onnaire de Trevoux" claims that "it is one of the most ancient
towns of Europe, that it was the seat of the empire of the Gauls, and
gave kings to the Celts."

I do not wish to combat the ancientness of any town or any family. But
was there ever an empire of the Gauls? Did the Celts have kings? This
mania for antiquity is a malady from which one will not be healed so
soon. The Gauls, Germany, Scandinavia have nothing that is antique save
the land, the trees and the animals. If you want antiquities, go toward
Asia, and even then it is very small beer. Man is ancient and monuments
new, that is what we have in view in more than one article.

If it were a real benefit to be born in a stone or wooden enclosure more
ancient than another, it would be very reasonable to make the foundation
of one's town date back to the time of the war of the giants; but since
there is not the least advantage in this vanity, one must break away
from it. That is all I had to say about Bourges.

_BRAHMINS_

Is it not probable that the Brahmins were the first legislators of the
earth, the first philosophers, the first theologians?

Do not the few monuments of ancient history which remain to us form a
great presumption in their favour, since the first Greek philosophers
went to them to learn mathematics, and since the most ancient
curiosities collected by the emperors of China are all Indian?

We will speak elsewhere of the "Shasta"; it is the first book of
theology of the Brahmins, written about fifteen hundred years before
their "Veidam," and anterior to all the other books.

Their annals make no mention of any war undertaken by them at any time.
The words for _arms_, to _kill_, to _maim_, are not to be found either
in the fragments of the "Shasta" which we have, or in the "Ezourveidam,"
or in the "Cormoveidam." I can at least give the assurance that I did
not see them in these last two collections: and what is still more
singular is that the "Shasta" which speaks of a conspiracy in heaven,
makes no mention of any war in the great peninsula enclosed between the
Indus and the Ganges.

The Hebrews, who were known so late, never name the Brahmins; they had
no knowledge of India until after the conquests of Alexander, and their
settling in Egypt, of which they had said so much evil. The name of
India is to be found only in the Book of Esther, and in that of Job
which was not Hebrew. One remarks a singular contrast between the sacred