Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow LETTER IV.: To the Abbé Nicolini * , at Florence. - Complete Works, vol. 4 Familiar Letters; Miscellaneous Pieces; The Temple of Gnidus; A Defence of the Spirit of Laws

Return to Title Page for Complete Works, vol. 4 Familiar Letters; Miscellaneous Pieces; The Temple of Gnidus; A Defence of the Spirit of Laws

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory

LETTER IV.: To the Abbé Nicolini * , at Florence. - 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.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


LETTER IV.

To the Abbé Nicolini* , at Florence.

I HAVE received with a sincere joy the letter you have been pleased to honour me with, dear and illustrious Abbé. You are one of those men who can never be forgotten, and impress an indelible stamp on remembrance. My heart, my soul, all all are yours, dearest Abbé.

You inform me of two very agreeable articles; the one is that we are to see the noble Cerati in France, and the other is, that the Marchioness Feroni has not forgotten me. I pray you will be so good as to cement with the one and the other, that friendship they have been so kind as to honour me with, and of which I would fain be thought worthy. I cannot help being vain about one article, nay of boasting, that although born on this side of the Alps, I have been as much charmed by her manifold excellencies as any of you, who drew your first breath on the other side.

I am now at Bourdeaux about a month, and propose continuing there three or four months longer, where I should be inconsolable were that to prevent the pleasure of seeing my dearest Cerati; but in that case, I must dare to presume on his coming to visit me at Bourdeaux. He there would see his friend, and through that occasion, enjoy a better view of France, in which there is nothing worth the seeing but Paris, and the distant provinces, because the latter have not as yet been devoured by the former; he then must shape his way along the two sides of a square, instead of proceeding on it’s diagonal line, and conveniently take in a view of our more beautiful provinces, which are those bordering on the ocean, and Mediterranean.

What think you now of the English? Behold how they cover all the seas. They are like an immense whale, et latum sub pectore possidet æquor. The queen of Spain has taught Europe a grand secret, to wit, that the Indies, which were believed to be attached to her by an hundred thousand chains, holds to the Spanish crown but by a weak and very slender thread. Adieu dear and illustrious Abbé, grant to me the same cordial sentiments with which my bosom glows for you. I am with every mark of respect.

[* ]When the Abbé Marquis Nicolini, who was but a moderate admirer of the ministry of Lorraine, received orders not to return to Tuscany, M. de Montesquieu on hearing the news, cried out—“O I am sure my friend Nicolini must have uttered some bold truth.”