The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• 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 VIII.

To the Count of Guasco, Colonel of Foot.

I WAS charmed, my dear Count, on receiving a proof of your kind remembrance, in the letter which your brother sent to me. Madam de Tencin and other persons to whom I have paid your compliments, have commissioned me to assure you with what acknowledging sensibility they have been accepted. I am sorry that it is not in my power to satisfy your curiosity concerning the letters, of the lady our friend. It is a secret* that I am under a promise of not revealing.

The confidence with which you are pleased to honour me, demands, that I declare frankly my mind on the interesting subject of your letter. I am not to conceal from you that I have communicated it to Commander de Solar, whom you are to look upon as one of your friends. We both concur in opinion, that the offers made by M. de Belle-Isle, in order to attach you and your brother† to the service of France, are by no means acceptable. After the advantageous reports that have been made of you to him in M. de la Chetardie’s letters, it is inconceivable how he could flatter himself with the notion of retaining you, by the proposal of a rank inferior to that you have had under other banners. I do not know upon what is founded the report that in France, the military ranks in other countries are not deemed as equivalent to hers. Such a maxim would be neither just nor polite, and must deprive us of many good officers. I think you have been perfectly right to refuse joining in his expedition, till you should have previous and solid assurances from the court of those conditions, it would not be unseemly in you to comply with. But as you appear to be quite determined on the negative side; it were useless to trouble you with any more reflections upon the subject.

The proposals from the Prussian ambassador about raising a foreign regiment, deserve a more serious attention, so that they may seem fair to jump in amicably with your finances. But one must calculate for futurity, as well as for the present. What assurance have you, that on the conclusion of a peace, the regiment may not be reformed, and in such a case what retribution are you to hope in lieu of the pecuniary advances that you must inevitably have made. Besides, in the point of interest, that court cannot be dealt with too cautiously.

In regard to the insinuated advantages that may accrue to you from passing over to the service of the new emperor; you are a more competent judge than I can pretend to be, for to decide solidly on the affair, and too prudent to let yourself be dazzled by any false glare. For my part, being not as yet thoroughly convinced of the stability of the new political German system, I should not incline to found my hopes on a precarious, or perhaps, transitory fortune. From what I have said, you must perceive that I cannot but approve of the engagements offered to you, from the Austrian service. Moreover your first inclinations were turned that way, and the example held out to you by so many of your countrymen, prove that service to be congenial to your nation. The adverse strokes of fortune with which the court of Vienna is now afflicted, I look upon but as temporary disasters. Because a great and long established power, that has a natural and intrinsic energy to supply it with resources, cannot be overturned and reduced in a hurry. Notwithstanding whatever mishaps may have befallen it, the military service will be always there upon a more solid foundation, than in a newly raised and too rapidly spreading state. It is more than an even bett, that the court of Turin will make one common cause with that of Vienna. Consequently the motives, which in quitting Piedmont hindred you from entering into the Austrian service, are ceased in the present circumstances. Nay, I do not see a better opportunity for your sneering at, and triumphing over the insolent enmity of the Marquis d’Ormea, than by serving a court in alliance with his, and where too, considering what has been formerly transacted, he must have no great credit* . But you are prudent and cautious, therefore I submit entirely to your own judgment those conjectures of mine, which a sincere desire for your welfare, as well as the discussion and candour of reason, have equally given birth to. I shall learn with pleasure your final resolution, and am with every assurance of respect.

Francsort, 1742.

[* ]On the day of Madam de Tencin’s death, President Montesquieu on going out of his antichamber, said to the brother of Count de Guasco, who was with him, Now you may write to your brother, that Madam de Tencin is authoress of the Count de Cominges, and of the Siege of Calais; which two works she wrote jointly with her nephew, M. de Pontvel. I believe there were only Mr. Fontenelle and I who knew this secret.

[† ]Actually a lieutenant-general, and heretofore commander of Dresden during the last war.

[* ]Under his ministery, the court of Turin, in the preceding war, had forsaken its alliance with the court of Vienna, to form a new one with that of France. It is pretended that the Marquis d’Ormea upon this occasion, bad proposed a premium for a negotiation with the court of Vienna; that he should pass over to its service, and enjoy a considerable post, of which the emperor Charles the VI. gave notice to the king of Sardinia, by sending to Turin under another pretext;—The Prince of T— who was to inform the king, without the minister forming the least surmise about his real commission.