Helvétius

Reviews Helvetius WILLIAM HANLEY Correspondanee generaIe d'Helvetius. Volume 11: 1757-1760. Edited by Alan Dainard, Jean Orsoni, David Smith, and Peter Allan Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation 1984. xiii, 433, illus. $75.00 The vigorous pursuit of Enlightenment studies which has occurred over the past thirty-five years has been distinguished by the publication ofa growing number of correspondences. In 1981 the first volume of the Helv~tius letters marked the auspicious beginning of the latest of these. Now the second of the projected four-volume undertaking has appeared, and it exceeds the promise of volume I. The content of the letters is both rich and varied. Helvetius writes about private, everyday preoccupations such as the ill health of his secretary or the administration of his estate. He gives repeated and sometimes vivid expression to his passion for his wife, as when he writes to her: 'Je vais me coucher etee n'est pas avec toy. Ie n'auray pas Ie plaisir de sc;avoir de combien ton derriere est devenu plus gras. Je Ie baise de tout mon cceur.' Helv~tius the thinker, though surprisingly little in evidence, can be seen in his letters to Hurne. And contemporary observers evoke events like the poor reception accorded to one of Madame de Graffigny's plays and Pallssot's ridicule of the philosophes on the Parisian stage. However, the majority of the letters concern the vehement reaction to the release of Helv~tius's first published work, De /'esprit, and it is these letters which will command particular attention. Indeed, they will in all likelihood prove to be the most interesting and significant of the correspondence. The crisis precipitated by the publication of Helv~tius's radical treatise has been scrupulously examined by the general editor of the correspondence, Professor David Smith, in his Helvetius: A Study in Persecution (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1965). The volume under review is a valuable companion to that work for two reasons. First, it provides a necessarily more intimate and comprehensive view of the affair. Secondly, itmakes available new and important material concerning the case. Severa] points might be cited for special mention. The list of illustrious correspondents, who include Louis xv and his Queen, underlines the prominent UNIVERSllY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 55. NUMBER 4, SUMMER 1986 434 WILLIAM HANLEY place the affair occupied in the political life of the day. For the first time the Abbe Barthelemy is identified as the second censorappointed to examine Del'esprit. The crucial leiters exchanged by officials bring into sharp focus the various struggles being waged around the book and shed light on the disparate forces which will decide the outcomeofthese conflicts. Reminiscent offeelings which frequently led Voltaire to evade the censors, Helvetius's early nervousness about the audacity of his book makes his decision to submit it to the authorities all the more surprising. The terror which dominates him in the middle of the storm as he confronts the dangers to which his book has exposed him is genuine and moving. Once more Malesherbes, the director of the book trade appointed by the chancellor, relies on his principled equity to determine his difficult course as the Parlement proceeds to take the unprecedented action of condemning a book approved by the government and published in all legality. Perhaps most notably, the ultimate futility of such repression emerges yet again. In collecting material for the present volume the editors have shown enterprise. The letters for these years are plentiful: they number215, written betweenJanuary 1757 and December 1;>60, as compared with 249 for the previous two decades. Located in France, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, Britain, and America, manuscripts have, by my count, supplied the text in almost88pereentof the cases, thus permitting the correction of faulty printed versions. Over 61 per cent have never been previously published. Throughout the volume the editors display resourcefulness and discernment, and their scholarship is meticulous and exact. Without becoming obtrusive, the notes are thorough, illuminating recondite details, establishing the identity of obscure figures, and offering well-considered comment. The introduction judiciously outlines the principal problems posed by the campaign mounted against De ['esprit. The French translation which accompanies...