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Unrecorded (pirated?) edition of Rousseau's most explicit and boldest discussions of the Christian doctrines

ROUSSEAU, Jean Jacques.
J. Jacques Rousseau, citoyen de Geneve, à Chritophe (sic!) de Beaumont, archevêque de Paris, duc de St. Cloud ... avec sa lettre au Conseil de Geneve.

Amsterdam, Marc-Michel Rey, 1765. 8vo. Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments with redtitle label lettered in gold, gilt binding edges, red painted edges, marbled endpapers. XLVII, (1), 143, (1) pp.

With:
(2) LINGUET, Simon Nicolas Henry. Requète au Conseil du Roi, pour M. Linguet, Avocat. Contre les arrêts du Parlement de Paris, des 29 mars & 4 février 1775.
Amsterdam, Marc-Michel Rey, 1776. 12mo. (2), 260 pp.

Ad 1: As far as we know an unrecorded edition of one of the last works written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), the major Genevois, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution and the development of modern political, sociological and educational thought. His novel, Emile: or, On Education (1762), which he considered his most important work, is a seminal treatise on the education of the whole person for citizenship. Because it rejected original sin and divine Revelation, both Protestant and Catholic authorities took offense. Moreover, Rousseau advocated the opinion that, insofar as they lead people to virtue, all religions are equally worthy, and that people should therefore conform to the religion in which they have been brought up. This religious indifferentism caused Rousseau and his books to be banned from France and Geneva. He was condemned from the pulpit by the Archbishop of Paris, his books were burned, and warrants were issued for his arrest.
In his response to the accusations raised against Emile by Christoph de Beaumont, the Archbishop of Paris, Rousseau wrote this letter, first published in Amsterdam (France?) in 1763. Till 1772 there are at least 11 different editions - in 8vo, as well as in 12mo, printed in Amsterdam by M.M. Rey (or in France?). The title of the 1764 edition mentions that that is the second edition. As we did not find a 1765 edition recorded and because there is an obvious error in the title, perhaps this is a pirated edition (?).
Responding to the censorship and burning of Emile, Rousseau airs his views on censorship, religion, and the relation between theory and practice in politics. Rousseau's response concerns the general theme of the relation between reason and revelation and contains his most explicit and boldest discussions of the Christian doctrines of creation, miracles, and original sin.
Rousseau's Lettre à Christophe de Beaumont remains among his least celebrated works, having attracted but scant critical attention, yet it merits consideration alongside his major literary, philosophical, religious, and political writings, because it constitutes a veritable synthesis of Rousseau's thought. The text which fills 80 pp. in the Pléiade edition, was published in March 1763 in response to Beaumont's document issued August 20, 1762 entitled 'Mandement de Monseigneur l'Archevêque de Paris portant condemnation d'un livre qui a pour title: Emile, ou de l'education, par Jean-Jacques Rousseau ...' (in our edition on pp. xv-xlvii). The 'Arrêt de la Cour de Parlement' is on pp. vii-xiii, both with the original imprint: Paris, P.G. Simon, 1762.
Christophe de Beaumont (1703-1781) became bishop of Bayonne in 1741, then archbishop of Vienne in 1745, and in 1746 archbishop of Paris. Beaumont is noted for his struggle with the Jansenists. To his polemic against the Jansenists he added an attack on the philosophes , and issued a formal mandatory letter condemning Rousseau. Rousseau replied in his masterly Lettre a M. de Beaumont (1762), in which he insists that freedom of discussion in religious matters is essentially more religious than the attempt to impose belief by force.

Ad 2: Much enlarged edition of this self-defence, or petition of the famous French lawyer and 'avocate au parlement de Paris', Simon-Nicolas Henry Linguet (1736-1794), addressed to king Louis XVI. A first edition had appeared in 1775 (in Genève? or Neuchâtel?) in 8vo, comprising only 134 pp. The present 12mo edition also was published in Liège by Bassompière fils, and somewhat later, with a new title, and as vol. 11 of Linguet's Mémoires et plaidoyers in Amsterdam (our copy). On pp. 219-260 is Linguet's 'Lettre au Roy', dated Brussels, 20 August 1776.
Received at first in the ranks of the philosophes, Linguet soon went over to their opponents, possibly more from contempt than from conviction, the immediate occasion for his change being a quarrel with Jean le Rond d'Alembert in 1762. Thenceforth he violently attacked whatever was considered modern and enlightened, and while he delighted society with his numerous sensational pamphlets, he aroused the fear and hatred of his opponents by his stinging wit. After wanderings which led him to Holland and back through the north of France, he went to Paris, where he began to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1764. But in spite of his brilliant ability and the claim by some that he had only lost two cases, the bitter attacks which he directed against his fellow advocates, especially against Gerbier (1725-1788), caused his dismissal (on dubious charges) from the bar in 1775. Our present book contains the text of his self-defence.
Later he turned to journalism and began the Journal de politique et de literature, which he employed for two years in literary, philosophical and legal criticisms. But a sarcastic article on the French Academy compelled him to seek refuge abroad. Linguet, however, continued his career of free lance, now attacking and now supporting the government, in the Annales politiques, civiles et litteraires, published from 1777 to 1792, first at London, then at Brussels and finally at Paris. During the early years of the French Revolution he issued several pamphlets against Mirabeau, who returned his ill-will with interest, calling him the ignorant and bombastic M. Linguet, advocate of Neros, sultans and viziers. His last work was a defence of Louis XVI . He retired to Marnes near Vile d'Avray to escape the Terror, but was sought out and summarily condemned to death for having flattered the despots of Vienna and London. He was guillotined in Paris on the 27th June 1794.
Linguet was a prolific writer in many fields. Examples of his attempted historical writing are Histoire du siècle d'Alexandre (Amsterdam, 1762), and Histoire impartiale des Jésuites (Madrid, 1768), the latter condemned to be burned. His opposition to the philosophies had its strongest expressions in Fanatisme des philosophes (Geneva and Paris, 1764) and Histoire des revolutions de l'empire romain (Paris, 1766-1768). His best legal treatise is Mémoire pour le comte de Morangies (Paris, 1772); Linguet's imprisonment in the Bastille afforded him the opportunity of writing his Mémoires sur la Bastille, first published in London in 1789.
Added at the end is the apparently extremely rare 'Collection complete des oeuvres de M. Linguet' (Amsterdam, M.M. Rey, 1777?; (24) pp.), in which Linguet extensively commends upon his own works with an invitation to subscribe to the Annales politiques, civiles & litteraires du dixhuitième siècle (1777-92)!

Good copies with written contemporary ownership's entries of 'P. Morency' on both titles.- (Some insign. marginal water staining at the beginning).

T.M. Scanlan, 'Manners, morals, and maxims in Rousseau's Lettre à Christophe de Beaumont', in: Neophilologus, 65/3 (1981); this edition not mentioned in STCN; ad 2: Not in the STCN.

Related Subjects: French Philosophy Politics

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