Baron d\'Holbach
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Max Pearson Cushing >> Baron d\'Holbach
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Holbach had a very pleasant country seat, the chateau of Grandval,
now in the arrondisement of Boissy St. Leger 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 _Cafe de l'Europe_, as
Abbe Galiani called Paris. From time to time Holbach went to
Contrexeville 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, "A la distance de quelques siecles du moment ou il a
vecu, Diderot paraitra un homme prodigieux; on regardera de loin
cette tete universelle avec une admiration melee d'etonnement, comme
nous regardons aujourd'hui la tete 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-Pres, 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 systeme que forge mon imagination, je suis sur
que mon ami d'Holbach me trouve des faits et des autorites 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 theologie," [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 a 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 eloquent s'est rendu ainsi l'homme le plus
anti-litteraire, 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 Heloise_. 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 Vore. 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, Barthes, 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. Barre, 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 _Expose 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 Abbe 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_,
Abbe 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-general_, 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 _Bergere 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 Litteraire_ 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'etait plus communicatif que M. le baron d'Holbach; personne
ne prenait aux progres de la raison un interet plus vif, plus sincere,
et ne s'occupait avec plus de zele et l'activite des moyens de les
accelerer.
Egalement verse dans la plupart des matieres sur lesquelles il
importe le plus a des etres raisonnables d'avoir une opinion arretee,
M. le baron d'Holbach portait dans leur discussion un jugement sain,
une logique severe, et une analyse exacte et precise. Quelque fut
l'objet de ses entretiens avec ses amis, ou meme avec des indifferens,
tels qu'en offrent plus ou moins toutes les societes; il inspirait
sans effort a ceux qui l'ecoutaient l'enthousiasme de l'art ou de la
science dont il parlait; et on ne le quittait jamais sans regretter
de n'avoir pas cultive la branche particuliere de connaissances qui
avait fait le sujet de la conversation, sans desirer d'etre plus
instruit, plus eclaire, et surtout sans admirer la claret, la justesse
de son esprit, et l'ordre dans lequel il savait presenter ses idees.
This virtue of communicativeness, of _sociabilite_, 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 operer 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 Heloise_,
"Il fait le bien sans espoir de recompense, il est plus vertueux,
plus desinteresse que nous." There are many recorded instances
of Holbach's gracious benevolence. As he said to Helvetius,
"Vous etes brouille avec tous ceux que vous avez oblige, mais j'ai
garde 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 Contrexeville, 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'eloge funebre que M. Naigeon a consacre a la memoire de M. le
Baron d'Holbach suffit pour donner une idee juste de ses lumieres,
mais le hasard m'a mis a portee de les juger encore mieux. J'ai vu
M. le Baron d'Holbach dans deux voyages que j'ai faits aux eaux de
Contrexeville. S'occuper de sa souffrance et de sa guerison, c'est
le soin de chaque malade. M. le Baron d'Holbach devenait le medecin,
l'ami, le consolateur de quiconque venait aux eaux et il semblait bien
moins occupe de ses infirmites que de celles des autres. Lorsque des
malades indigens manquaient de secours, ou pecuniaires 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 pres duquel s'eleve
un petit Hermitage. La, demeure un cenobite qui n'a de revenu que
les aumones de ceux dont il recoit les visites. Nous acquittames
chacun notre dette hospitaliere. En prenant conge de l'Hermite,
M. le Baron d'Holbach me dit de le preceder un instant et qu'il
allait me suivre. Je le precedai, et comme il ne me suivait pas
je m'arretai, pour l'attendre sur un terte exhausse d'ou l'on decouvre
tout le pays. Je contemplais le canton que je dominais, plonge dans
une douce reverie. J'en fus tire par des cris et je me retournai
vers l'endroit d'ou ils partaient. Je vis M. le Baron d'Holbach
environne 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'ecrait M. le
Baron d'Holbach; laissez moi, on m'attend, ne me suivez pas, adieu;
je reviendrai l'annee prochaine. En me voyant arriver vers eux,
les trois personnes reconnaissantes disparurent. Je lui demandai
le sujet de tant de benedictions. Ce jeune paysan que vous avez vu
s'etait engage, j'ai obtenu de son colonel sa liberte en payant les
cents ecus 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 coute huit cent francs. Le vieux pere est perclus, aux
deux bras, de rhumatismes, je lui ai fourni trois boites du baume
des Valdejeots, si estime en ce pays-ci. La vieille mere est sujette
a des maux d'estomac, et je lui ai apporte un pot de confection
d'hyacinthe. Ils travaillaient dans le champ, voisin du bois, je suis
alle les voir tandis que vous marchiez en avant. Ils m'ont suivi
malgre moi. Ne parlez de cela a personne. On dirait que je veux
faire le genereux et le bon philosophe, mais je ne suis que humain,
et mes charites sont la plus agreable depense 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."
CHAPTER II. HOLBACH'S WORKS.
Holbach's published works, with the exception of a few scattered ones,
may be divided into three classes, viz., translations of German
scientific works, translations of English deistical writings, and his
own works on theology, philosophy, politics and morals. Those which
fall into none of these categories can be dealt with very summarily.
They are:
1. Two pamphlets on the musical dispute of 1752; _Lettre a une dame
d'un certain age sur l'etat present de l'Opera_, (8vo, pp. 11) and
_Arret rendu a l'amphitheatre de l'Opera_, (8vo, pp. 16,) both directed
against French music and in line with Grimm's _Petit Prophete_ and
Rousseau's _Lettre sur la musique francaise_.
2. A translation in prose of Akenside's _The Pleasures of Imagination_
(Paris, 1759, 8vo).
3. A translation of Swift's _History of the Reign of Queen Anne_ in
collaboration with M. Eidous (Amsterdam, 1765, 12mo, pp. xxiv + 416).
4. Translations of an _Ode on Human Life_ and a _Hymn to the Sun_
in the _Varietes litteraires_ (1768).
5. Articles on natural science in the _Encyclopedie_ and article
_Prononciation des langues_ in the _Dictionnaire de Grammaire_
of the _Encyclopedie methodique_.
6. Translation of Wallerius' _Agriculture reduced to its true
principles_ (Paris, 1774, 12mo).
7. Two _Faceties philosophiques_ published in Grimm's _Correspondence
Litteraire. _L'Abbe et le Rabbin_, and _Essai sur l'art de ramper,
a l'usage des courtisans_.
8. Parts of Raynal's _Histoire philosophique des deux Indes_.
9. Notes to Lagrange's _Vie de Seneque_.
Holbach's translations of German scientific works are as follows:
(Complete titles to be found in Bibliography, Pt. I.)
1. _Art de la Verrerie de Neri, Merret, et Kunckel_ (Paris, Durand,
1752). Original work in Italian. Latin translation by
Christopher Merret. German translation by J. Kunckel of Loewenstern.
Holbach's translation comprises the seven books of Antionio Neri,
Merret's notes on Neri, Kunckel's observations on both these authors,
his own experiments and others relative to glass-making. The translation
was dedicated to Malesherbes who had desired to see the best German
scientific works published in French. In his _Preface du Traducteur_
Holbach writes:
L'envie de me rendre utile, dont tout citoyen doit etre anime, m'a
fait entreprendre l'ouvrage que je presente au Public. S'il a le
bonheur de meriter son approbation, quoiqu'il y ait peu de gloire
attachee au travail ingrat et fastidieux d'un Traducteur, je me
determinerai a donner les meilleurs ouvrages allemands, sur
l'Histoire Naturelle, la Mineralogie, la Metallurgie et la Chymie.
Tout le monde sait que l'Allemagne possede en ce genre des tresors
qui ont ete jusqu'ici comme enfouis pour la France.
2. _Mineralogie ou Description generale du regne mineral par
J. G. Wallerius_ (Paris, Durand, 1753) followed by _Hydrologie_
by the same author. Second edition, Paris, Herrissant, 1759.
Originally in Swedish (Wallerius was a professor of chemistry
in the University of Upsala). German translation by J. D. Denso,
Professor of Chemistry, Stargard, Pomerania. Holbach's translation
was made from the German edition which Wallerius considered
preferable to the Swedish. He was assisted by Bernard de Jussien
and Rouelle, and the work was dedicated to a friend and co-worker
in the natural sciences, Monsieur d'Arclais de Montamy.
3. _Introduction a la Mineralogie... oeuvre posthume de
M. J. F. Henckel_, Paris, Cavelier, 1756, first published under title
_Henckelius in Mineralogia redivivus_, Dresden, 1747, by his pupil,
M. Stephani, as an outline of his lectures. Holbach's translation
made from a German edition, corrected, with notes on new discoveries
added.
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