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Prophet_051-100.indd 75 3/2/12 10:28 PM ANTICIPATING THE STORM 9 ANTICIPATING THE STORM Such bitter attacks on the Scottish historian are still fairly rare before 1789. On the eve of the Revolution, proof ofHume's continuingly great historical reputation can be seen in the appearance of a new edition of the Stuarts in 1788-possibly the tenth separate French edition since 1760 of this the most popular part of the History. Additional proof of his enduring success is provided by the police records which show that on 20June 1786 the Paris authorities seized in a book shipment from Marseilles the proofsheets ofa counterfeit edition of Hume's History.198 Quite obviously, book pirates do not go to the trouble of printing works whose popularity has run out. Not only was Hume's History still popular on the eve of the Revolution , its authority continued to mould the opinions held by most Frenchmen, whether of traditionalist or liberal persuasion, on the English revolution. Ifwe find, for example, a Mably attacking Hume at this time, we find also a Gudin de La Brenellerie defending him. In fact Gudin de La Brenellerie's important analysis of the British parliamentary system, published in 1789, follows Hume very closely, because, the author tells us, "he is the least partial of English historians , and the least opposed to the royal prerogative."199 Hume, moreover, could still appeal in the 178os to the fashionable nobility he had pleased so much a quarter of a century earlier . The Comtesse de Boufflers's gracious letter to Hume on his History2°0 should be contrasted with the following note by the same author to Gustavus III of Sweden concerning, not her great good friend the respectable statesman David Hume, but the rabble198 . See 'Journal des livres suspendus depuisjanvier 1778," Bibliotheque Nationale, Fonds Fr. 21 ,934, f. 67. 1 99. Essai sur l'histoiredes comices de Rome, desEtats-Gbu?raux de la France et du Parlement d'Angleterre, Philadelphie, 1789, III. 111 . See also Gudin de La Brenellerie 's defence ofHume against Mably in Suppliment a la maniere d'ecrire l'histoire ou reponse a l'ouvrage de M. l'abbe de Mably, 1784, pp. 113-14. 200. See supra, p. 1 1. 75 Prophet_051-100.indd 76 3/2/12 10:28 PM rousing, squalid Raynal: "... oflow birth, lacking wit, driven out of France for having attacked with impudence and folly the very principles that hold society together and assure the safety of princes; and, on top of all that, a dreadful bore. "201 Hume, if nothing else, had never been found "dreadfully boring." We can especially appreciate the force of the comtesse's words when we learn that this famous salon hostess on one occasion had lovingly spent an entire day trying to equal in French translation oneparagraph ofHume's elegant History! 202 Our chapter on Hume's pre-revolutionary image can perhaps best be concluded with the quotation of an opinion expressed by Malesherbes late in 1788. At the time he was writing, all of France was waiting for the promised convocation of the States-General. Malesherbes, less than one year before the fall of the Bastille, runs over in his mind the intellectual achievements of the century and the titles of important works which, because of censorship restrictions , had not appeared in France with the express or sometimes even tacit permission of the authorities and yet which were necessary . Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois was one such work; another was Hume's History ofEngland: "Mr. Hume is generally regarded in France as a paragon ofwise and impartial historians, and now that the entire French nation is discussing the Constitution, and even expressly invited to do so by its King, we must find our instruction in this author's account of the constitution of his country, either to extract from it what might be useful to us or to reject what would not accord with our customs and laws."203 201. Lettres de Gustave III ii la comtesse de Boufflers et de la comtesse au Roi, de 1771 ii 1791, Bordeaux, 1900, letter 62. 202. See Nouveaux melanges extraits des manuscrits de Mme Necker, Paris, An X, I. 202. 203. Memoires sur la librairie et sur la liberte de la presse, par M. de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, Ministre d'Etat, Paris, 18og, p. 306. Additional evidence of Malesherbes's extremely high regard for the wisdom of Hume's Stuarts may be found in the...

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