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LETTER LXIII.: To the Dutchess of Aiguillon. - 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 LXIII.

To the Dutchess of Aiguillon.

I HAVE received, madam, the very obliging letter, with which you were pleased to honour me, as I was setting out from la Brede to Paris. I shall remain however, seven or eight days at Bourdeaux for the settling of a law suit I have there. The motive of my departure hence is not to wait on the faculty of Sorbonne, but on you. I quit la Brede with regret, and the more so, because I learn from every quarter, that Paris at this time is very dull. I have received within these three or four days a very original letter; it is from a burgher of Paris, who owes me some money; he prays me to wait for his payment until the return of parliament; my answer to him was, that he might have fixed upon a more certain time.

The small-pox is a terrible pest to human society; it is a second death, added to that to which we are all destined by nature. The smiling pictures which Homer draws of dying persons, as of the flower that falls under the reaper’s hook, cannot be applied to the death caused by this horrid malady.

I should have had the honour of sending you those chapters you were pleased to desire, but from your information since, that you were no longer in the place, where you should have liked to shew them—I propose however, carrying them with me to town. You shall correct them, and tell me in one place without reserve, “I don’t like that passage,” and in another, “You should have expressed yourself thus”—I beseech you, madam, that you will deign graciously to receive the most respectful sentiments of montesquieu.