The number, indeed, of political works burnt during the eighth decade of the last century is as remarkable as the number of religious books so treated about the same period: one of the lesser indications of the coming Revolution. During this decade were condemned: (1) Pidanzet's _Correspondance secrete familiere de Chancelier Maupeon avec Sorhouet_ (1771) for being blasphemous and seditious, and calculated to rouse people against government; a work that made sport of Maupeon and his Parlement. (2) Beaumarchais' _Memoires_ (1774), of the literary style of which Voltaire himself is said to have been jealous, but which was condemned to the flames for its imputations on the powers that were. (3) Lanjuinais' _Monarque Accompli_ (1774), whose other title explains why it was condemned, as tending to sedition and revolt, _Prodiges de bonte, de savoir, et de sagesse, qui font l'eloge de Sa Majeste Imperiale Joseph II., et qui rendent cet auguste monarque si precieux a l'humanite, discutes au tribunal de la raison et l'equite_. Lanjuinais, principal of a Catholic college in Switzerland, passed over to the Reformed Religion. (4) Martin de Marivaux's _L'Ami des Lois_ (1775), a pamphlet, in which the author protested against the words put into the mouth of the king by Chancellor Maupeon, Sept. 7th, 1770: "We hold our Crown of God alone; the right of law-making, without dependence or partition, belongs to us alone." The author contended that the Crown was held only of the nation, and he excited the vengeance of the Crown by sending a copy of his work to each member of the Parlement. At the same time, to the same penalty and for the same offence, was condemned to the flames _Le Catechisme du Citoyen, ou Elemens du Droit public Francais, par demandes et par reponses_; the episode, and the origin of the dispute, clearly pointing to the rapidly approaching Revolutionary whirlwind, the spirit of which these literary productions anticipated and expressed. The last book I find to notice is the Abbe Raynal's _Histoire philosophique et politique des Etablissemens et du Commerce des Europeens dans les Deux Indes_, published in 1771 at Geneva, and, after a first attempt at suppression in 1779, finally burnt by the order of the Parlement of Paris of May 25th, 1781, as impious, blasphemous, seditious, and the rest. Like many another eminent writer, Raynal had started as a Jesuit.