urnt at Geneva. Three years later the
same writer's _Lettres de la Montagne_ were sentenced by the same
tribunal to the same fate. Not all burnt books should be read,
but Rousseau's _Emile_ is one that should be.

So should the Marquis de Langle's _Voyage en Espagne_, condemned
to the flames in 1788, but translated into English, German, and
Italian. De Langle anticipated this fate for his book if it ever
passed the Pyrenees: "So much the better," said he; "the reader
loves the books they burn, so does the publisher, and the author;
it is his blue ribbon." But, considering that he wrote against
the Inquisition, and similar inhumanities or follies of
Catholicism, De Langle must have been surprised at the burning of
his book in Paris itself.

A book at whose burning we may feel less surprise is the
_Theologie Portative ou Dictionnaire abregede la Religion
Chretienne_, by the Abbe Bernier (1775), for a long time
attributed to Voltaire, but really the work of an apostate monk,
Dulaurent, who took refuge in Holland to write this and similar
works.

The number of books of a similar strong anti-Catholic tendency
that were burnt in these years before the outbreak of the
Revolution should be noticed as helping to explain that event.
Their titles in most cases may suffice to indicate their nature.
De la Mettrie's _L'homme Machine_ (1748) was written and burnt in
Holland, its author being a doctor, of whom Voltaire said that he
was a madman who only wrote when he was drunk. Of a similar kind
was the _Testament_ of Jean Meslier, published posthumously in
the _Evangile de la Raison_, and condemned to the flames about
1765. On June 11th, 1763, the Parlement of Paris ordered to be
burnt an anonymous poem, called _La Religion a l'Assemblee du
Clerge de France_, in which the writer depicted in dark colours
the morals of the French bishops of the time (1762). On January
29th, 1768, was treated in the same way the _Histoire Impartiale
des Jesuites_ of Linguet, whose _Annales Politiques_ in 1779
conducted him to the Bastille, and who ultimately died at the
hands of the Revolutionary Tribunal (1794). But the 18th of
August, 1770, is memorable for having seen all the seven
following books sentenced to burning by the Parlement of Paris:--

1. Woolston's _Discours sur les Miracles de Jesus-Christ_,
translated from the English (1727).

2. Boulanger's _Christianisme devoile_.

3. Freret's _Examen Critique des Apologistes de la Religion