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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 LIII.

To Abbé Count de Guasco.

WELCOME my dear Count. I do not doubt but my house-keeper has taken care to have your bed well warmed— Wearied as you must have been by running post day and night, and your several trips to Fontainbleau. All these little attentions are necessary, in order to recover you from your late fatigue. You are not to leave my apartment, nor Paris, before my arrival there, unless your business to that city were only to give me the disagreeable information that I shall not see you more. I find you are bent upon going to Flanders. I would there were as sufficient reasons for your tarrying with us, besides those of friendship. But, I perceive, that our bishops will no longer stand in need of any better co-operators, than the D****.*

Could you have believed, that a lacquey metamorphosed into a fanatical priest, and preserving always the mean sentiments of his original state, should nevertheless start up to figure as one of the dignitaries in a certain chapter. I have many things to communicate if I see you in Paris, as I hope I shall; for you certainly cannot be angry with, and punish a friend, who sets out on a chace after you, from the moment he gets intelligence where you may be found.

I am very glad that his royal Highness the Duke of Savoy, has deigned to accept the dedication of your Italian Translation; which by the rebound is most flattering to me, on finding that my work is to make its appearance in Italy, under such illustrious and lucky auspices. I have just finished the reading of your translation, and I have throughout observed that all my thoughts are rendered with as much perspicuity as justness. Your dedication is very well imagined, but I am not a sufficient master of the Italian to be able to pronounce accurately on the merits of so elegant a stile.

I think that both the project, and the plan of your treatise upon the Statutes, are interesting and beautiful. My curiosity is all awake to see it. Farewell.

La Brede, December 2, 1754.

[* ]Peter D—, was footman to the son of M. de Montesquieu, while he was at the College of Louis le grand. Having learned a tittle Latin, he said, heselt a vocation for an ecclesiastical life, and through the intercession of a lady, he obtained from the Bishop of Bayon, of whose diocese he was a native, permission for taking on the priesty habit. When become a beneficed clergyman he came to Paris, to solicit M. de Montesquieu’s patronage, to recommend him to the Count de Maurepas for a better benefice, that was then vacant. He entreated the president would be so good, as to take and deliver for him a petition to the minister, which began in the following odd manner. Peter D— Priest of the Diocese of Bayon, heretofore employed by the deceased Bishop to discover the sinister plots of the Jansenists; those perfidious misereants, who acknowledge not the sovereignty of the King, nor the supremacy of the Pope, &c. M. de Montesquieu having read with astonishment so extraordinary a prelude, folded up the petition and returning it to his Client, said—“Go Sir, and present it yourself, it will do you honour, no doubt, and have a much better effect, than if presented by me”—But before you set off, you may go into the kitchen, and breakfast with my servants—which act of humiliation the pious Mr. D— never failed practising, on the frequent visits he used to make to his former master—and yet this wretch rose sometime after, to the dignity of being treasurer to the Chapter of a Cathedral Church in Britany.