Produced by David Ross and Richard Farris
BARON D'HOLBACH
A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France
By Max Pearson Cushing
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in
the Faculty of Political Science,
Columbia University
New York
1914
Press of
The New Era Printing Company
Lancaster, PA
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction.
CHAPTER I. HOLBACH THE MAN.
Early Letters to John Wilkes.
Holbach's family.
Relations with Diderot, Rousseau, Hume, Garrick
and other important persons of the century.
Estimate of Holbach. His character and personality.
CHAPTER II. HOLBACH'S WORKS.
Miscellaneous Works.
Translations of German Scientific Works.
Translations of English Deistical Writers.
Boulanger's _Antiquité dévoilée_.
Original Works: _Le Christianisme devoilé_.
_Théologie portative_.
_La Contagion sacrée_.
_Essai sur les préjugés_.
_Le bons-sens_.
CHAPTER III. THE _Système de la Nature_ AND ITS PHILOSOPHY.
Voltaire's correspondence on the subject.
Goethe's sentiment.
Refutations and criticisms.
Holbach's philosophy.
APPENDIX. HOLBACH'S CORRESPONDENCE.
Five unpublished letters to John Wilkes.
[ENDNOTES]
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Part I. Editions of Holbach's works in Chronological Order.
Part II. General Bibliography.
BARON D'HOLBACH
A une extréme justesse d'esprit il joignait une simplicité
de moeurs tout-à-fait antique et patriarcale.
J. A. Naigeon, _Journal de Paris_, le 9 fev. 1789
INTRODUCTION
Diderot, writing to the Princess Dashkoff in 1771, thus analysed the
spirit of his century:
Chaque siècle a son esprit qui le caractérise. L'esprit du nôtre semble
être celui de la liberté. La première attaque contre la superstition a
été violente, sans mesure. Une fois que les hommes ont osé d'une manière
quelconque donner l'assaut à la barrière de la religion, cette barrière
la plus formidable qui existe comme la plus respectée, il est impossible
de s'arrêter. Dès qu'ils ont tourné des regards menaçants contre la
majesté du ciel, ils ne manqueront pas le moment d'après de les diriger
contre la souveraineté de la terre. Le câble qui tient et comprime
l'humanité est formé de deux cordes, l'une ne peut céder sans que
l'autre vienne à rompre. [Endnote 1:1]
The following study proposes to deal with this attack on religion that
preceded and helped to prepare the French Revolution. Similar phenomena
are by no means rare in the annals of history; eighteenth-century
atheism, however, is of especial interest, standing as it does at the
end of a long period of theological and ecclesiastical disintegration
and prophesying a reconstruction of society on a purely rational and
naturalistic basis. The anti-theistic movement has been so obscured by
the less thoroughgoing tendency of deism and by subsequent romanticism
that the real issue in the eighteenth century has been largely lost from
view. Hence it has seemed fit to center this study about the man who
stated the situation with the most unmistakable and uncompromising
clearness, and who still occupies a unique though obscure position in
the history of thought.
Holbach has been very much neglected by writers on the eighteenth
century. He has no biographer. M. Walferdin wrote (in an edition of
Diderot's Works, Paris, 1821, Vol. XII p. 115): "Nous nous occupons
depuis longtemps à rassembler les matériaux qui doivent servir à venger
la mémoire du philosophe de la patrie de Leibnitz, et dans l'ouvrage
que nous nous proposons de publier sous le titre "D'Holbach jugé par
ses contemporains" nous espérons faire justement apprécier ce savant
si estimable par la profondeur et la variété de ses connaissances, si
précieux à sa famille et à ses amis par la pureté et la simplicité
de ses moeurs, en qui la vertu était devenue une habitude et la
bienfaisance un besoin." This work has never appeared and M. Tourneux
thinks that nothing of it was found among M. Walferdin's papers. [2:2]
In 1834 Mr. James Watson published in an English translation of the
_Système de la Nature_, _A Short Sketch of the Life and the Writings
of Baron d'Holbach_ by Mr. Julian Hibbert, compiled especially for
that edition from Saint Saurin's article in Michaud's _Biographie
Universelle_ (Paris, 1817, Vol. XX, pp. 460-467), from Barbier's _Dict.
des ouvrages anonymes_ (Paris, 1822) and from the preface to the Paris
edition of the _Système de la Nature_ (4 vols., 18mo, 1821). This sketch
was later published separately (London, 1834, 12mo, pp. 14) but on
account of the author's sudden death it was left unfinished and is of no
value from the point of view of scholarship. Another attempt to publish
something on Holbach was made by Dr. Anthony C. Middleton of Boston in
1857. In the preface to his translation to the _Lettres à Eugenia_
he speaks of a "Biographical Memoir of Baron d'Holbach which I am
now preparing for the press." If ever published at all this _Memoir_
probably came to light in the _Boston Investigator_, a free-thinking
magazine published by Josiah P. Mendum, 45 Cornhill, Boston, but it is
not to be found. Mention should also be made of the fact that M. Assézat
intended to include in a proposed study of Diderot and the philosophical
movement, a chapter to be devoted to Holbach and his society; but this
work has never appeared. [3:3]
Of the two works bearing Holbach's name as a title, one is a piece of
libellous fiction by Mme. de Genlis, _Les Diners du baron d'Holbach_
(Paris, 1822, 8vo), the other a romance pure and simple by F. T. Claudon
(Paris, 1835, 2 vols., 8vo) called _Le Baron d'Holbach_, the events of
which take place largely at his house and in which he plays the rôle
of a minor character. A good account of Holbach, though short and
incidental, is to be found in M. Avézac-Lavigne's _Diderot et la Société
du Baron d'Holbach_ (Paris, 1875, 8vo), and M. Armand Gasté has a little
book entitled _Diderot et le cure de Montchauvet, une Mystification
littéraire chez le Baron d'Holbach_ (Paris, 1895, 16vo). There are
several works which devote a chapter or section to Holbach. [3:4] The
French critics and the histories of philosophy contain slight notices;
Rosenkranz's "Diderot's Leben" devotes a chapter to Granval, Holbach's
country seat, and life there as described by Diderot in his letters to
Mlle. Volland; and he is included in such histories of ideas as
Soury, J., "Bréviaire de l'histoire de Matérialisme" (Paris, 1881)
and Delvaille, J., _Essai sur l'histoire de l'idée de progrès_
(Paris, 1910); but nowhere else is there anything more than the merest
encyclopedic account, often defective and incorrect.
The sources are in a sense full and reliable for certain phases of his
life and literary activity. His own publications, numbering about fifty,
form the most important body of source material for the history and
development of his ideas. Next in importance are contemporary memoirs
and letters including those of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Grimm,
Morellet, Marmontel, Mme. d'Epinay, Naigeon, Garat, Galiani, Hume,
Garrick, Wilkes, Romilly and others; and scattered letters by Holbach
himself, largely to his English friends. In addition there is a large
body of contemporary hostile criticism of his books, by Voltaire,
Frederick II, Castillon, Holland, La Harpe, Delisle de Sales and a host
of outraged ecclesiastics, so that one is well informed in regard to the
scandal that his books caused at the time. Out of these materials
and other scattered documents and notices it is possible to
reconstruct--though somewhat defectively--the figure of a man who played
an important rôle in his own day; but whose name has long since lost its
significance--even in the ears of scholars. It is at the suggestion of
Professor James Harvey Robinson that this reconstruction has been made.
If it shall prove of any interest or value he must be credited with the
initiation of the idea as well as constant aid in its realization. For
rendering possible the necessary investigations, recognition is due
to the administration and officers of the Bibliothèque Nationale, the
British Museum, the Library of Congress, the Libraries of Columbia and
Harvard Universities, Union and Andover Theological Seminaries, and the
Public Libraries of Boston and New York.
M. P. C.
NEW YORK CITY,
July, 1914.
CHAPTER I. HOLBACH, THE MAN.
Paul Heinrich Dietrich, or as he is better known, Paul-Henri Thiry,
baron d'Holbach, was born in January, 1723, in the little village of
Heidelsheim (N.W. of Carlsruhe) in the Palatinate. Of his parentage and
youth nothing is known except that his father, a rich parvenu, according
to Rousseau, [5:5] brought him to Paris at the age of twelve, where he
received the greater part of his education. His father died when Holbach
was still a young man. It may be doubted if young Holbach inherited
his title and estates immediately as there was an uncle "Messire
Francois-Adam, Baron d'Holbach, Seigneur de Héeze, Léende et autres
Lieux" who lived in the rue Neuve S. Augustin and died in 1753. His
funeral was held at Saint-Roch, his parish church, Thursday, September
16th, where he was afterward entombed. [5:6] Holbach was a student in
the University of Leyden in 1746 and spent a good deal of time at his
uncle's estate at Héeze, a little town in the province of North Brabant
(S.E. of Eindhoven). He also traveled and studied in Germany. There are
two manuscript letters in the British Museum (Folio 30867, pp. 14, 18,
20) addressed by Holbach to John Wilkes, which throw some light on his
school-days. It is interesting to note that most of Holbach's friends
were young Englishmen of whom there were some twenty-five at the
University of Leyden at that time. [6:7] Already at the age of
twenty-three Holbach was writing very good English, and all his life he
was a friend of Englishmen and English ideas. His friendship for Wilkes,
then a lad of nineteen, lasted all his life and increased in intimacy
and dignity. The two letters following are of interest because they
are the only documents we have bearing on Holbach's early manhood. They
reveal a certain sympathy and feeling--rather gushing to be sure--quite
unlike anything in his later writings, and quite out of line with the
supposedly cold temper of a materialist and an atheist.
[Footnote: These letters, contrary to modern usage, are printed with all
the peculiarities of eighteenth century orthography. It was felt
that they would lose their quaintness and charm if Holbach's somewhat
fantastic English were trifled with or his spelling, capitalization and
punctuation modernized.]
HOLBACH TO WILKES
HÉEZE Aug. 9, 1746
_Dearest Friend_
I should not have felt by half enough the pleasure your kind letter gave
me, If I had words to express it; I never doubted of your friendship,
nor I hope do you know me so little as to doubt of mine, but your letter
is full of such favorable sentiments to me that I must own I cannot
repay them but by renewing to you the entire gift of my heart that has
been yours ever since heaven favour'd me with your acquaintance. I need
not tell you the sorrow our parting gave me, in vain Philosophy cried
aloud nature was still stronger and the philosopher was forced to yield
to the friend, even now I feel the wound is not cur'd. Therefore no more
of that--_Hope_ is my motto. Telling me you are happy you make me so
but in the middle of your happiness you dont forget your friend, What
flattering thought to me! Such are the charms of friendship every
event is shar'd and nothing nor even the greatest intervals are able to
interrupt the happy harmony of truly united minds. I left Leyden about 8
or 10 days after you but before my departure I thought myself obliged to
let Mr Dowdenwell know what you told me, he has seen the two letters Mr
Johnson had received and I have been mediator of ye peace made betwixt
the 2 parties, I don't doubt but you have seen by this time Messrs Bland
& Weatherill who were to set out for Engelland the same week I parted
with them. When I was leaving Leyden Mr Vernon happen'd to tell me he
had a great mind to make a trip to Spa. So my uncles' estate being on
ye road I desir'd him to come along with me, he has been here a week
and went on afterwards in his journey, at my arrival here, I found that
General Count Palfi with an infinite number of military attendants had
taken possession of my uncles' house, and that the 16 thousd men lately
come from Germany to strengthen the allies army, commanded by Count
Bathiani and that had left ye neighborhood of Breda a few days before
and was come to Falkenswert (where you have past in your journey to
Spa) one hour from hence. Prince Charles arrived here the same day from
Germany to take ye command of the allies, the next Day the whole army
amounting to 70thd men went on towards the county of Liège to prevent
the French from beseiging Namur, I hear now that the two armies are only
one hour from another, so we expect very soon the news of a great battle
but not without fear, Count Saxes army being, by all account of hundred
ten thoud. men besides. Prince Counti's army of 50 thd. this latter
General is now employ'd at the siege of Charleroy, that can't resist
a long while, it is a report that the King of France is arrived in
his army, I hope this long account will entertain you for want of news
papers: Mr. Dowdeswell being left alone of our club at Leyden I Desir'd
him to come and spend with me the time of his vacations here, which
proposal I hope he will accept and be here next week. What happy
triumvirat would be ours if you were to join: but that is impossible at
present; however those who cant enjoy reality are fond of feeding their
fancies with agreable Dreams and charming pictures; that helps a little
to sooth the sorrow of absence and makes one expect with more pati[ence]
till fortune allows him to put in execution the cherish'd systems he has
been fed upon fore some [time] I shall expect with great many thanks the
books you are to send me; it will be for me a dubble pleasure to read
them, being of your choice which I value as much as it deserves, and
looking at them as upon a new proof of your benevolence, as to those I
design'd to get from Paris for you, I heard I could not get them before
my uncles' return hither all commerce being stopt by the way betwixt
this country and France.
A few days before my departure from Leyden I receiv'd a letter from
Mr Freeman from Berlin, he seams vastly pleas'd with our Germany, and
chiefly with Hambourg where a beautiful lady has taken in his heart the
room of poor Mss. Vitsiavius, my prophesy was just; traveling seems to
have alter'd a good deal his melancholy disposition as I may conjecture
by his way of writing. He desired his service to you. As to me, Idleness
renders me every day more philosopher every passion is languishing
within me, I retain but one in a warm degree, viz, friendship in
which you share no small part. I took a whim to study a little Physic
accordingly I purchased several books in that Way, and my empty hours
here are employ'd with them. I am sure your time will be much better
employ'd at Alesbury you'll find there a much nobler entertainment
Cupid is by far Lovlier than Esculapius, however I shall not envy your
happiness, in the Contrary I wish that all your desires be crown'd with
success, that a Passion that proves fatal to great many of men be void
of sorrow for you, that all the paths of love be spred over with flowers
in one Word that you may not address in vain to the charming Mss. M. I
am almost tempted to fall in love with that unknown beauty, 't would not
be quite like Don Quixotte for your liking to her would be for me a very
strong prejudice of her merit, which the poor Knight had not in his love
for Dulcinea.
I shall not ask your pardon for the length of this letter I am sure
friendship will forgive the time I steal to Love however I cannot give
up so easily a conversation with a true friend with whom I fancy to
speak yet in one of those delightfull evening walks at Leyden. It is
a dream, I own it, but it is so agreable one to me that nothing but
reality could be compared to the pleasure I feel: let me therefore
insist a little more upon't and travel with my Letter, we are gone! I
think to be at Alesbury! there I see my Dear Wilkes! What a Flurry
of Panions! Joy! fear of a second parting! what charming tears! what
sincere Kisses!--but time flows and the end of this Love is now as
unwelcome to me, as would be to another to be awaken'd in the middle of
a Dream wherein he is going to enjoy a beloved mistress; the enchantment
ceases, the delightfull images vanish, and nothing is left to me but
friendship, which is of all my possessions the fairest, and the surest,
I am most sincerely Dear Wilkes
Your affectionate friend and humble servant
DE HOLBACH
Heze the 9th august 1746 N. S.
I shall expect with impatience the letter you are to write me from
Alesbury. Will it be here very soon!
HOLBACH TO WILKES [HÉEZE Dec. 3rd. 1746]
_Dearest Wilkes_
During a little voyage I have made into Germany I have received your
charming letter of the 8th. September O. S. the many affairs I have been
busy with for these 3 months has hindered me hitherto from returning
to you as speedy an answer as I should have done. I know too much your
kindness for me to make any farther apology and I hope you are enough
acquainted with the sincerety of my friendship towards you to adscribe
my fault to forgetfulness or want of gratitude be sure, Dear friend,
that such a disposition will allways be unknown to me in regard to
you. I don't doubt but you will be by this time returned at London,
the winter season being an obstacle to the pleasures you have enjoyed
following ye Letter at Alesbury during the last Autumn. I must own I
have felt a good deal of pride when you gave me the kind assurance
that love has not made you forget an old friend, I need not tell you my
disposition. I hope you know it well enough and like my friendship for
you has no bounds I want expressions to show it. Mr Dowdeswell has been
so good as to let me enjoy his company here in the month of August, and
returned to Leyden to pursue his studies in the middle of September.
We often wished your company and made sincere libations to you with
burgundy and Champaigne I had a few weeks there after I set out for
Germany where I expected to spend the whole winter but the sudden death
of my Uncle's Steward has forced me to come back here to put in order
the affairs of this estate, I don't know how long I shall be obliged to
stay in the meanwhile I act pretty well the part of a County Squire, id
est, hunting, shooting, fishing, walking every day without to lay aside
the ever charming conversation of Horace Virgil Homer and all our noble
friends of the Elysian fields. They are allways faithfull to me, with
their aid I find very well how to employ my time, but I want in this
country a true bosom friend like my dear Wilkes to converse with, but my
pretenssions are too high, for every abode with such a company would be
heaven for me.
I perceive by your last letter that your hopes are very like to succeed
by Mss Mead, you are sure that every happines that can befall to you
will make me vastly happy. I beseech you therefore to let me know
everytime how far you are gone, I take it to be a very good omen for
you, that your lovely mistress out of compliance has vouchsafed to learn
a harsh high-dutch name, which would otherwise have made her starttle,
at the very hearing of it. I am very thankful for her kind desire
of seeing me in Engelland which I dont wish the less but you know my
circumstances enough, to guess that I cannot follow my inclinations. I
have not heard hitherto anything about the books you have been so kind
as to send me over by the opportunity of a friend. I have wrote about it
to Msrs Conrad et Bouwer of Rotterdam, they answered that they were not
yet there. Nevertheless I am very much oblided to you for your kindness
and wish to find very soon the opportunity of my revenge. Mr Dowderswell
complains very much of Mrs Bland and Weatherill, having not heard of
them since their departure from Leyden. I desire my compliments to Mr
Dyer and all our old acquaintances. Pray be so good as to direct your
first letter under the covert of Mr Dowderwell at Ms Alliaume's at
Leyden he shall send it to me over immediately, no more at Mr Van
Sprang's like you used to do. I wish to know if Mr Lyson since his
return to his native country, continues in his peevish cross temper. If
you have any news besides I'll be glad to hear them by your next which I
expect very soon.
About politicks I cannot tell you anything at present, you have heard
enough by this time the fatal battle fought near Liège in 8ber last;
everybody has little hopes of the Congress of Breda, the Austrian and
Piedmontese are entered into provence, which is not as difficult as to
maintain themselves therein, I wish a speedy peace would enable us both
to see the rejoicings that will attend the marriage of the Dauphin
of France with a Princess of Saxony. I have heard that peace is made
between England and Spain, which you ought to know better than I. We
fear very much for the next campaign the siege of Maestrich in our
neighborhood. These are all the news I know. I'll tell you another that
you have known a long while viz. that nobody is with more sincerity My
Dear Wilkes
Your faithfull humble Servant and Friend
HOLBACH
Heeze the 3 d Xber 1746 ns
By 1750 Holbach was established in Paris as a young man of the world.
His fortune, his learning, his sociability attracted the younger
literary set toward him. In 1749 he was already holding his Thursday
dinners which later became so famous. Among his early friends were
Diderot, Rousseau and Grimm. With them he took the side of the Italian
_Opera buffa_ in the famous musical quarrel of 1752, and published
two witty brochures ridiculing French music. [12:9] He was an art
connoisseur and bought Oudry's _Chienne allaitant ses petits_, the _chef
d'oeuvre_ of the Salon of 1753. [12:10] During these years he was hard
at work at his chosen sciences of chemistry and mineralogy. In 1752
he published in a huge volume in quarto with excellent plates, a
translation of Antonio Neri's _Art of Glass making_, and in 1753 a
translation of Wallerius' _Mineralogy_. On July 26, 1754, the Academy
of Berlin made him a foreign associate in recognition of his scholarly
attainments in Natural History, [12:11] and later he was elected to the
Academies of St. Petersburg and Mannheim.
All that was now lacking to this brilliant young man was an attractive
wife to rule over his salon. His friends urged him to wed, and in 1753
he married Mlle. Basile-Genevieve-Susanne d'Aine, daughter of "Maître
Marius-Jean-Baptiste Nicolas d'Aine, conseiller au Roi en son grand
conseil, associé externe de l'Acad. des sciences et belles letters de
Prusse." [12:12] M. d'Aine was also Maître des Requêtes and a man
of means. Mme. d'Holbach was a very charming and gracious woman and
Holbach's good fortune seemed complete when suddenly Mme. d'Holbach died
from a most loathsome and painful disease in the summer of 1754. Holbach
was heart-broken and took a trip through the provinces with his friend
Grimm, to whom he was much attached, to distract his mind from his
grief. He returned in the early winter and the next year (1755) got a
special dispensation from the Pope to marry his deceased wife's sister,
Mlle. Charlotte-Susanne d'Aine. By her he had four children, two sons
and two daughters. The first, Charles-Marius, was born about the middle
of August, 1757, and baptized in Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, Aug. 22.
He inherited the family title and was a captain in the regiment of the
Schomberg-Dragons. [13:13] The first daughter was born towards the end
of 1758 and the second about the middle of Jan., 1760. [13:14] The elder
married the Marquis de Châtenay and the younger the Marquis de Nolivos,
"Captaine au régiment de la Seurre, Dragons." Their Majesties the King
and Queen and the Royal Family signed their marriage contract May 27,
1781. [13:15] Of the second son there seem to be no traces. Holbach's
mother-in-law, Madame d'Aine, was a very interesting old woman as she
is pictured in Diderot's _Mémoires_, and there was a brother-in-law,
"Messire Marius-Jean-Baptiste-Nicholas d'Aine, chevalier, conseiller
du roi en ses conseils, Maître des requêtes honoraire de son hôtel,
intendant de justice, police, et finances de la généralité de Tours,"
who lived in rue Saint Dominique, paroisse Saint-Sulpice. There was in
Holbach's household for a long time an old Scotch surgeon, a homeless,
misanthropic old fellow by the name of Hope, of whom Diderot gives a
most interesting account. [14:16] These are the only names we have of
the personnel of Holbach's household. His town house was in the rue
Royale, butte Saint-Roch. It was here that for an almost unbroken period
of forty years he gave his Sunday and Thursday dinners. The latter day
was known to the more intimate set of encyclopedists as the _jour du
synagogue_. Here the _église philosophique_ met regularly to discuss its
doctrines and publish its propaganda of radicalism.
Holbach had a very pleasant country seat, the château of Grandval,
now in the arrondisement of Boissy St. Léger at Sucy-en-Brie. It is
pleasantly situated in the valley of a little stream, the Morbra, which
flows into the Marne. The property was really the estate of Mme. d'Aine
who lived with the Holbachs. Here the family and their numerous guests
passed the late summer and fall. Here Diderot spent weeks at a time
working on the Encyclopedia, dining, and walking on the steep slopes
of the Marne with congenial companions. To him we are indebted for our
intimate knowledge of Grandval and its inhabitants, their slightest
doings and conversations; and as Danou has well said, if we were to wish
ourselves back in any past age we should choose with many others the
mid-eighteenth century and the charming society of Paris and Grandval.
[14:17]
Holbach's life, in common with that of most philosophers, offers no
events, except that he came near being killed in the crush and riot in
the rue Royale that followed the fire at the Dauphin's wedding in 1770.
[15:18] He was never an official personage. His entire life was spent
in study, writing and conversation with his friends. He traveled very
little; the world came to him, to the _Café de l'Europe_, as Abbé
Galiani called Paris. From time to time Holbach went to Contrexéville
for his gout and once to England to visit David Garrick; but he disliked
England very thoroughly and was glad to get back to Paris. The events of
his life in so far as there were any, were his relations with people.
He knew intimately practically all the great men of his century, except
Montesquieu and Voltaire, who were off the stage before his day. [15:19]
Holbach's most intimate and life-long friend among the great figures
of the century was Diderot, of whom Rousseau said, "À la distance de
quelques siècles du moment où il a vécu, Diderot paraîtra un homme
prodigieux; on regardera de loin cette tête universelle avec une
admiration mêlée d'étonnement, comme nous regardons aujourd'hui la tête
des Platon et des Aristote." [15:20] All his contemporaries agreed that
nothing was so charged with divine fire as the conversation of
Diderot. Gautherin, in his fine bronze of him on the Place
Saint-Germain-des-Près, seems to have caught the spirit of his talk and
has depicted him as he might have sat in the midst of Holbach's society,
of which he was the inspiration and the soul. Holbach backed Diderot
financially in his great literary and scientific undertaking and
provided articles for the Encyclopedia on chemistry and natural science.
Diderot had a high opinion of his erudition and said of him, "Quelque
système que forge mon imagination, je suis sur que mon ami d'Holbach me
trouve des faits et des autorités pour le justifier." [16:21] Opinions
differ in regard to the intellectual influence of these men upon each
other. Diderot was without doubt the greater thinker, but Holbach stated
his atheism with far greater clarity and Diderot gave his sanction to
it by embellishing Holbach's books with a few eloquent pages of his
own. Diderot said to Sir Samuel Romilly in 1781, "Il faut _sabrer_
la théologie," [16:22] and died in 1784 in the belief that complete
infidelity was the first step toward philosophy. Five years later
Holbach was buried by his side in the crypt of the Chapel of the Virgin
behind the high altar in Saint-Roch. No tablet marks their tombs, and
although repeated investigations have been made no light has been thrown
on the exact position of their burial place. According to Diderot's
daughter, Mme. Vandeuil, their entire correspondence has been destroyed
or lost. [16:23]
Holbach's relations with Rousseau were less harmonious. The account
of their mutual misunderstandings contained in the _Confessions_, in a
letter by Cerutti in the _Journal de Paris_ Dec. 2, 1789, and in
private letters of Holbach's to Hume, Garrick, and Wilkes, is a long and
tiresome tale. The author of _Eclaircissements relatifs à la publication
des confessions de Rousseau..._ (Paris, 1789) blames the _club
holbachique_ for their treatment of Rousseau, but the fault seems to
lie on both sides. According to Rousseau's account, Holbach sought his
friendship and for a few years he was one of Holbach's society. But,
after the success of the _Devin du Village_ in 1753, the _holbachiens_
turned against him out of jealousy of his genius as a composer. Visions
of a dark plot against him rose before his fevered and sensitive
imagination, and after 1756 he left the Society of the Encyclopedists,
never to return. Holbach, on the other hand, while admitting rather
questionable treatment of Rousseau, never speaks of any personal injury
on his part, and bewails the fact that "l'homme le plus éloquent s'est
rendu ainsi l'homme le plus anti-littéraire, et l'homme le plus sensible
s'est rendu le plus anti-social." [17:24] He did warn Hume against
taking him to England, and in a letter to Wilkes predicted the quarrel
that took place shortly after. In writing to Garrick [17:25] he says
some hard but true things about Rousseau, who on his part never really
defamed Holbach but depicted him as the virtuous atheist under the guise
of Wolmar in the _Nouvelle Heloïse_. Their personal incompatibility
is best explained on the grounds of the radical differences in their
temperaments and types of mind and by the fact that Rousseau was too
sensitive to get on with anybody for any great length of time.
Two other great Frenchmen, Buffon and d'Alembert, were for a time
members of Holbach's society, but, for reasons that are not altogether
clear, gradually withdrew. Grimm suggests that Buffon did not find the
young philosophers sufficiently deferential to him and to the authorized
powers, and feared for his dignity,--and safety, in their company.
D'Alembert, on the other hand, was a recluse by nature, and, after
giving up his editorship on the Encyclopedia, easily dropped out of
Diderot's society and devoted himself to Mlle. Lespinasse and Mme.
Geoffrin. Holbach and Helvetius were life-long friends and spent much
time together reading at Helvetius's country place at Voré. After his
death in 1774, Holbach frequented Mme. Helvetius' salon where he
knew and deeply influenced Volney, Cabanis, de Tracy, and the first
generation of the Ideologists who continued his and Helvetius'
philosophical doctrines. Among the other Frenchmen of the day who were
on intimate relations with Holbach and frequented his salon were La
Condamine, Condillac, Condorcet, Turgot, Morellet, Raynal, Grimm,
Marmontel, Colardeau, Saurin, Suard, Saint-Lambert, Thomas, Duclos,
Chastellux, Boulanger, Darcet, Roux, Rouelle, Barthès, Venel, Leroy,
Damilaville, Naigeon, Lagrange and lesser names,--but well known in
Paris in the eighteenth century,--d'Alinville, Chauvelin, Desmahis,
Gauffecourt, Margency, de Croismare, de Pezay, Coyer, de Valory,
Charnoi, not to mention a host of others.
Among Holbach's most intimate English friends were Hume, Garrick,
Wilkes, Sterne, Gibbon, Horace Walpole, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin,
Dr. Priestley, Lord Shelburne, Gen. Barré, Gen. Clark, Sir James
MacDonald, Dr. Gem, Messrs. Stewart, Demster, Fordyce, Fitzmaurice,
Foley, etc. Holbach addressed a letter to Hume in 1762, before making
his acquaintance, in which he expressed his admiration of his philosophy
and the desire to know him personally. [18:26] In 1764 Hume came to
Paris as secretary of the British Embassy and immediately called on
Holbach and became a regular frequenter of his salon. It was to Holbach
that he wrote first on the outbreak of his quarrel with Rousseau and
they corresponded at length in egard to the publication of the _Exposé
succinct_, which was to justify Hume in the eyes of the French. Hume and
Holbach had much in common intellectually, although the latter was far
more thoroughgoing in his repudiation of Theism.
David Garrick and his wife were frequent visitors at the rue Royale
on their trips to Paris where they were very much liked by Holbach's
society. Nothing is more cordial or gracious than the compliments passed
between them in their subsequent correspondence. There are two published
letters from Holbach in Mr. Hedgecock's recent study of Garrick and his
French friends, excellent examples of the happy spontaneity and sympathy
that were characteristic of French sociability in the eighteenth
century. [19:27] Holbach in turn spent several months with Garrick at
Hampton.
Holbach's early friendship for Wilkes has already been mentioned. Wilkes
spent a great deal of time in Paris on the occasion of his exiles from
England and became very intimate with Holbach. They corresponded up to
the very end of Holbach's life and there was a constant interchange of
friendly offices between them. [19:28] Miss Wilkes, who spent much time
in Paris, was a very good friend of Mme. Holbach and Mlle. Helvetius.
Adam Smith often dined at Holbach's with Turgot and the economists;
Gibbon also found his dinners agreeable except for the dogmatism of the
atheists; Walpole resented it also and kept away. Priestley seems
to have gotten on very well, although the philosophers found his
materialism and unitarianism a trifle inconsistent. It was at Holbach's
that Shelburne met Morellet with whom he carried on a long and serious
correspondence on economics. There seem to be no details of Holbach's
relations with Franklin, who was evidently more assiduous at the salon
of Mme. Helvetius whom he desired to marry.
Holbach's best friend among the Italians was Abbé Galiani, secretary
of the Neapolitan Embassy, who spent ten years in the salons of Paris.
After his return to Naples his longing for Paris led him to a voluminous
correspondence with his French friends including Holbach. A few of their
letters are extant. Beccaria also came to Paris at the invitation of
the translator of his _Crimes and Punishments_, Abbé Morellet, made on
behalf of Holbach and his society. Beccaria and his friend Veri, who
accompanied him, had long been admirers of French philosophy, and the
Frenchmen found much to admire in Beccaria's book. One _avocat-général_,
M. Servan of the Parlement of Bordeaux, a friend of Holbach's, tried
to put his reforms in practice and shared the fate of most reformers.
Holbach was also in correspondence with Beccaria, and one of his letters
has been published in M. Landry's recent study of Beccaria.
Among the other Italians whom Holbach befriended were Paulo Frizi, the
mathematician; Dr. Gatti; Pincini, the musician; and Mme. Riccoboni,
ex-actress and novelist; whose lively correspondence with Garrick whom
she met at Holbach's sheds much light on the social relations of the
century.
Among the other foreigners who were friends or acquaintances of Holbach
were his fellow countrymen, Frederich Melchon Grimm, like himself a
naturalized Frenchman and the bosom friend of Diderot; Meister, his
collaborator in the _Literary Correspondence_; Kohant, a Bohemian
musician, composer, of the _Bergère des Alpes_ and Mme. Holbach's
lute-teacher; Baron Gleichen, Comte de Creutz, Danish and Scandinavian
diplomats; and a number of German nobles; the hereditary princes of
Brunswick and Saxe Gotha, Baron Alaberg, afterwards elector of Mayence,
Baron Schomberg and Baron Studitz.
Among the well known women of the century Holbach was most intimate with
Mme. d'Epinay, who became a very good friend of Mme. Holbach's and was
present at the birth of her first son, and, in her will, left her a
portrait by Rembrandt. He was also a friend of Mme. Geoffrin, attended
her salon, and knew Mlle. de Lespinasse, Mme. Houderot and most of the
important women of the day.
There are excellent sources from which to form an estimate of this man
whose house was the social centre of the century. Just after Holbach's
death on January 21, 1789, Naigeon, his literary agent, who had lived on
terms of the greatest intimacy with him for twenty-four years, wrote a
long eulogy which filled the issue of the _Journal de Paris_ for Feb.
9. There was another letter to the _Journal_ on Feb. 12. Grimm's
_Correspondance Littéraire_ for March contains a long account of him
by Meister, and there are other notices in contemporary memoirs such as
Morellet's and Marmontel's. All these accounts agree in picturing him as
the most admirable of men.
It must be remembered that Holbach always enjoyed what was held to be a
considerable fortune in his day. From his estates in Westphalia he had
a yearly income of 60,000 _livres_ which he spent in entertaining. This
freedom from economic pressure gave him leisure to devote his time
to his chosen intellectual pursuits and to his friends. He was a
universally learned man. He knew French, German, English, Italian and
Latin extremely well and had a fine private library of about three
thousand works often of several volumes each, in these languages and in
Greek and Hebrew. The catalogue of this library was published by Debure
in 1789. It would be difficult to imagine a more comprehensive and
complete collection of its size. He had also a rich collection
of drawings by the best masters, fine pictures of which he was a
connoisseur, bronzes, marbles, porcelains and a natural history cabinet,
so in vogue in those days, containing some very valuable specimens.
He was one of the most learned men of his day in natural science,
especially chemistry and mineralogy, and to his translations from the
best German scientific works is largely due the spread of scientific
learning in France in the eighteenth century. Holbach was also very
widely read in English theology and philosophy of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries and derived his anti-theological inspiration from
these two sources. To this vast fund of learning, he joined an extreme
modesty and simplicity. He sought no academic honors, published all
his works anonymously, and, had it not been for the pleasure he took in
communicating his ideas to his friends, no one would have suspected his
great erudition. He had an extraordinary memory and the reputation of
never forgetting anything of interest. This plenitude of information,
coupled with his easy and pleasant manner of talking, made his society
much sought after. Naigeon said of him (in his preface to the works of
Lagrange):
Personne n'était plus communicatif que M. le baron d'Holbach; personne
ne prenait aux progrès de la raison un intérêt plus vif, plus sincère,
et ne s'occupait avec plus de zèle et l'activité des moyens de les
accélérer.
Également versé dans la plupart des matières sur lesquelles il importe
le plus à des êtres raisonnables d'avoir une opinion arrêtée, M. le
baron d'Holbach portait dans leur discussion un jugement sain, une
logique sévère, et une analyse exacte et précise. Quelque fut l'objet de
ses entretiens avec ses amis, ou même avec des indifférens, tels qu'en
offrent plus ou moins toutes les sociétés; il inspirait sans effort à
ceux qui l'écoutaient l'enthousiasme de l'art ou de la science dont
il parlait; et on ne le quittait jamais sans regretter de n'avoir pas
cultivé la branche particulière de connaissances qui avait fait le sujet
de la conversation, sans désirer d'être plus instruit, plus éclairé, et
surtout sans admirer la claret, la justesse de son esprit, et l'ordre
dans lequel il savait présenter ses idées.
This virtue of communicativeness, of _sociabilité_, Holbach carried into
all the relations of life. He was always glad to lend or give his books
to anyone who could make use of them. "Je suis riche," he used to say,
"mais je ne vois dans la fortune qu'un instrument de plus pour opérer
le bien plus promptement et plus efficacement." In fact Holbach's whole
principle of life and action was to increase the store of human well
being. And he did this without any religious motive whatsoever. As Julie
says of Wolmar in _La Nouvelle Heloïse_, "Il fait le bien sans espoir de
récompense, il est plus vertueux, plus désintéressé que nous." There are
many recorded instances of Holbach's gracious benevolence. As he said to
Helvetius, "Vous êtes brouillé avec tous ceux que vous avez obligé, mais
j'ai gardé tous mes amis." Holbach had the faculty of attaching people
to him. Diderot tells how at the Salon of 1753 after Holbach had bought
Oudry's famous picture, all the collectors who had passed it by came to
him and offered him twice what he paid for it. Holbach went to find
the artist to ask him permission to cede the picture to his profit,
but Oudry refused, saying that he was only too happy that his best work
belonged to the man who was the first to appreciate it. Instances of
Holbach's liberality to Kohant, a poor musician, and to Suard, a poor
literary man, are to be found in the pages of Diderot and Meister, and
his constant generosity to his friends is a commonplace in their Memoirs
and Correspondence. Only Rousseau was ungrateful enough to complain
that Holbach's free-handed gifts insulted his poverty. His kindness to
Lagrange, a young literary man whom he rescued from want, has been well
told by M. Naigeon in the preface to the works of Lagrange (p. xviii).
But perhaps the most touching instances of Holbach's benevolence are his
relations with the peasants of Contrexéville, one of which was published
in the _Journal de Lecture_, 1775, the other in an anonymous letter
to the _Journal de Paris_, Feb. 12, 1789. The first concerns the
reconciliation of two old peasants who, not wanting to go to court,
brought their differences to their respected friend for a settlement.
Nothing is more simple and beautiful than this homely tale as told in
a letter of Holbach's to a friend of his. The second, which John Wilkes
said ought to be written in letters of gold, deserves to be reproduced
as a whole.
L'éloge funèbre que M. Naigeon a consacré à la mémoire de M. le Baron
d'Holbach suffit pour donner une idée juste de ses lumières, mais le
hasard m'a mis à portée de les juger encore mieux. J'ai vu M. le Baron
d'Holbach dans deux voyages que j'ai faits aux eaux de Contrexéville.
S'occuper de sa souffrance et de sa guérison, c'est le soin de chaque
malade. M. le Baron d'Holbach devenait le médecin, l'ami, le consolateur
de quiconque venait aux eaux et il semblait bien moins occupé de ses
infirmités que de celles des autres. Lorsque des malades indigens
manquaient de secours, ou pécuniaires ou curatifs, il les leur procurait
avec un plaisir qui lui faisait plus de bien que les eaux. Je me
promenais un soir avec lui sur une hauteur couverte d'un massif de bois
qui fait perspective de loin et près duquel s'élève un petit Hermitage.
Là, demeure un cénobite qui n'a de revenu que les aumônes de ceux dont
il reçoit les visites. Nous acquittâmes chacun notre dette hospitalière.
En prenant congé de l'Hermite, M. le Baron d'Holbach me dit de le
précéder un instant et qu'il allait me suivre. Je le précédai, et comme
il ne me suivait pas je m'arrêtai, pour l'attendre sur un terte exhaussé
d'où l'on découvre tout le pays. Je contemplais le canton que je
dominais, plongé dans une douce rêverie. J'en fus tiré par des cris et
je me retournai vers l'endroit d'òu ils partaient. Je vis M. le Baron
d'Holbach environné d'une vieille femme et de deux villageois, l'un
vieux comme elle et l'autre jeune. Tous trois, les larmes aux yeux,
l'embrassaient hautement. Allez vous-en donc, s'écrait M. le Baron
d'Holbach; laissez moi, on m'attend, ne me suivez pas, adieu; je
reviendrai l'année prochaine. En me voyant arriver vers eux, les trois
personnes reconnaissantes disparurent. Je lui demandai le sujet de tant
de bénédictions. Ce jeune paysan que vous avez vu s'etait engagé, j'ai
obtenu de son colonel sa liberté en payant les cents écus prescrits par
l'ordonnance. Il est amoureux d'une jeune paysanne aussi pauvre que
lui, je viens d'acheter pour eux un petit bien qui m'a coûté huit cent
francs. Le vieux père est perclus, aux deux bras, de rhumatismes, je lui
ai fourni trois boîtes du baume des Valdejeots, si estimé en ce pays-ci.
La vieille mère est sujetté à des maux d'estomac, et je lui ai apporté
un pot de confection d'hyacinthe. Ils travaillaient dans le champ,
voisin du bois, je suis allé les voir tandis que vous marchiez en avant.
Ils m'ont suivi malgré moi. Ne parlez de cela à personne. On dirait
que je veux faire le généreux et le bon philosophe, mais je ne suis que
humain, et mes charités sont la plus agréable dépense de mes voyages.
This humanity of Holbach's is the very keynote of his character and of
his intellectual life as well. As M. Walferdin has said, the denial of
the supernatural was for him the base of all virtue, and resting on this
principle, he exemplified social qualities that do the greatest honor to
human nature. He and Madame Holbach are the only conspicuous examples
of conjugal fidelity and happiness among all the people that one has
occasion to mention in a study of the intellectual and literary circles
of the eighteenth century. They were devoted to each other, to their
children and to their friends. Considering the traits of Holbach's
character that have been cited, there can scarcely be two opinions in
regard to completeness with which he realized his ideal of humanity
and sociability. M. Naigeon has well summed up in a few words Holbach's
relation to the only duties that he recognized, "He was a good husband,
a good father and a good friend."