Châtelet, femme digne des respects et des regrets de tous ceux qui pensent.
Il y a une étrange faute, page 144 : Elle se livrait au plus grand nombre, au lieu de au plus grand monde. Vous sentez l’effet de cette méprise[1]. Je vous demande en grâce de réparer cette faute dans votre autre journal, et de vouloir bien la corriger à la main dans votre Bibliothèque, qui cesserait d’être impartiale si une pareille méprise favorisait les mauvaises plaisanteries de ceux qui respectent peu les sciences et les dames,
M. de Samsoy s’est avisé de vouloir absolument me peindre. Que ne peint-il ceux qui ont des visages ! Je n’en ai point. Apparemment qu’il veut présenter un squelette à votre Académie, Je vous embrasse,
My dear and beneficent friend, I send to you, by the way of Hamburgh, two enormous bales of the scribbling trade. I direct them to our envoy at Hamburgh, who will dispatch them to you, and put my wares to sea, instead of throwing them into the fire ; which might be the case in France, or at Rome.
My dear friend, I have recourse to your free and generous soul. Some French good patriots, who have read the book, raise a noble clamour against me, for having praised Marlborough and Eugène ; and some good church-men damn me for having turned a little in to ridicule our jansénisme and molinisme.
If our prejudiced people are fools, booksellers and printers or book-jobbers are rogues. I am like to be damned in France, and cheated by the Dutch ; the old german honesty is gone.
Booksellers of all regions are the same. I shall lose all the fruits of my labours and expences ; but I rely on your kindness. You may cause some books to be bound, and choose an honest man, who will give them to the chief-readers of your nation. I entreat you to present His Royal Highness with one of these volumes, and to give some exemplaires or copies to those of your friends you will think it. The bookseller you will choose may do what he pleases with the remainder, and sell them as best as he can, provided he sells them not before Easter ; it is all I require of him.
