monsieur L’Abbé Venuti* , at Clerac.

I HAVE received, Sir, the honour of your letter, with much more pleasure than I should have thought, on being made to know that L’Abbé Cherac, whom I already held very high in my estimation, is brother of the Chevalier Venuti, with whom I contracted a friendship at Florence, and through whose kind offices I was honoured with a place in the academy of Cortona. I earnestly supplicate that you will entertain for me sentiments congenial with those of your brother. I have learnt by letter from M. Campagne, the elegant present you have entrusted him with for me; and that lays me under the greatest obligation to you. Mr. Baritaut had already made me read a part of this work; and what pleased me infinitely in your dissertations, was to discover wit and learning united, so rare a phænomenon in the literary world!

You are the cause, Sir, that the academy of Bourdeaux presses me so violently to obtain an arret of the grand council for creating twenty associates, instead of twenty pupils. The great desire she has of boasting your enrolment on her list; and the difficulty arising on the other hand from all the associates places being filled, instigates her with the desire of seeing new places created. The affairs of Cardinal de Polignac, and others, have proved an obstacle to this arret’s being not yet obtained. I write however to the gentlemen of the academy, about removing this impediment, and that you deserve, if the door be shut, to favour your entrance, a breach should be made. I hope, Sir, that next year, in case I should return to my provincial residence, I shall have the honour of seeing you at Clerac, and of inviting you to Bourdeaux. I shall cherish every opportunity that may contribute to encrease our acquaintance; no body can be more respectfully your’s than I am.

P. S. When you write to your brother the Chevalier Venuti, be so good as to relate to him a thousand things on my behalf. His excellent qualities are ever present in my mind’s eye.

[* ]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.