Correspondance générale d'Helvétius: Volume 4, 1774-1800; Lettres 721-855

David Smith

Publié par University of Toronto Press, le 11 janvier 2010

406 pages

Résumé

This is the fourth of five volumes of the letters of the French philosopher Claude Adrien HelvTtius (1715-1771), author of the controversial De l'Esprit (1758). Featuring the correspondence of Mme HelvTtius, nTe Anne Catherine de Ligniville (1722-1800), in the years following her husband's death, this volume also includes letters by and to HelvTtius discovered since the publication of the first three volumes.Mme HelvTtius enjoyed an active widowhood, welcoming to her salon in Auteuil a group of intellectuals who came to be known as the IdTologues. A close friend of Benjamin Franklin, she was involved in political events before and during the French Revolution, as well as in Napoleon's coup d'Ttat. In the last letter of the series her grandson describes her burial in her garden, which took place without religious or revolutionary ceremony in the presence of all her favourite pets.Most of the newly discovered letters are addressed to HelvTtius by figures as important as d'Alembert, Boulanger, Chastellux, Saint-Lambert, Servan, Thieriot, and Trublet. Some of these complete an existing exchange, others provide dates for letters already published.The fifth and final volume will be devoted primarily to a comprehensive index. It will also include a chronological list of all the letters, corrections and modifications, and other useful material.