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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.

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.

gentlemen,

BY bestowing upon me the place of M. de Sacy, you have not so much taught the public what I am, as what I ought to be.

It was not your intention to compare me with him, but to point him out to me as a model.

Formed for society, he was amiable, he was useful in it: his manners were easy and agreeable; his morals were strict and severe.

To a fine genius he joined a still more excellent heart: the qualities of his head held only the second place in him; they were an ornament to his merit, but not its principal source.

He wrote to instruct; and while instructing, he always made himself be beloved. Every thing in his works breathes a spirit of candor and probity. They make us feel and confess the goodness of his heart: we never discover the great man, but along with the man of honour.

He followed virtue from natural inclination; he was still more attached to it by his studies. He was of opinion that having wrote upon morality, it became him to be more strict in his conduct than others; that there could be no excuse for him, since he had laid down the rules of duty; that it would be ridiculous if he himself could not do what he believed all men capable of doing; that it would be an abandoning of his own maxims; and that he would at the same time have had reason to blush for what he had done, and for what he had said.

In what a noble manner did he exercise his profession? All who stood in need of his assistance became his friends. At the end of each day, he hardly met with any other reward but that of some additional good action: always less rich, and always more disinterested, he hath left his children scarce any thing more than the honour of having had so illustrious a father.

Gentlemen, you love virtuous men; you do not overlook, even in the finest genius, any ill quality of the heart; and you look upon talents, without virtue, as fatal presents, only proper to add strength to our vices, or to render them more conspicuous.

And by this you are indeed worthy of those great protectors who have intrusted you with their glory, who have wished to be transmitted down to posterity, but who have wished to be so along with you.

Many orators and poets have celebrated them; but it is only you who have been established to render them, so to speak, a perpetual homage.

Full of zeal and admiration for those great men; you are always a recalling them to our remembrance. You are continually celebrating them; and yet so surprising is the effect of your art, your eulogiums appear always new.

You always excite our admiration and wonder, when you celebrate that great minister, who out of chaos reduced the rules of monarchy to a regular system; who taught France the secret of her strength, Spain that of her weakness; freed Germany from her chains, gave her new ones; broke every power in its turn, and destined, so to speak, Lewis the Great for the great actions which he afterwards performed.

You never resemble each other in your Eloges of that chancellor, who neither abused the confidence of kings, nor the obedience and submission of the people; and who, in the exercise of magistracy, was without passion like the laws, which absolve and punish without love or hatred.

But above all we are charmed to behold you with emulation strive to draw the portrait of Lewis the Great, that portrait every day begun and never finished, every day more advanced and more difficult. Hardly can we conceive the wonders of that reign which you celebrate. When you represent to us sciences every where encouraged, arts protected, Belles Lettres cultivated, we imagine we hear you talking of a reign of peace and tranquility. When you sing of wars and victories, you seem to us to be relating the history of some nation rushing from the north to change the face of the earth. Here we see the king, there the hero. It is thus that a majestic river is turned into a torrent that destroys every thing that opposes its passage: it is thus that the sky appears to the husbandman clear and serene, whilst, in the neighbouring country, it is covered over with fire, lightning and thunder.

Gentlemen, you have associated me with yourselves in your labours, you have raised me to your own dignity; and I return you thanks for permitting me to know you better, and more nearly to behold and admire you.

I return you thanks for giving me a particular right to write the actions of our young monarch. May he delight to hear those encomiums which are given to pacific princes! May that immense power which is put in his hands, be a pledge of the happiness of all! May all the earth repose itself under his throne! May he be the king of one nation, and the protector of every other! May every people love him; may his subjects adore him; and may there not be one single person in the universe who shall grieve at his happiness, or dread his prosperity! May those fatal jealousies, which render men the enemies of men, at last perish! May human blood, that blood which always pollutes the earth, be spared! And that this great object may be obtained, may that minister who is necessary to the world, who is such a one as the people of France should have asked of heaven, continue to give counsels which penetrate the heart of a prince always ready to do every good action that is proposed to him, or to repair that ill which he was not the author of, and which time has produced!

Lewis has shewn, that as people are subjected to the laws, princes are so to their promises, which are sacred: that great kings who cannot be so by any other power, are invincibly bound by those chains which they make for themselves, like that God whose representatives they are, who is always independant, and always faithful to his promises. How many virtues does a faith, so religiously observed, presage! Such shall be the destiny of France, that after having been agitated under the Valois, settled under Henry, aggrandized under his successor, victorious or invincible under Lewis the Great, it shall be perfectly happy under him who shall not be obliged to conquer, and who shall place all his glory in governing.