of humour; but what cam one do?* I visit the finest women in Paris; but I do not confine my attentions to one; they have plenty to do to look after me, for, between you and me, I am a sad dog.’ ‘ In that case, sir,’ said I, ‘ you doubtless have some office or employ' ment which prevents you from waiting on them more assiduously? ’ ‘ No, sir; I have no other business than to provoke husbands, and drive fathers mad; I delight in alarming a woman who thinks me hers, and in bringing her within an ace of losing’ me. A set of us young fellows 'divide up Paris among us in this pursuit, and keep it wondering at everything we do.’ ‘ From what I un'derstand,’ said 1, ‘ you make more stir than the most valorous warrior, and are more regarded than a grave magistrate. If you were in Persia you would not enjoy all these advantages; you would be held fitter to guard our women than to please them.’ The blood mounted to my face; and I believe had I gone on speaking, 1 could not have refrained from affronting him.” Then there are casuists, great lords, men of sense and men of none, bishops, philosophers and philosophasters, all pricked off as deftly as any of Rica’s acquaintances, and with less exaggeration, if with more sobriety. One brief dramatic sketch must not be omitted. Has any one failed to meet the gentleman who says, ” I believe in the immortality of the soul for six months at a time; my opinions depend entirely on my bodily condition: I am a Spinozist, a Socinian, a Catholic, ungodly or devout, according to the state of my animal spirits, the quality of my digestion, the rarity or heaviness of the air I breathe, the lightness or solidity of the food Montesquieu has distinguished the characters of » Letter LXXV.
14 INTRODUCTION Rica and Usbek With care; and during the first months of their stay in Europe, he succeeds with fair success in depicting their state of mind in the midst of, what was to them, a new world. Soon, however, they become in all except their domestic matters merely mouthpieces for the author’s satire and criticism, and expounders of his theories. It is Usbek who in several letters explains those ideas which Montes- quieu afterwards developed in " L’Esprit des Lois.” On this subjdfct he writes as a legislator, with the well- balanced judgment, the restraint ‘and reserve which always temper Montesquieu’s enthusiasm and control his expressions of opinion. Here in one sentence is the policy of ‘‘ L’Esprit des Lois ”: "I have often inquired which form of government is most comform- able to reason. It seems to me that the most perfect is that which obtains its object with the least friction; so that the government which leads men by following their propensities and inclinations is the most per- fect.” * And in the following has been detected the philosophy of Montesquieu’s great book: ‘‘ Nature always works tardily, and, as it were, thriftily; her operations arc never violent; even in her productions she requires temperance; she never works but by rule and measure; if she be hurried she soon falls into decline.” * In fact, the latter portion of the “ Persian Letters ” is edited from Montesquieu’s commonplace-book. It reveals his ideas on international law, on the advancement of science, and on the origin of liberty; and states those problems which were to be the study of his life.
From the travels of Chardin and Tavernier, Montes- quieu derived his knowledge of Persia. To Chardin he is particularly indebted, not only for the back- 1 Letter LXXXI.
15 * Letter CXV.
INTRODUCTION ground, but for liis theory of despotism ‘ and his theory of climates.* The story of the revolt of Usbek’s harem, though belonging to a style long out of fashion, is skilfully told, and will be found to interest the most prudish reader in spite of some disgust. The forsaken wives, and long-winded pedan- tic eunuchs, are all French, of course, French people of the Regency; and Usbek himself is as jealous as a petit-maitre. As for the story of Anais, and the sexual love of brother and sister in “ Apheridon and Astarte,” all that need be said of them is that they are characteristic of the mood of the Regency. The translator gave a passing thought to the propriety of omitting the former; but the author did not omit it, so it appears. One word more on this subject, and it shall be a word from Montesquieu himself. He found his daughter one day with the “ Persian Letters ” in her hand. " Let it alone, my child,” he said. ” It is a work of my youth unsuited to yours.”
VI VI Soon after the publication of the ” Persian Letters ” Montesquieu went to the capital to enjoy his reputa- tion. There he found society more agreeable in Paris than in Versailles, because in the small world ol the latter intrigue was the rule, whereas in the former people amused themselves. He became a member of the informal Club de I’Entre-sol, which met on Saturdays in the house of President Hcnault. Boling- broke was the founder of this club, and its mo. t dis- tinguished member. Among those who frequented it were the Abbe de Saint-Pierre, D’Argenson, ” secre- tary to the Republic of Plato,” and Ramsai. Prob- 1 Letters CIII., CIV. a Letter CXXII.
I6 INTRODUCTION f ably the principfkl benefit which Montesquieu derived from his attendance at the Entre-sol was his introduction to Lord Chesterfield; but he continued a member until Cardinal Fleury interdicted the club in 1730, on account of the active part it began to take in politics.
With the aid of Mademoiselle de Clermont, Louis XIV. 's unspeakable tenth muse, Montesquieu was elected to the^ Academy in 1725; but his election was invalidated on account of his non-residence in Paris. He then returned to Bordeaux, sold his presidentship, acquired the necessary qualification, jind, not without a questionable intrigue, was elected in 1728 to the chair rendered vacant by the death of De Sacy, a forgotten translator.
In the spring of the same year Montesquieu set out on his travels with a nephew of the Duke of Berwick, whose affairs called him to Vienna. It was during this journey that he applied for nomination to some diplomatic post. In urging his claim he pointed out that he was not duller than other men; that, being of independent means, honour was the only reward he sought; that he was accustomed to society, and had toiled [bcaucoiip travailU) to make himself capable. The powers that then were, however, elected to dis- pense with his services.
Montesquieu was much disappointed with his reception at the hands of the great. On his first entrance into society he had been announced as a man of genius, and had been looked on favourably by people in place; but when the success of the “ Persian Letters ” proved that he actually had ability, and brought him the esteem of the public, people in place began to be shy of him. It was no consolation for him to tell himself that officialdom, secretly wounded by INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION the reputation of a celebrated mail, takes vengeance by humiliating him, and that he who can endure to hear another praised must merit much praise him- self.^ He was deeply disappointed. In his youth he had written, " Cicero, of all the ancients, is he whom I should most wish to be like.’ A public career was denied him and he suffered, having set his heart on it; but he was more of an ancient Roman than Cicero, if that was his ambition; and, it is surely better to be famous as the author of “ L’Esprit des Lois,” than to be mfamous as one of Louis XV. 's ministers., In Italy he found Lord Chesterfield. The two men had already tested each other in the Entre-sol, and they were now glad to travel together. Journeying to Venice, they met Law, the creator of credit, who, having preserved his taste for speculation and a fine diamond, passed his time in staking the latter at the gaming-table. Montesquieu had dealt severely with him in the " Persian Letters,” but that did not prevent Law from receiving him pleasantly; nor did the ruined financier’s complaisance prevent Montesquieu from appl5dng the lash again in “ L’Esprit des Lois.”
From Venice they went to Rome. Montesquieu frequented the salon of Cardinal Polignac, the French ambassador; and the city, both ancient and modern, had its due effect. Before leaving it, he paid a visit to the Pope, Benedict XIII., who said to him, " My dear president, I wish you to carry away some souvenir of my friendship. To you and yours I grant permis- sion to eat meat every day for the term of your natural lives.” Montesquieu thanked the Pope and withdrew. Next day they brought him the dispensa- > Pens6e.s.’’
I8 INTRODUCTION tion with a note^ of charges. “ The Pope,” said Montesquieu, returning the papers, “is an honest man; I will not doubt his word; and I hope God has no reason to doubt it either.” An answer becom- ing a shrewd economic Gascon.
After visiting Naples, Pisa, Florence, Turin, and the Rhine country, they arrived at the Hague, where Chesterfield was English ambassador. From the Hague they jailed to England, reaching London in November, 1729.
VII Although Montesquieu lived in England for eigh- teen months, there is but little to tell of his visit. According to his custom he went everywhere, and saw, if not everybody, certainly Walpole, Pope, and Swift. Montesquieu derived immense benefit from his travels, because he was always pliant to the manners of the country in which he sojourned. “ When I am in France,” he said, " I swear friendship with every- body; in England, with nobody; in Italy, I do the agreeable all round; in Germany, I drink with the whole world.” He found England the most useful country to visit. Germany, he thought, was made to travel in, Italy to rest in, England to think in, and France to live in.
Montesquieu left behind him a set of notes on England, from which we can gather and condense his impressions.
In London the people eat much flesh-meat, with the result that they become very stout, and^coUapse at forty or forty-five.
The streets of London are so bad, that it is advisable to make one's will before taking a hackney-coach.
19 INTRODUCTION The young English noblemen arl divided into two classes: those who, having been to the University, have some learning, and are consequently shamefaced and constrained; and the shameless ones who know nothing, and are the petits-maUres of the nation. But the English in general are modest.
Paris is a handsome city where there are ugly corners; London is a villainous place containing some very beautiful things. ^ The complaints of foreigners, especially of the French, in London, are lamentable. They say that they cannot make a friend; and that their overtures are received as injuries. But how can Kinski, the Broglies, and La Vilette, with their profuse French manners, expect the English to be like them? How should the English, who do not love each other, love strangers?
I look on the King of England simply as a man who has a pretty wife, a hundred servants, a handsome equipage, and a good table. People think him fortunate; but when he is left alone, and his door closed, and he has to quarrel with his wife and his servant, and swear at his butler, he is not so much to be envied after all.
By dint of suspecting everybody, people grow hard- hearted here.
There are some Scotch members of parliament who can get only two hundred pounds for their votes, and who sell them at that price.
A minister thinks only of defeating the opposition; and to that end he would sell England — the whole world.
Extraordinary things are done in England for money. The English do not even know the meaning of honour and virtue.
20 INTRODUCTION I do not know t^hat will be the upshot of European emigration to Africa and the West Indies; but I am certain that England will be the first nation to be deserted b}'^ its colonies.
The English make little effort at poUteness, but are never impolite.
Women in England are reserved because they see little of the men. If a foreigner speaks to them, they suspect his intentions. " ‘ Je ne veux pas,’ disen t- elles, ‘ give to him encouragement.’ ” There is no religion in England. If religion is spoken of everybody laughs., England is at present the freest country in the world, not excepting any republic. I call it free, because unlimited power is in the hands of the King and the Parliament. A good English citizen will there- fore endeavour to protect liberty as much against the Commons as against the King.
Montesquieu’s impressions of England were written on his lands as well as in his books; for when he returned to France he had his ancestral estate of La Br5de laid out in the English style Vlll The rest of Montesquieu’s life was spent at his estates in the country and at Paris.
He made great improvements in his land, and increased his revenues largely. At his death his income is said to have been sixty thousand francs. He was not ambitious to be rich; but in all that he took in hand he wished to feel and to see signs of his ability. He has been accused of parsimony, but that INTRODUCTION is one of the commonest charges* the weak have to bring against the strong. Order was the law of his being, and prodigaUty and dissipation as repugnant to him as anything else chaotic. Indeed there was always too little chaos about Montesquieu.^ He saw life steadily and saw it whole, too soon, too easily; and he took a part for the whole. But, to return, he was certainly not avaricious. His enlightened bene- volence appeared in the moderate rents he charged; and there are several specific acts of generosity recorded, Henry Sully, an ‘English astronomer of note, being at Bordeaux pjarsuing experiments in horology, received much attention at the hands of Montesquieu, then President of the Bordeaux Academy. One day Sully, reduced to his last sou, “ no uncommon thing with inventors,” wrote Montesquieu a brief note, " very English and very artless ” — ‘‘ I am in the mood to hang myself, but I don’t think I should do so if I had a hundred crowns.” “ I send you a hundred crowns,” replied Montesquieu, “ don’t hang yourself, and come and see me.”
In the winter of 1747-48, Guienne, on account of the war with England, had been unable to import a sufficient quantity of grain. On the 7th of December, Montesquieu, being at La Brede, was told that the tenants on an estate of his fifty leagues away were almost famine-stricken. He drove to the place at once with hardly a halt; summoned the cures of ‘‘ the four villages,” and while waiting for them ex- amined the state of provisions. On their arrival he said, “ Gentlemen, I beg you to assist me in procuring some help for your parishioners. You know those who are in need of corn, or of money to buy it. I 1 His " tranquil chaos ” was what Carlyle admired most 111 Tennyson.
22 INTRODUCTION wish all the grafii in my barns to be distributed gratuitously. My steward will hand it out in quanti- ties to be fixed in proportion to the needs of those who are in want of it. It is not right that any one should lack the necessaries of life on my lands as long as I have a-superabundance. Gentlemen, you are good fellows. I trust to you entirely to make this distri- bution. You will oblige me by carrying out my inten- tions promptly; and by keeping the thing a secret.”
Montesqdieu then went away at once, to escape the thanks of his tenants. According to the friend — of a scenic turn of mind evidently — ^who accompanied him, wheat to the value of 6400 livtes was distributed by the cures. To prevent the recurrence of the distress which he had so munificently relieved, Montesquieu established on his estates granaries for the poor (greniers de char He).
Montesquieu was, indeed, one of the best of land- lords and country gentlemen. He was looked upon in France as a species of “ Milord Anglais,” as inter- ested in men as in books; and he was so — in the peasants of La Brdde, who were ” not learned enough to make the woise appear the better reason,” as well as in the wits of Paris. His habits and manners were as simple as could be. He would go about La Brfede all day long with a white cotton cap on his head and a vine-pole over his shoulder; in which guise he was, of course, mistaken more than once for a vine-dresser, and asked by those who came to offer him “ les hommages de I’Europe,” if that “ was the chateau of Montesquieu.” * A Genevese naturalist, Trembley,* whom he had met in England, wrote to a friend, after having passed several days at La Brfede in the autumn 23 INTRODUCTION of 1752, " I cannot describe the Measure I enjoyed during my stay. How beautiful, how charming the things I heard! What do you think of conversations which begin at one o’clock in the day and last till eleven at night? Now there was talk of the loftiest subjects: anon full-bodied laughter over some delightful story...I talked much of agriculture with M. de Montesquieu. In a conversation on that subject he exclaimed: ‘ O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint Agricolas! * adding, ‘ I have o^ten thought of putting these words on the front of my house.’ ” The Earl of Charlemont wrote requesting an audience.^ The reply was favourable, and he and his companion, so excited were they at the prospect of seeing the great man, arrived at his house before he was up. The servant put them into the library, where " the first thing we saw was an open book lying on a table at which he had probably sat on the pre- ceding evening: the extinguished lamp was still in position. Impatient to know the night reading of the great philosopher, we stepped at once to the volume; it was the Elegies of Ovid, open at one of the most gallant pages. We had not recovered from our surprise, when it was increased by the entrance of the president, whose appearance and manners were entirely opposed to the idea which we had formed of him. Instead of a grave and austere philosopher, whose very presence would have intimidated young folk like us, the person who addressed us was a French- man ” — even the French philosophers are French I — “ gay, polished, full of vivacity, who, after a thousand 1 Fr. Hardy, “ Memoirs of Charlemont."
24 INTRODUCTION agreeable greeting!?, and a thousand thanks for the honour which we did him, invited us to breakfast; but...in short, we went to walk instead. At the skirt of a fine wood, cut in alleys, surrounded by a paling, and entered by a gate three leet high and fastened with a chain, ‘ Come on,’ said he, after having searched in his pocket, ‘ it is not worth while waiting for the key. You can jump as well as I, I am sure, and it’s not a gate like that I’m afraid of.’ So saying, he ran at the ‘gate and leapt over it as light as you like. He had noticed our embarrassmeht on first meeting him — for we were much moved — and so he set to I I work, out of pure good-nature, to put us at our ease. Little by little his age and his genius disappeared so completely that the conversation became as free and easy as if we had been his equals in every respect. We spoke of the arts and sciences. He questioned us on our travels, and as I had visited the east he ad- dressed himself particularly to me, interesting himself in the smallest details of the lands through which I had travelled. I heard him say more than once that he regretted not having seen these countries...After having made the tour of his estate, laid out in the English style, we returned and were received by Madame la Baronne and her daughter...The meal was simple and abundant. After dinner Montes- quieu insisted that we should stay, and he kept us for three days, during which his conversation was equally amusing and instructive.” This, though of the gushing order, is evidently a true picture of the man who said, “ He who writes well does not write as people write, but as he writes; very often in talking badly such a one writes w'ell.” To himself may be applied what he said of Montaigne: “In most authors I see a writing man; in Montaigne, a thinking man.”
25 INTRODUCTION He was always saying, “ The irttefortune of certain books is the kiUing work one has to do in condensing what the author took so much trouble to expand.”
IX This simplicity was the great charm of the man, as it is that of the writer. He never lectures the reader, he talks with him; “he makes him assist him in his composition.” In. Paris he was, as in the country, as in his books, even-tempered, simple, and pleasantly merry. In the Very heat of conversation he never lost his equanimity. Simple, profound, sublime, he charmed, instructed, without offence: was even more marvellous in conversation than in his works: ‘ “ and always that same energy when liis hatred of despotism lighted his face.” * Without bitterness, without satire, full of wit and brilliant sallies, no one could tell a better story, promptly, vividly, without premeditation.® And he was always more willing to listen than to talk; he learnt as much from conversa- tion as from books. The Duchess de Chaulnes said of him, ” That man makes his book in society: lie remembers everything that is said to him, and only talks with those who have something to tell him worth remembering.” Such a man requires the company of the best brains to bring him out; with commonplace people he will be commonplace: and yet he could find wit in those who were called dull.* It was possible, however, to bore him. On one occasion, when dis- puting with some portentous councillor wlio got warm 1 Maupertuis, “ hloge de Montesquieu."
* Garat, M6moires sur le Dix-huiti6me Sicclc."
* D'Alembert, “ Kloge de Montesquieu."
* " Pcns6es."
26 INTRODUCTION W and cried, “ M. le*President, if it is not as I say, I will give you my head,” he replied, coolly, " I accept; little gifts are the cement of friendship.” ^ A certain young lady, un peu galante, annoyed him with a torrent of questions one evening. His opportunity came when she asked him in what happiness con- sisted. ” Happiness,” he replied, “ means for queens, fertility; for maidens, sterility; and for those who are near you, deafness.” * Still he delighted in the company and conversation of women, and in his younger days did not object to be‘in their best graces. He tells us that he attached hims^elf to such as he thought loved him, and detached himself as soon as he thought the}^ didn’t: * the manners of the Regency being somewhat different from ours.
X X The eighteenth century was in France the age of the ” monstrous regiment of women.” The divine right of kings, as it had done in England half a century before, resolved itself into the divine right of mis- tresses. One legacy bequeathed by them was the French Revolution; modern conversation was the other. In England conversation remained among men, and produced clubs; in France women invaded it, and the salon was the result: the heyday past, the Regent’s mistress, the minister’s mistress, opened a salon, where Montesquieu and all celebrities might meet to talk. Claudine Guerin de Tencin, saddened by the suicide of a lover and the arrival of her forty- fifth year; Madame Geoffrin, “ whimsical and cross- * Laplace, " Pieces inWressantes et peu connues.” a Ibid. » “ Penates."
27 INTRODUCTION grained,” citizen’s daughter, millifenaire’s widow, who had the excellent talent of drawing every one out in his own subject, and called her salon “ a shop ”; Marie de Vichy, Marquise du Deffand, whom Mas- sillon could not convert, who was interested in nothing, and had neither temperament nor romance; and the Duchess de Chaulnes, the ” intimate enemy ” of Madame du Deffand, “ a typical woman of the eigh- teenth century,” delighting only in wit, bans mots, and gallantry, and made piercingly sagacious by her wicked life: these 'and others like them kept salons, primarily for their own amusement. Earnest talk on momentous matters was the one thing forbidden. Clear analysis of questions of finance, of morality, of legislation, clear mockery of the problems of human destiny, and facile, brilliant, and winged talk, " on everything A propos of nothing,” was the order of the day.
Madame du Deffand was Montesquieu’s favourite among these. She gathered about her in her own phrase “ les trompeurs, les tromp^s, et les trompettes ” — everybody connected with diplomacy, in fact. In her salon the author of " L’Esprit des Lois ” learned much. “ I like that woman,” he said, ” with all my heart; she pleases me, amuses me; it is impossible to weary in her company.” It was in this society that Montesquieu ” talked out ” his books; and the reader should remember that it was for this society they were written.
Montesquieu was often glad to retire from the ‘‘ official centres of conversation ” to quieter houses, where he could be more at home, and where he could meet such marvels of the age as the two sisters of Madame de Rochefort, " the Marquise de Boufflers, who was faithful to her lover, and the Duchesse de INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Mirepoix, who was’<aithful to her husband.” But of all salons he preferred that of the Duchesse d’ Aiguillon. There he met the most interesting men of the day of all nationalities, attracted by the impartiality of the duchess, her abundant and original wit, her refined talk, her obliging manners, and her ability to speak four languages. Gustavus III. called her the “ living journal of the court, the city, the provinces, and the Academy.” But she had judgment also; and authors consulted her* about their works. Montesquieu liked her for herself, and also because in*her house he could meet Madame Dupre de Saint-Maur, wife of the Intendant of Bordeaux, who was “ equally charming as mistress, as wife, and as friend.” It was in the arms of Madame Dupre de Saint-Maur that Montes- quieu died on the loth of February, 1755, in his sixty-sixth year.
XI XI Of “ L’Esprit des Lois,” perhaps the greatest French book of the eighteenth century, " La Grandeur des Remains et leur decadence,” and Montesquieu’s minor works, it is not necessary to speak here. It has been said that Montesquieu only wrote one book, the “ Persian Letters ” and the “ Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans ” being studies for ” L’Esprit des Lois ”; but with a master the sketch is as perfect a work of art as the completed picture. " Timidity ” — Montesquieu was a severe judge of himself-—" timidity has been the curse of my life,” he said; but his very dread of being weak— which he never was — Whelped to make his first work a master- piece.
29 INTRODUCTION XII Quesnay, the elder Mirabeau, Raynal, Morelly, Servan, Malesherbes, Voltaire, Beccaria, Filangieri, Blackstone, Ferguson, all descend from Montesquieu; and Gibbon found “ the strong ray of philosophic light,” which “ broke from Scotland in our times ” upon political economy, only a reflection, though with a far steadier and more concentrated force, from the scattered but brilliant sparks kindled by the genius of Montesquieu. Chateaubriand and Benjamin Con- stant imitated Him; Talleyrand, the best servant France ever had, was his disciple. Catherine of Russia said, ” His ‘ Esprit des Lois ’ is the breviary of sovereigns.” The men of the French Revolution swore by him. Robespierre was parodying him when he said, ” The principle of democratic government is virtue; the means of its establishment, terror ”; and Napoleon honoured him by discarding him as an ideologist.
France never had a wiser counsellor, ” his blood and judgment were so well commingled ”; but he could not prevent the Revolution any more than Horatio could have saved Hamlet.
JOHN DAVIDSON.
London, September 1891.
30 SOME REFLECTIONS THE.PERSIAN LETTERS These reflections first appeared as afl introduction to the quarto edition of the Persian Letters (1754). and have always been ascribed to Montesquieu himself. • Nothing in the " Persian Letters ” has been found more attractive than the unexpected discovery of a sort of story, which can be followed easily from begin- ning to end. A chain of circumstance connects the various characters. In proportion as their stay in Europe is extended, the morals and manners of that part of the world appear to them less wonderful and odd; and the degree in which they are affected by the marvellous and the eccentric depends upon the difference in their dispositions. On the other hand, the Asiatic seraglio ^ becomes more disorderly the longer Usbek remains away — that is to say, in pro- portion as frenzy increases and love abates.
Another cause of the success of romances of this kind lies in the fact that events are described by the characters themselves as actually happening. This produces a sensational effect unattainable in the narrative of an outsider; and it is to this that the 1 A seraglio is a royal dwelling. Montesquieu uses the word as if it were synonymous with harem, the name of that portion of an oriental mansion in which the women are sequestrated.
31 SOME REFLECTIONS ON popularity of certain works which have appeared since the publication of the “ Persian Letters ” is mainly due.
Although in the regular novel, digressions are in- admissible unless they themselves constitute a fresh romance, and argumentative discussion is altogether beside the mark, since the characters are not brought together for the purpose of chopping logic; yet, in the epistolary form, where accident selects the char- acters, and the subjects dealt with arc independent of any design or preconceived plan, the author is en- abled to mingle philosophy, politics, and morality with romance, and to connect the whole by a hidden, and somewhat novel, bond.
So great was the sale of the “ Persian Letters ” when they came out that publishers did their utmost to obtain sequels. They button-holed every author they met, and entreated him to write “ Persian Letters.”
What I have just stated, however, should convince the reader that they do not admit of a sequel,* still less of any admixture with even the cleverest “ letters ” from the hand of another.* Some remarks have been found by many people sufficiently audacious; but I beg them to consider the nature of the work. The Persians, who were to play so important a part in it, found themselves suddenly in Europe, transplanted, to all intents and purposes, into another world. It was therefore necessary for some time to represent them as ignorant * Probably an allusion to Lord Lyttleton’s ” Letters of Selim,” published in English in 1735, and shortly afterwards translated into French.
• A reference to the " Lettres Turques " of Sainte-Foix, which in the edition of 1740 appeared collectively with the " Persian Letters.”
32 THE PERSIAN LETTERS and full of prejudices: ^ attention was bestowed exclusively on the formation and development of their ideas. Their first thoughts must have been excep- tional. It seemed to the author that all he had to do was to endow them with singularity in as spirited a manner as he could; and to this end what more was necessary than to depict their state of mind in pre- sence of whatever appeared to them extraordinary? Nothing was further from his thoughts than the idea of compromismg any principle of our religion — he did not even suspect himself of the simplest indiscretion. What questionable remarks there are on religion will always be found united with feelings of surprise and astonishment, and not with any critical intention, still less with that of censure. Why should these Persians appear better informed when speaking of our religion, than when they discuss our manners and customs? And if they do sometimes find our dogmas singular, it is always a proof of their entire ignorance of the connection between those dogmas and other religious truths.