Portrait of Baron d'Holbach
Baron d'Holbach by Alexander Roslin, 1757, Alexander Roslin, via Wikimedia Commons
The Enlightenment

Baron d'Holbach

1723–1789
Atheist (in books published anonymously)

The Baron d'Holbach was raised a Catholic, and his translations of earth science first set the evidence against Genesis. He taught atheism openly at his own table and published it only under dead men's names, from Christianity Unveiled in 1761 to the System of Nature in 1770, while the pedlars who sold his books were flogged and branded. Late in life he turned from destroying belief to building a secular morals and politics. He was named as the author only after his death.

The belief timeline

17231789Faithc. 1735–1750Doubt1752–1759Secret1761Declaration1770Disclosure1789 (March)
  1. Faith (c. 1735–1750) — Raised in Catholic Paris; no document of his own belief survives ("nothing is known" of his youth) [2]
  2. Doubt (1752–1759) — As a translator of German mineralogy he reads the earth against Genesis; the Lehmann preface (1759) applies the Flood's own text ironically [13][14]
  3. Secret (1761) — Le Christianisme dévoilé printed at Nancy; later credited to the dead Boulanger [25][26]
  4. Declaration (1770) — Système de la nature under Mirabaud's name; burned by the Parlement on 18 August [39][43]
  5. Disclosure (1789 (March)) — Two months after his death Meister names him as the author [54]
Notes to the timeline (8)
  1. [2] Of his parentage and youth nothing is known; his father, "a rich parvenu" per Rousseau, brought him to Paris at twelve — Max Pearson Cushing, Baron d'Holbach: A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1914), p. 5; The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau (London: Aldus Society, 1903), Gutenberg #3913, bk VIII. Accounts differ; see the disputed points.
  2. [13] His preface to Lehmann's treatise (1759) opens by accepting the Genesis Flood as infallible, then argues it cannot explain the strata; Cushing notes the irony escaped the censor — Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 28–29. Reported at second hand; the original has not been seen.
  3. [14] Cushing, following Tourneux, argues his science led him to see the disparity between traditional cosmology and the earth, and so to doubt the sacred records elsewhere — Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 65–66.
  4. [25] His first anti-Christian book, Le Christianisme dévoilé, was printed at Nancy in 1761 (no copy dated so), through Saint-Lambert, per Naigeon via Barbier — Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 31, 38–39.
  5. [26] It was attributed to "Boulanger" (d. 1759) to set persecution on the wrong track; Voltaire blamed Damilaville — Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 36–39.
  6. [39] Système de la nature appeared early 1770 as by Mirabaud, "Secrétaire perpétuel de l'Académie française", imprint "Londres (Amsterdam)"; its preface speaks as a dying old man — Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 54–55; Holbach, The System of Nature (published 1770 as by Mirabaud), tr. H. D. Robinson (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1868), p. x.
  7. [43] The Parlement of Paris condemned the Système on 18 Aug 1770 to be burned, with Voltaire's Dieu et les hommes and other works — Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 55.
  8. [54] Meister, March 1789: it is no longer indiscreet to say he wrote the Système; Diderot wrote many of its pages; Meister does not like the doctrine — Meister's notice of Holbach in Grimm's Correspondance littéraire, March 1789, vol. XV of the Tourneux edition (Paris: Garnier, 1877–82), pp. 415–419, pp. 416–417.

The Author Who Was Not There

On 18 August 1770 the Parlement of Paris condemned a book to be burned by the hangman. Its title page said that it was Système de la nature, by the late M. Mirabaud, perpetual secretary of the French Academy, printed in London.12 Nearly every word of that was false. Mirabaud had not written it; the book was printed in Amsterdam; and its author was alive, well and living in Paris, where twice a week he gave dinners to many of the best-known writers in Europe. A week after the condemnation he wrote from his country house to the Abbé Galiani: "I am glad you have read Mirabaud's book, which is making a dreadful noise in this country. Our lords of the Parlement have just answered it with bundles of firewood."345

He was the Baron d'Holbach, and by the account of a believing guest at his table he taught "absolute atheism." Outside his circle almost nobody knew he had written the book until two months after he died. This chapter asks how a rich, kind, sociable man came to write the century's plainest case against God, and why he spent his life hiding behind other men's names to make it.

Baron d'Holbach, in a drawing by Carmontelle, 1766.
Baron d'Holbach, in a drawing by Carmontelle, 1766.Baron d'Holbach (drawing), Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, via Wikimedia Commons

A German boy in Paris

He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in the Palatinate early in 1723; his first biographers name Heidelsheim, others Edesheim, and the question is not settled.6 "Of his parentage and youth," his first English biographer wrote, "nothing is known." Rousseau, who knew him well and came to dislike him, said that his father was "a rich parvenu" who brought him to Paris at twelve; others say it was his uncle, François-Adam, baron d'Holbach, a rich man who lived in Paris and was buried at the church of Saint-Roch in 1753.78 He grew up, at any rate, a Catholic Parisian with German roots and, in time, a large fortune. Nothing he wrote and nothing written about him records what he believed as a boy.

The record of his baptism, 1723.
The record of his baptism, 1723.Baptism certificate of Paul Heinrich Dietrich (Holbach), Unknown author, via Wikimedia Commons
A portrait of 1753 that its museum identifies as probably François-Adam, baron d'Holbach, the uncle.
A portrait of 1753 that its museum identifies as probably François-Adam, baron d'Holbach, the uncle.Historisches Museum der Pfalz, Speyer / Ehrenamtsgruppe HMP Speyer, inv. HMP_2014_0039 (CC BY 4.0), via Europeana

In the mid-1740s he studied at the University of Leiden, where some twenty-five young Englishmen formed a club, and there he made a lifelong friend of the future radical John Wilkes.910 His letters to Wilkes from 1746 are written in a cheerful, misspelled English. "As to me, Idleness renders me every day more philosopher," he wrote from his uncle's estate in Brabant. "I took a whim to study a little Physic accordingly I purchased several books in that Way."1112

The University of Leiden's Academy building, about 1726.
The University of Leiden's Academy building, about 1726.Gezicht op het Academiegebouw te Leiden, 1726, Rijksmuseum, Rijksmuseum, via Wikimedia Commons
John Wilkes, as Hogarth drew him in 1763.
John Wilkes, as Hogarth drew him in 1763.John Wilkes, Esq. (Hogarth, 1763), After William Hogarth, via Wikimedia Commons

Stones and the Flood

By about 1750 he was settled in Paris, and he spent the next decade as a translator of science. He translated works on glass-making, mineralogy, chemistry and mining into French, and in 1754 the Berlin Academy made him a foreign associate.1314 "The wish to be useful, which every citizen should feel," he wrote in the first of them, "made me undertake the work I present to the public."15

The glass furnace, frontispiece of his translation of Neri's Art de la verrerie (1752).
The glass furnace, frontispiece of his translation of Neri's Art de la verrerie (1752).Art de la verrerie (1752), frontispiece: an ancient glass furnace, frontispiece, Paris : Chez Durand ... , Chez Pissot ..., 1752; scan via the Internet Archive

This was the work that seems to have changed his mind. In 1759 he translated a German treatise on the layers of the earth, and wrote a preface to it. It opens with perfect orthodoxy: Moses's account of the Flood, "so precise and detailed," has "infallible authority, since it is God's own." Then it argues, page after page, that the Flood cannot explain the strata, and that "the simplest causes can, over the centuries, produce the greatest effects, above all when they act without pause."161718 His biographer thought the irony was lost on the censor, and argued that his science had shown him how far the earth departed from the traditional account, and so led him to doubt the sacred records elsewhere.1619 That is a scholar's inference; no letter of d'Holbach's says so. But the timeline places his doubt here, because it is the first place in his writing where the Bible and the evidence part company.

The preface to Lehmann's treatise, 1759: the Flood's "infaillible" authority.
The preface to Lehmann's treatise, 1759: the Flood's "infaillible" authority.Lehmann, Traités de physique, d'histoire naturelle, de minéralogie et de métallurgie, tome III (1759): Holbach's Préface du traducteur on the Flood, tome III, Préface du traducteur, A Paris, chez Jean-Thomas Hérissant, rue S. Jacques, à S. Paul & à S. Hilaire., 1759; scan via the Internet Archive

In those same years his life broke and mended. In 1753 he married Basile-Geneviève d'Aine; she died the next summer, and he was so stricken that his friend Grimm took him travelling through the provinces. Rousseau heard the news from Diderot: "His grief affected my heart."202122 In 1755, with a papal dispensation, he married her sister Charlotte-Suzanne, and they had four children.23 No source says that the loss touched his belief, and this chapter does not claim it.

The baron's table

The dinners began in the late 1740s and lasted for forty years. Twice a week, on Sundays and Thursdays, ten, twelve or twenty guests sat down at two o'clock in his house near the church of Saint-Roch and stayed until seven or eight.1324 His income was some 60,000 livres a year, and he spent much of it on them.25 The guest list reads like an index of the age: Diderot, Grimm, Helvétius, Rousseau before the quarrel, and among the foreigners Hume, Sterne, Garrick, Wilkes, Beccaria, Franklin and Priestley.2627 The Abbé Morellet, a believer who came for years, described the rule of the house. The talk was free, "when I say free, I mean in philosophy, religion and government, for off-colour jokes were banned."28

The house at 8 rue des Moulins, near Saint-Roch, photographed by Atget about 1900.
The house at 8 rue des Moulins, near Saint-Roch, photographed by Atget about 1900.Ancien Hôtel d'Holbach, 8 rue des Moulins (Atget, c. 1900), Atget, Eugène (1857-1927). Photographe, Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons
Denis Diderot, his closest friend, by Van Loo, 1767.
Denis Diderot, his closest friend, by Van Loo, 1767.Denis Diderot by Louis-Michel van Loo, Unknown author, via Wikimedia Commons

Morellet was frank about what was taught there. "It was there, too, that Diderot, Dr Roux and the good baron himself laid down absolute atheism, that of the Système de la nature, with an edifying conviction, good faith and probity, even to those of us who, like me, did not believe their teaching." But he added: "We were a good number of theists there, and not ashamed, who defended ourselves vigorously, but always loving atheists of such good company."293031 The best answer to the atheists came from the Neapolitan diplomat the Abbé Galiani, who began a speech at the table: "If I were pope, I would have you put to the Inquisition, and if I were king of France, in the Bastille; but since I have the good fortune to be neither, I shall come back to dinner next Thursday, and you will hear me as I have had the patience to hear you."3233

The Abbé Morellet, the theist guest who described the dinners.
The Abbé Morellet, the theist guest who described the dinners.André Morellet (Massol, engraver), A. B. Massol (17..-1831). Graveur, via Wikimedia Commons

In the late summer and autumn the household moved to the country house at Grandval, east of Paris. Diderot's letters to Sophie Volland describe the days: reading until one, dinner, a walk with the baron. "On the way we talk of history, or politics, or chemistry, or literature, or physics, or morals."3435 One evening a lady scolded the philosophers as "vilains athées," wicked atheists.36 Diderot gave the best portrait of his host: "Imagine a gay, sharp, indecent, nervy satyr in a group of chaste, soft, delicate figures; that is how he was among us."37

The château at Grandval, Sucy-en-Brie, in a postcard of about 1900.
The château at Grandval, Sucy-en-Brie, in a postcard of about 1900.Sucy-en-Brie, Château du Grand-Val, façade sur le parc, B.F. Paris, via Wikimedia Commons

It was in 1765, by Diderot's account, that David Hume sat beside a Parisian host and said that he did not believe in atheists; he had never seen one. "Count how many we are here," said the host. They were eighteen. "It is not bad to be able to count you fifteen at the first try; the other three don't know what to think." Diderot did not name the host. An English visitor's memoirs place the story at d'Holbach's table, with seventeen atheists, and it is usually told of him.3839

David Hume, by Allan Ramsay, 1766.
David Hume, by Allan Ramsay, 1766.David Hume by Allan Ramsay (National Galleries of Scotland PG 3521), Allan Ramsay, National Galleries of Scotland, via Wikimedia Commons

Under other men's names

His first book against Christianity, Le Christianisme dévoilé (Christianity Unveiled), was printed about 1761 and put out under the name of his friend Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, an engineer who had died in 1759, so as to send any persecution down the wrong path.404142 Its opening letter answers a friend who feared that the people need religion: "You are not, Sir, of the number of pusillanimous thinkers, who believe that truth is capable of doing harm. It does harm to those only who deceive mankind."43 Voltaire, who was himself suspected of writing it, disliked it: "This book leads to the atheism I detest. I have always regarded atheism as the greatest aberration of reason, because it is as ridiculous to say that the arrangement of the world does not prove a supreme craftsman as it would be impertinent to say that a clock does not prove a clockmaker."4445

The title page of Le Christianisme dévoilé, under the name of "feu M. Boulanger."
The title page of Le Christianisme dévoilé, under the name of "feu M. Boulanger."Le Christianisme dévoilé, title page, Baron d'Holbach, via Wikimedia Commons

From 1767 he poured out books. His literary agent and editor Jacques-André Naigeon had the manuscripts copied; they went through a postmaster at Sedan and a woman at Liège to the printer Marc-Michel Rey in Amsterdam, and came back to be sold under the cloak.4647 In two years he delivered more than twenty volumes.48 One of them, La Contagion sacrée, grew out of letters he had written to a Catholic woman whose confessor had warned her against the Holbachs.49 "It is raining bombs on the house of the Lord," Diderot wrote.47 It was not a game. In October 1768 Diderot reported that a pedlar and his wife had been put in the pillory, flogged and branded, and an apprentice sent to the galleys for nine years, for selling Le Christianisme dévoilé.50

The author, meanwhile, wrote to his friends as if he were a reader. In December 1767 he asked Wilkes to bring him "a couple of french books call'd Militaire philosophe and Theologie portative," which could not be had in Paris; he had a hand in the second.51 In March 1770 he recommended to Wilkes "two very strange works lately publish'd," one of them "le Systeme de la Nature par Mirabaud."5253

The System of Nature

The Système de la nature appeared early in 1770. Its preface is written in the voice of the dead Mirabaud: "Warned by old age and weak limbs that death is fast approaching, the author protests most solemnly that, in his labours, his sole object has been to promote the happiness of his fellow creatures." D'Holbach was forty-seven.154 The book begins with its whole argument: "The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature."55 Its argument is that the gods were made by men who did not understand nature. "From ignorance of natural causes, man has created Gods; imposture rendered these Gods terrible to him." "The first theology of man was grounded on fear, modelled by ignorance." And so: "If the ignorance of nature gave birth to the Gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them."565758

The title page of the Système de la nature, 1770, "par M. Mirabaud."
The title page of the Système de la nature, 1770, "par M. Mirabaud."Système de la nature, title page, 'par M. Mirabaud, Secrétaire perpétuel' (Londres, 1770), title page, 1770; scan via the Internet Archive

It used the word atheist without apology. "Indeed, what is an atheist? He is a man, who destroys chimeras prejudicial to the human species, in order to reconduct men back to nature, to experience, and to reason."59 In a chapter on what leads men to atheism it named the persecutions, the ministers of God and the bloody disputes of religion as reasons enough, and rejected the believers' claim that only a wicked heart makes an atheist. "Must not every mind in which humanity is not extinguished, irritate itself against a phantom, who, in every country, is made to speak only like a capricious, inhuman, and irrational tyrant?"6061 And it ended, for the reader afraid of death, with consolation: "Live then in peace, for the season that nature permits thee; and if thy mind be enlightened by reason, thou wilt die without terrour!"62

The English translation of 1868, p. 300: "what is an atheist?"
The English translation of 1868, p. 300: "what is an atheist?"The System of Nature (1868), p. 300, p. 300, Boston : J.P. Mendum, 1868; scan via the Internet Archive

The answers

The Parlement's lawyer, Antoine-Louis Séguier, denounced "an impious and audacious sect" that had "decorated its false wisdom with the name of Philosophy," and said that the author "declares openly and with the most decided assertion that there is no God, and that there cannot be one." His speech was so weak, the story goes, that the Parlement would not publish it and the King had it printed; Grimm thought it seemed designed to inform the ignorant.636465 The more serious answers came from the friends of reason. Voltaire, after saying he no longer read such books, wrote a short reply in God's favour: "Everything announces a supreme Being to us; nothing tells us what he is."6667 Frederick the Great of Prussia wrote a critique and did not publish it; he thought the author "admits that it is the indignation religious persecutions gave him that made him an atheist," and asked whether laziness and passion were reasons to settle a philosopher's opinions.6869 Galiani wrote that the book stood on the line where sad, dry truth ends and the gaiety of fiction begins.70 The young Goethe and his friends at Strasbourg found it "so grey, so Cimmerian, so deathlike, that we could hardly bear its presence."7172

Frederick II's Examen critique, p. 142: the author "avoue" that indignation made him an atheist.
Frederick II's Examen critique, p. 142: the author "avoue" that indignation made him an atheist.Frédéric II, Examen critique du Système de la nature (Oeuvres posthumes, 1788), p. 142, p. 142, Berlin : Chez voss et fils ..., 1788; scan via the Internet Archive

The fairest of them was a priest, the Abbé Nicolas-Sylvestre Bergier, whose Examen du matérialisme came out in 1771. He refused to play the game of the mask: "Whether the author of the Système de la nature is dead or alive, French or foreign, known or supposed, famous or obscure, it is all the same: it is the book alone that we are examining." Its great trick, he said, was "always to assume what is in question."737475 Bergier also noticed that the same hand had written La Contagion sacrée; he had seen through the mask without needing to lift it.73

The Abbé Bergier's Avertissement, 1771: "mort ou vivant."
The Abbé Bergier's Avertissement, 1771: "mort ou vivant."Bergier, Examen du matérialisme (1771), Avertissement p. iv: 'soit mort ou vivant', Avertissement, p. iv, Paris : Humblot, 1771; scan via the Internet Archive

After the System

He did not stop. In 1772 came Le Bon sens, the system cut down for the general reader: "Religion is a mere castle in the air. Theology is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system."767778 Voltaire and d'Alembert thought it more dangerous than the big book.76 But his later works turned from tearing down to building. In 1773 he published a politics and a social system, and in 1776 an Ethocratie, a government founded on morals, dedicated to the young Louis XVI.79 On the timeline, that is his revision: the destroyer of chimeras became a writer of moral and political advice, still anonymous.

Le Bon sens, preface: theology as the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system.
Le Bon sens, preface: theology as the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system.Le Bon-Sens (1772), Préface p. ii: 'la Théologie n'est que l'ignorance des causes naturelles', Préface, p. ii, Londres, 1772; scan via the Internet Archive

He died in Paris on 21 January 1789, six months before the fall of the Bastille, and was buried in the church of Saint-Roch beside Diderot, in an unmarked grave in the crypt of the Virgin's chapel.80 In March the journalist Meister wrote in Grimm's newsletter that "it is no longer indiscreet to say he is the author of the famous Système de la nature," and that Diderot had written many of its pages.8182 Meister did not share the doctrine, but he described the man: it was "not without effort that he hid his natural horror of priests," and "it seemed that all the credulity he had refused to news of the other world he had kept entire for the gazette and the cafés."838485 His editor Naigeon remembered "a good husband, a good father and a good friend," who once paid to free a peasant from the army and begged him to tell no one.86

The church of Saint-Roch: the high altar, photographed by Atget about 1900. D'Holbach and Diderot lie in the crypt.
The church of Saint-Roch: the high altar, photographed by Atget about 1900. D'Holbach and Diderot lie in the crypt.Église Saint-Roch, maître-autel (Atget), Eugène Atget, International Center of Photography, via Wikimedia Commons

Did his unbelief change shape?

The belief itself seems hardly to have moved once it was formed; what changed was its use. It appears first as irony in a scientific preface, then as an argument passed under dead men's names, then as a complete system, and at last as a basis for morals and government. What did not change was the mask. He was a generous host who argued for atheism openly at his own table and would not put his name to it in print, while the people who sold his books were flogged and branded for it. Frederick thought anger at persecution had made him an atheist, and his own book half says so. Meister thought his anger at priests was something he had to work to keep down. The baron himself left only the book, and a sentence in it that explains the hiding as well as the writing: truth "does harm to those only who deceive mankind."

Denis Diderot, who sat at his table for decades and lies beside him at Saint-Roch, has his own chapter in this book.

Footnotes

  1. Max Pearson Cushing, Baron d'Holbach: A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1914), pp. 54–55; Holbach, The System of Nature (published 1770 as by Mirabaud), tr. H. D. Robinson (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1868), p. x. ↩ ↩2

  2. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 55. Reported at second hand; the original has not been seen. ↩

  3. Holbach's letters to Hume (1763), Garrick (1766), Wilkes (1746–75) and Galiani (1770), as printed in the Appendix of [Cushing] pp. 70–83, (Cushing p. 82). ↩

  4. Holbach to Galiani, Grandval, 25 Aug 1770: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 82 (Critica, 1903). Not checked against the original (no (printed text)). ↩

  5. Holbach to Galiani, 25 Aug 1770: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 82. Not checked against the original (no (printed text)). ↩

  6. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 5; Charles Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot et la société du baron d'Holbach (Paris: Leroux, 1875), p. 75. Accounts differ; see the disputed points. ↩

  7. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 5; The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau (London: Aldus Society, 1903), Gutenberg #3913, bk VIII. ↩

  8. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 5 n. 6. ↩

  9. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 5–6. ↩

  10. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 6, 19. ↩

  11. Letters, (Cushing pp. 6–11). ↩

  12. Holbach to Wilkes, Heeze, 9 Aug 1746: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 8 (from British Museum MS 30867). Not checked against the original (no (printed text seen, manuscript not)). ↩

  13. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 11–12. ↩ ↩2

  14. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 12, 26–30. ↩

  15. Holbach, preface to Neri, 1752: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 27. Not checked against the original (no (quoted at second hand)). ↩

  16. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 28–29. ↩ ↩2

  17. Holbach, preface to Lehmann, 1759: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 28. Not checked against the original (no (quoted at second hand)). ↩

  18. Holbach, same preface: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 29. Not checked against the original (no (quoted at second hand)). ↩

  19. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 65–66. ↩

  20. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 12–13; Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot et la société du…, p. 43; Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, bk VIII. ↩

  21. Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, bk VIII. ↩

  22. Rousseau on Holbach's wife's death, 1754: Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Confessions, Aldus 1903, bk VIII. ↩

  23. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 13. ↩

  24. Abbé Morellet, Mémoires sur le dix-huitième siècle et sur la Révolution, vol. I (Paris: Ladvocat, 1821), vol. I pp. 128–129. ↩

  25. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 21; Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot et la société du…, p. 76; Meister's notice of Holbach in Grimm's Correspondance littéraire, March 1789, vol. XV of the Tourneux edition (Paris: Garnier, 1877–82), pp. 415–419, p. 419 n.. ↩

  26. Memoirs of Marmontel, vol. I (Philadelphia: Brisban and Brannan, 1807), vol. I pp. 170–171. ↩

  27. Morellet, Mémoires sur le dix-huitième siècle…, vol. I pp. 127–128. ↩

  28. Morellet on the dinners: Morellet, Mémoires sur le dix-huitième siècle…, vol. I p. 129. ↩

  29. Morellet, Mémoires sur le dix-huitième siècle…, vol. I pp. 129–130. ↩

  30. Morellet: Morellet, Mémoires sur le dix-huitième siècle…, vol. I p. 130. ↩

  31. Abbé Morellet, a theist guest: Morellet, Mémoires sur le dix-huitième siècle…, vol. I p. 130. ↩

  32. Morellet, Mémoires sur le dix-huitième siècle…, vol. I pp. 131–132. ↩

  33. Abbé Galiani, Neapolitan diplomat and friend, at Holbach's table, as told by Morellet: Morellet, Mémoires sur le dix-huitième siècle…, vol. I p. 131. ↩

  34. Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, Œuvres complètes, ed. Assézat and Tourneux, vols. XVIII–XIX (Paris: Garnier, 1876); cited by letter number and date. Project Gutenberg #50605, XVII (5 Oct 1759). ↩

  35. Diderot on his walks with Holbach at Grandval: Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, XVII, Grandval, 5 Oct 1759. ↩

  36. Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, XXIV. ↩

  37. Diderot on "notre Baron", to Sophie Volland: Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, vol. I, Paris, 10 May 1759. ↩

  38. Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, XCIII. ↩

  39. Diderot to Sophie Volland: Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, XCIII, Paris, 6 Oct 1765. ↩

  40. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 31, 38–39. ↩

  41. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 36–39. ↩

  42. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 36–37. ↩

  43. Le Christianisme dévoilé, "Letter from the Author to a Friend": Holbach (as "Boulanger"), Christianity Unveiled, tr. W. M. Johnson (New York, 1835), Letter, pp. 7–16. ↩

  44. Voltaire's letters and Dieu, réponse au Système de la nature as quoted in [Cushing] pp. 40–62; original not located, in Cushing pp. 40–41. ↩

  45. Voltaire, letter of 15 Dec 1766 on Le Christianisme dévoilé; a deist who was himself suspected of the book: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 41. ↩

  46. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 39–40. ↩

  47. Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, CXX. ↩ ↩2

  48. Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot et la société du…, p. 160. ↩

  49. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 46–47. ↩

  50. Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, CXIV; Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot et la société du…, p. 161. ↩

  51. Holbach to Wilkes, Paris, 10 Dec 1767: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 78 (British Museum MS 30869). Not checked against the original (no (printed text)). ↩

  52. Letters, (Cushing p. 80). ↩

  53. Holbach to Wilkes, Paris, 19 Mar 1770: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 80. Not checked against the original (no (printed text)). ↩

  54. Système de la nature, Preface: Holbach, System of Nature, p. x. ↩

  55. Système de la nature, Author's Preface: Holbach, System of Nature, p. viii. ↩

  56. Système de la nature: Holbach, System of Nature, p. 151. ↩

  57. Système de la nature: Holbach, System of Nature, p. 170. ↩

  58. Système de la nature: Holbach, System of Nature, p. 174. ↩

  59. Système de la nature: Holbach, System of Nature, p. 300. ↩

  60. Holbach, System of Nature, pp. 313–315. ↩

  61. Système de la nature, "Of the Motives which lead to Atheism": Holbach, System of Nature, p. 315. ↩

  62. Système de la nature: Holbach, System of Nature, p. 121. ↩

  63. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 55; Réquisitoire of the avocat général, as printed in [Systeme] part II, pp. 455–498. ↩

  64. Séguier: Système de la nature, 1771 edition, part II, with the réquisitoire printed at the end (no place or printer), 1771 part II p. 456. ↩

  65. Séguier, avocat général, réquisitoire before the Parlement of Paris, Aug 1770: Séguier, in Systeme 1771 part II p. 490. ↩

  66. and, Dieu, in Cushing pp. 56–59. ↩

  67. Voltaire, Dieu, réponse au Système de la nature, 1770: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 62 (quotation of Voltaire). ↩

  68. Frederick II, Examen critique du Système de la nature, Œuvres posthumes, vol. VI (Berlin, 1788), pp. 139ff, pp. 142–143; Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 57, 61. ↩

  69. Frederick II of Prussia, Examen critique du Système de la nature, written 1770: II, Examen critique du Système de…, pp. 142–143. ↩

  70. Galiani to Holbach, 21 July 1770, as printed in [Cushing] pp. 81–82, in Cushing p. 81. ↩

  71. Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit book 11, as quoted in [Cushing] p. 58 n. 14, in Cushing p. 58 n. 14. ↩

  72. Goethe on reading the Système as a student at Strasbourg: Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 58 n. 14 (Dichtung und Wahrheit, bk 11). ↩

  73. Nicolas-Sylvestre Bergier, Examen du matérialisme, vol. I (Paris: Humblot, 1771), vol. I Avertissement p. ii; Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, p. 63. ↩ ↩2

  74. Abbé Bergier, canon of Notre-Dame, Examen du matérialisme, 1771: Bergier, Examen du matérialisme, vol. I, Avertissement p. iv. ↩

  75. Abbé Bergier: Bergier, Examen du matérialisme, vol. I, Avertissement p. iii. ↩

  76. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 51–52. ↩ ↩2

  77. Holbach, Good Sense; or Natural Ideas opposed to Supernatural, tr. H. D. Robinson (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1856), Preface. ↩

  78. Le Bon sens (Good Sense), Preface: Holbach, Good Sense; or Natural Ideas…, Preface (page number not read from OCR). ↩

  79. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 52–53, 55 n. 2. ↩

  80. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 16, 21. ↩

  81. Correspondance littéraire, pp. 416–417. ↩

  82. Meister: Correspondance littéraire, p. 416. ↩

  83. Correspondance littéraire, p. 418. ↩

  84. Meister: Correspondance littéraire, p. 418. ↩

  85. Meister on Holbach, March 1789: Correspondance littéraire, p. 418. ↩

  86. Cushing, Baron d'Holbach, pp. 23–25. ↩

Sources cited in the notes: Max Pearson Cushing, Baron d'Holbach: A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1914).; Holbach, The System of Nature (published 1770 as by Mirabaud), tr. H. D. Robinson (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1868).; Holbach's letters to Hume (1763), Garrick (1766), Wilkes (1746–75) and Galiani (1770), as printed in the Appendix of [Cushing] pp. 70–83.; Charles Avezac-Lavigne, Diderot et la société du baron d'Holbach (Paris: Leroux, 1875).; The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau (London: Aldus Society, 1903), Gutenberg #3913.; Abbé Morellet, Mémoires sur le dix-huitième siècle et sur la Révolution, vol. I (Paris: Ladvocat, 1821).; Meister's notice of Holbach in Grimm's Correspondance littéraire, March 1789, vol. XV of the Tourneux edition (Paris: Garnier, 1877–82), pp. 415–419.; Memoirs of Marmontel, vol. I (Philadelphia: Brisban and Brannan, 1807).; Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, Œuvres complètes, ed. Assézat and Tourneux, vols. XVIII–XIX (Paris: Garnier, 1876); cited by letter number and date. Project Gutenberg #50605.; Holbach (as "Boulanger"), Christianity Unveiled, tr. W. M. Johnson (New York, 1835).; Voltaire's letters and Dieu, réponse au Système de la nature as quoted in [Cushing] pp. 40–62; original not located.; Réquisitoire of the avocat général, as printed in [Systeme] part II, pp. 455–498.; Système de la nature, 1771 edition, part II, with the réquisitoire printed at the end (no place or printer).; Frederick II, Examen critique du Système de la nature, Œuvres posthumes, vol. VI (Berlin, 1788), pp. 139ff.; Galiani to Holbach, 21 July 1770, as printed in [Cushing] pp. 81–82.; Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit book 11, as quoted in [Cushing] p. 58 n. 14.; Nicolas-Sylvestre Bergier, Examen du matérialisme, vol. I (Paris: Humblot, 1771).; Holbach, Good Sense; or Natural Ideas opposed to Supernatural, tr. H. D. Robinson (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1856).

In their own words

As to me, Idleness renders me every day more philosopher every passion is languishing within me, I retain but one in a warm degree, viz, friendship in which you share no small part. I took a whim to study a little Physic accordingly I purchased several books in that Way.

Holbach to Wilkes, Heeze, 9 Aug 1746 · Cushing p. 8 (from British Museum MS 30867)unverified

L'envie de me rendre utile, dont tout citoyen doit être animé, m'a fait entreprendre l'ouvrage que je présente au Public.

Holbach, preface to Neri, 1752 · Cushing p. 27unverified

La description si précise et si détaillée que Moïse fait du Déluge dans la Genèse, ayant une autorité infaillible, puisqu'elle n'est autre que celle de Dieu même, nous rend certains de la réalité et de l'universalité de ce châtiment terrible.

Holbach, preface to Lehmann, 1759 · Cushing p. 28unverified

Les causes les plus simples sont capables de produire au bout des siècles les effets les plus grands, surtout lorsqu'elles agissent incessament; et nous voyons toutes ces causes réunies agir perpétuellement sous nos yeux.

Holbach, same preface · Cushing p. 29unverified

Diderot, when he communicated to me these melancholy events, spoke of the deep affliction of the husband. His grief affected my heart.

Rousseau on Holbach's wife's death, 1754 · Rousseau, Confessions, Aldus 1903, bk VIII

Imaginez un satyre gai, piquant, indécent et nerveux, au milieu d'un groupe de figures chastes, molles et délicates; tel il était entre nous.

Diderot on "notre Baron", to Sophie Volland · Diderot-V I, Paris, 10 May 1759

Chemin faisant, nous parlons ou d'histoire, ou de politique, ou de chimie, ou de littérature, ou de physique, ou de morale.

Diderot on his walks with Holbach at Grandval · Diderot-V XVII, Grandval, 5 Oct 1759

quand je dis libre, j'entends en matière de philosophie, de religion, de gouvernement, car les plaisanteries libres dans un autre genre en étaient bannies.

Morellet on the dinners · Morellet I p. 129

C'est là aussi, puisqu'il faut le dire, que Diderot, le docteur Roux et le bon baron lui-même établissaient dogmatiquement l'athéisme absolu, celui du Système de la nature, avec une persuasion, une bonne foi, une probité édifiante, même pour ceux d'entre nous qui, comme moi, ne croyaient pas à leur enseignement.

Morellet · Morellet I p. 130

I believe it will be relished by the friends of truth, who like to see vulgar errors struck at the root.

Holbach to Hume, Paris, 23 Aug 1763 · Cushing p. 71 (Hume, Private Correspondence, 1820)

La première fois que M. Hume se trouva à la table de M. de ...., il était assis à côté de lui. Je ne sais à quel propos le philosophe anglais s'avisa de dire à M. de .... qu'il ne croyait pas aux athées, qu'il n'en avait jamais vu. M. de .... lui dit: «Comptez combien nous sommes ici.» Nous étions dix-huit. M. de .... ajouta: «Il n'est pas malheureux de pouvoir vous en compter quinze du premier coup: les trois autres ne savent qu'en penser.»

Diderot to Sophie Volland · Diderot-V XCIII, Paris, 6 Oct 1765

If there is some good new romance I'll be oblig'd to bring it over along with you as well as a couple of french books call'd Militaire philosophe and Theologie portative in case you may easily find them in London, for we cannot get them here.

Holbach to Wilkes, Paris, 10 Dec 1767 · Cushing p. 78 (British Museum MS 30869)unverified

If the hurry of affairs whould leave you any moments to read curious books I would advise you to peruse two very strange works lately publish'd viz Recherches philosophiques sur les americains le Systeme de la Nature par Mirabaud.

Holbach to Wilkes, Paris, 19 Mar 1770 · Cushing p. 80unverified

Je suis bien aise que vous ayez lu le livre de Mirabaud qui fait un bruit affreux dans ce pays.

Holbach to Galiani, Grandval, 25 Aug 1770 · Cushing p. 82 (Critica, 1903)unverified

nos seigneurs du Parlement y viennent d'y répondre par des fagots, ainsi qu'à quelques autres ouvrages de même trempe.

Holbach to Galiani, 25 Aug 1770 · Cushing p. 82unverified

THE source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence, the consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual errour.

Système de la nature, Author's Preface · Syst p. viii

In conclusion: — Warned by old age and weak limbs that death is fast approaching, the author protests most solemnly that, in his labours, his sole object has been to promote the happiness of his fellow creatures

Système de la nature, Preface · Syst p. x

From ignorance of natural causes, man has created Gods; imposture rendered these Gods terrible to him

Système de la nature · Syst p. 151

If the ignorance of nature gave birth to the Gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.

Système de la nature · Syst p. 174

The first theology of man was grounded on fear, modelled by ignorance

Système de la nature · Syst p. 170

Must not every mind in which humanity is not extinguished, irritate itself against a phantom, who, in every country, is made to speak only like a capricious, inhuman, and irrational tyrant?

Système de la nature, "Of the Motives which lead to Atheism" · Syst p. 315

Indeed, what is an atheist? He is a man, who destroys chimeras prejudicial to the human species, in order to reconduct men back to nature, to experience, and to reason.

Système de la nature · Syst p. 300

Live then in peace, for the season that nature permits thee; and if thy mind be enlightened by reason, thou wilt die without terrour!

Système de la nature · Syst p. 121

Religion is a mere castle in the air. Theology is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system; a long tissue of fallacies and contradictions.

Le Bon sens (Good Sense), Preface · Good Sense, Preface (page number not read from OCR)

You are not, Sir, of the number of pusillanimous thinkers, who believe that truth is capable of doing harm. It does harm to those only who deceive mankind, and to the rest of the human species it will always be useful.

Le Christianisme dévoilé, "Letter from the Author to a Friend" · CU, Letter, pp. 7–16

Il semblait véritablement que toute la crédulité qu'il avait refusée aux nouvelles de l'autre monde, il l'eût réservée tout entière pour celles de la gazette et des cafés.

Meister on Holbach, March 1789 · Meister p. 418

Il n'y a plus d'indiscrétion à dire qu'il est l'auteur du livre qui fit tant de bruit en Europe, il y a dix-huit ou vingt ans, du fameux Système de la nature.

Meister · Meister p. 416

ce n'était pas sans effort qu'il dissimulait son horreur naturelle pour les prêtres, pour tous les suppôts du despotisme et de la superstition; en parlant d'eux, sa douceur s'irritait malgré lui, sa bonhomie devenait souvent amère et provocante.

Meister · Meister p. 418

Je suis riche, mais je ne vois dans la fortune qu'un instrument de plus pour opérer le bien plus promptement et plus efficacement.

Holbach, reported by Cushing · Cushing p. 23unverified

The other side

Ce livre conduit à l'athéisme que je déteste. J'ai toujours regardé l'athéisme comme le plus grand égarement de la raison, parce qu'il est aussi ridicule de dire que l'arrangement du monde ne prouve pas un artisan suprême qu'il serait impertinent de dire qu'une horloge ne prouve pas un horloger.

Voltaire, letter of 15 Dec 1766 on Le Christianisme dévoilé; a deist who was himself suspected of the book · Cushing p. 41

Tout nous annonce un Être suprême, rien ne nous dit ce qu'il est.

Voltaire, Dieu, réponse au Système de la nature, 1770 · Cushing p. 62 (quotation of Voltaire)

Il avoue que c'est l'indignation que lui ont donnée les persécutions religieuses qui l'a rendu athée. Sont-ce des raisons pour fixer les opinions d'un philosophe, que la paresse et les passions?

Frederick II of Prussia, Examen critique du Système de la nature, written 1770 · Frederick pp. 142–143

Que l'Auteur du Système de la Nature soit mort ou vivant, François ou Étranger, connu ou supposé, célèbre ou obscur, tout cela est égal: c'est le Livre seul que nous examinons

Abbé Bergier, canon of Notre-Dame, Examen du matérialisme, 1771 · Bergier I, Avertissement p. iv

Son grand artifice a été de supposer toujours ce qui est en question, de donner continuellement pour démontré ce qui est évidemment faux et absurde

Abbé Bergier · Bergier I, Avertissement p. iii

L'auteur du Système de la Nature déclare ouvertement et avec l'assertion la plus décidée, qu'il n'y a point de Dieu, et qu'il ne saurait y en avoir.

Séguier, avocat général, réquisitoire before the Parlement of Paris, Aug 1770 · Séguier, in Systeme 1771 part II p. 490

Il s'est élevé au milieu de nous une secte impie et audacieuse; elle a décoré sa fausse sagesse du nom de Philosophie

Séguier · Systeme 1771 part II p. 456

Je commence par vous dire que, si j'étais pape, je vous ferais mettre à l'inquisition, et, si j'étais roi de France, à la Bastille; mais, comme j'ai le bonheur de n'être ni l'un ni l'autre, je reviendrai dîner jeudi prochain, et vous m'entendrez comme j'ai eu la patience de vous entendre.

Abbé Galiani, Neapolitan diplomat and friend, at Holbach's table, as told by Morellet · Morellet I p. 131

Nous étions là bon nombre de théistes, et point honteux, qui nous défendions vigoureusement, mais en aimant toujours des athées de si bonne compagnie.

Abbé Morellet, a theist guest · Morellet I p. 130

Es kam uns so grau, so cimmerisch, so totenhaft vor, dass wir Mühe hatten, seine Gegenwart auszuhalten

Goethe on reading the Système as a student at Strasbourg · Cushing p. 58 n. 14 (Dichtung und Wahrheit, bk 11)

Where accounts differ

PointOne accountAnotherHow the page handles it
Birthplace and dateHeidelsheim, early 1723 (Cushing p. 5; Avezac p. 75)Edesheim (the roster; later scholarship, not in my texts); a December 1723 baptism is also said, unverifiedSay "born in the Palatinate in 1723"; settle the town with a modern Tier 2 source
Who raised himHis father, a self-made rich man, brought him to Paris at twelve; father died when he was young (Cushing p. 5, citing Rousseau)His uncle François-Adam, ennobled and wealthy, raised him (roster; uncle's existence and 1753 death are in Cushing p. 5 n. 6, but not that he raised the boy)"He grew up in Paris; accounts differ on whether his father or his uncle brought him"
Years at LeidenStudent there in 1746 (Cushing p. 5)1744 to 1748 (roster, unverified)"Studied at Leiden in the mid-1740s"
The Hume dinnerEighteen at table, fifteen atheists, host unnamed (Diderot-V XCIII, 1765)Seventeen atheists, at d'Holbach's (Romilly's Memoirs, in the editors' note)Quote Diderot; say "Diderot tells it of a dinner commonly placed at the baron's table"
When Hume reached Paris1764, called on Holbach at once (Cushing p. 18)Holbach wrote to him in Aug 1763 and Diderot places the anecdote in 1765 (Cushing p. 71)Avoid a date for his arrival
Who owned GrandvalEstate of Mme d'Aine (Cushing p. 14)Bought by Holbach from a M. Charon and restored (Avezac pp. 77–78)"The family's country house at Grandval"
Serpent or viperHume told he would "warm a serpent" (Morellet I p. 105)"vipère" (Avezac, citing Marmontel)Use Morellet's "serpent"
Date of the Parlement's first condemnationArrêt of 24 Sept 1769 for Christianisme dévoilé, then 18 Aug 1770 for the Système (Cushing p. 55, wording ambiguous)—Give only 18 Aug 1770

List of illustrations

This page uses only public-domain and Creative Commons images; each is credited with its source and licence.

  1. Baron d'Holbach (drawing) — Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, c. 1766 · Baron d'Holbach (drawing), Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page)
  2. Baptism certificate of Paul Heinrich Dietrich (Holbach) — Unknown author, 1723 · Baptism certificate of Paul Heinrich Dietrich (Holbach), Unknown author, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page)
  3. Baron Franz Adam von Holbach (1675-1753), probably François-Adam d'Holbach (oil on canvas) — Unknown; attributed to Alexander Roslin (museum notes the attribution is open), c. 1753 · Historisches Museum der Pfalz, Speyer / Ehrenamtsgruppe HMP Speyer, inv. HMP_2014_0039 (CC BY 4.0), via Europeana · CC BY 4.0 (Historisches Museum der Pfalz, Speyer, via Europeana and museum-digital; image rights CC BY)
  4. Gezicht op het Academiegebouw te Leiden, 1726 — Rijksmuseum, 1726 · Gezicht op het Academiegebouw te Leiden, 1726, Rijksmuseum, Rijksmuseum, via Wikimedia Commons · CC0 (Wikimedia Commons file page)
  5. John Wilkes, Esq. (Hogarth, 1763) — After William Hogarth, 1763 · John Wilkes, Esq. (Hogarth, 1763), After William Hogarth, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page)
  6. Art de la verrerie (1752), frontispiece: an ancient glass furnace — Neri, Antonio, -1614, 1752 · Art de la verrerie (1752), frontispiece: an ancient glass furnace, frontispiece, Paris : Chez Durand ... , Chez Pissot ..., 1752; scan via the Internet Archive · Public domain (published 1752; Internet Archive scan)
  7. Lehmann, Traités de physique, d'histoire naturelle, de minéralogie et de métallurgie, tome III (1759): Holbach's Préface du traducteur on the Flood — Lehmann, Johann Gottlob, 1759 · Lehmann, Traités de physique, d'histoire naturelle, de minéralogie et de métallurgie, tome III (1759): Holbach's Préface du traducteur on the Flood, tome III, Préface du traducteur, A Paris, chez Jean-Thomas Hérissant, rue S. Jacques, à S. Paul & à S. Hilaire., 1759; scan via the Internet Archive · Public domain (published 1759; Internet Archive scan; rights field: Licence ouverte / Open licence Etalab)
  8. Ancien Hôtel d'Holbach, 8 rue des Moulins (Atget, c. 1900) — Atget, Eugène (1857-1927). Photographe, c. 1900 · Ancien Hôtel d'Holbach, 8 rue des Moulins (Atget, c. 1900), Atget, Eugène (1857-1927). Photographe, Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page)
  9. Denis Diderot by Louis-Michel van Loo — Unknown author, 1767 · Denis Diderot by Louis-Michel van Loo, Unknown author, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page)
  10. André Morellet (Massol, engraver) — A. B. Massol (17..-1831). Graveur, 18th c. · André Morellet (Massol, engraver), A. B. Massol (17..-1831). Graveur, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page)
  11. Sucy-en-Brie, Château du Grand-Val, façade sur le parc — B.F. Paris, early 20th c. · Sucy-en-Brie, Château du Grand-Val, façade sur le parc, B.F. Paris, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page)
  12. David Hume by Allan Ramsay (National Galleries of Scotland PG 3521) — Allan Ramsay, 1766 · David Hume by Allan Ramsay (National Galleries of Scotland PG 3521), Allan Ramsay, National Galleries of Scotland, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page)
  13. Le Christianisme dévoilé, title page — Baron d'Holbach, 1761 (title page, 'Londres' imprint) · Le Christianisme dévoilé, title page, Baron d'Holbach, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page)
  14. Système de la nature, title page, 'par M. Mirabaud, Secrétaire perpétuel' (Londres, 1770) — Paul Henri : Dietrich Holbach (baron d'), 1770 · Système de la nature, title page, 'par M. Mirabaud, Secrétaire perpétuel' (Londres, 1770), title page, 1770; scan via the Internet Archive · Public domain (published 1770; Internet Archive scan)
  15. The System of Nature (1868), p. 300 — Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d', 1723-1789; Diderot, Denis, 1713-1784; Robinson, H. D, 1868 · The System of Nature (1868), p. 300, p. 300, Boston : J.P. Mendum, 1868; scan via the Internet Archive · Public domain (published 1868; Internet Archive scan)
  16. Frédéric II, Examen critique du Système de la nature (Oeuvres posthumes, 1788), p. 142 — Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; John Adams Library (Boston Public Library) BRL; Alembert, Jean Le Rond d', 1717-1783; Voltaire, 1694-1778; Argens, Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, marquis d', 1704-1771; Adams, John, 1735-1826, former owner, 1788 · Frédéric II, Examen critique du Système de la nature (Oeuvres posthumes, 1788), p. 142, p. 142, Berlin : Chez voss et fils ..., 1788; scan via the Internet Archive · Public domain (published 1788; Internet Archive scan)
  17. Bergier, Examen du matérialisme (1771), Avertissement p. iv: 'soit mort ou vivant' — Bergier, M. (Nicolas-Sylvestre), 1718-1790, 1771 · Bergier, Examen du matérialisme (1771), Avertissement p. iv: 'soit mort ou vivant', Avertissement, p. iv, Paris : Humblot, 1771; scan via the Internet Archive · Public domain (published 1771; Internet Archive scan)
  18. Le Bon-Sens (1772), Préface p. ii: 'la Théologie n'est que l'ignorance des causes naturelles' — [Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'] 1723-1789; Meslier, Jean, 1664-1729, 1772 · Le Bon-Sens (1772), Préface p. ii: 'la Théologie n'est que l'ignorance des causes naturelles', Préface, p. ii, Londres, 1772; scan via the Internet Archive · Public domain (published 1772; Internet Archive scan)
  19. Église Saint-Roch, maître-autel (Atget) — Eugène Atget, c. 1900 · Église Saint-Roch, maître-autel (Atget), Eugène Atget, International Center of Photography, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page)

Sources

Tier 1 — the subject's own words (writings, letters, diaries, trial records)

  • [Syst] Holbach, The System of Nature (published 1770 as by Mirabaud), tr. H. D. Robinson (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1868). https://archive.org/details/systemofnatureor68holb . Text in research/texts/system-1868.txt. Page numbers as printed.
  • [Systeme] Système de la nature, 1771 edition, part II, with the réquisitoire printed at the end (no place or printer). https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_I6GE01i-A0IC_3 . Text in research/texts/systeme-1771-vol2.txt. Long-s OCR. Part I (1770) in systeme-1770-vol1.txt.
  • [Good Sense] Holbach, Good Sense; or Natural Ideas opposed to Supernatural, tr. H. D. Robinson (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1856). https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.158347 . Text in research/texts/goodsense-1856.txt.
  • [CU] Holbach (as "Boulanger"), Christianity Unveiled, tr. W. M. Johnson (New York, 1835). https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_TEIAAAAAYAAJ . Text in research/texts/christianity-unveiled-1835.txt.
  • [Letters] Holbach's letters to Hume (1763), Garrick (1766), Wilkes (1746–75) and Galiani (1770), as printed in the Appendix of [Cushing] pp. 70–83.
  • [Diderot-V] Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, Œuvres complètes, ed. Assézat and Tourneux, vols. XVIII–XIX (Paris: Garnier, 1876); cited by letter number and date. Project Gutenberg #50605. Text in research/texts/diderot-volland.txt.
  • [Morellet] Abbé Morellet, Mémoires sur le dix-huitième siècle et sur la Révolution, vol. I (Paris: Ladvocat, 1821). https://archive.org/details/mmoiresdelabb01more . Text in research/texts/morellet-1821-vol1.txt.
  • [Marmontel] Memoirs of Marmontel, vol. I (Philadelphia: Brisban and Brannan, 1807). https://archive.org/details/memoirsmarmonte01marmgoog
  • [Rousseau] The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau (London: Aldus Society, 1903), Gutenberg #3913. Text in research/texts/rousseau-confessions.txt. Cited by book.
  • [Meister] Meister's notice of Holbach in Grimm's Correspondance littéraire, March 1789, vol. XV of the Tourneux edition (Paris: Garnier, 1877–82), pp. 415–419. https://archive.org/details/correspondanceli15grimuoft . Text in research/texts/grimm-corr-15.txt.

Tier 2 — scholarly biographies and encyclopedias

Tier 3 — popular biographies and journalism

  • None used.

Tier 4 — maps to other sources only (Wikipedia and similar). Never cited in the script.

  • Wikipedia entry on d'Holbach: used only to suggest Edesheim and Leiden 1744 for the expensive model to check. Not cited.

Opposition sources — contemporary critics and religious responses

  • [Frederick] Frederick II, Examen critique du Système de la nature, Œuvres posthumes, vol. VI (Berlin, 1788), pp. 139ff. https://archive.org/details/oeuvresposthumes06fred . Text in research/texts/frederick-oeuvres-posth-vol6.txt. Written 1770, unpublished in his lifetime.
  • [Bergier] Nicolas-Sylvestre Bergier, Examen du matérialisme, vol. I (Paris: Humblot, 1771). https://archive.org/details/examendumatria01berg . Text in research/texts/bergier-1771-vol1.txt. Long-s OCR.
  • [Séguier] Réquisitoire of the avocat général, as printed in [Systeme] part II, pp. 455–498.
  • [Voltaire-C] Voltaire's letters and Dieu, réponse au Système de la nature as quoted in [Cushing] pp. 40–62; original not located.
  • [Galiani-C] Galiani to Holbach, 21 July 1770, as printed in [Cushing] pp. 81–82.
  • [Goethe-C] Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit book 11, as quoted in [Cushing] p. 58 n. 14.