=34. French, Dutch, and English Writings, 1817–1880.=--In 1825, a report was laid before the French Minister of the Interior concerning certain writings classed as irreligious or immoral which had been published between the years 1817 and 1824. The list included various editions of the complete works of Voltaire and of Rousseau, together with a number of issues of their separate volumes. There were no less than eight editions of the _Système de la Nature_, by d’Holbach, and four of the _Lettres Persanes_. It was complained that these pernicious books were being sold so cheaply that they were brought within the reach of the masses of the people and were bringing about widespread evil. The _Tartuffe_ of Molière, sold for five sous, had at once reached a sale of one hundred thousand copies. In 1821, Étienne Antoine, Bishop of Troyes, in a pastoral letter writes: “We renew all the censorship orders issued, between the years 1782 and 1785, by the clergy of France, and the individual orders issued by the archbishops of Paris, in which these works were condemned as godless and sacrilegious, and as tending to undermine morals and the State. We prohibit, under the canonical law, the printing or sale of these books within the territory of this diocese, and we charge the vicar-generals to enforce this regulation and to see to the carrying out of the necessary penances for all who make confession of disobedience to these regulations.” The authority of the Church of France appears to have been considered as sufficient for the control of the matter. No application was made to have these books again placed upon the Index. Dupuis, Ch. Fr., _Origine de tous les Cultes_, printed 1794, prohibited, 1818. An abridgment of this work, printed in 1798 and reprinted in a number of editions thereafter, escaped condemnation. Volney, J. F., _Les Ruines ou Méditations sur les Révolutions des Empires_, printed in 1799, prohibited in 1821. This book was also strongly condemned in the Spanish Indexes. An Italian translation, printed in 1849, escaped the Index. Pigault, Le Brun, _Le Citateur_, printed in 1803, prohibited in 1820. This work contains some bitter assaults on the Bible and on the dogmas of Christianity. Reiffenberg states that, in 1811, Napoleon, in a state of irritation with a brief of Pius VII, gave instructions for the distribution to the public, free or at a nominal price, of ten thousand copies of _Le Citateur_, but there is no record that these instructions were carried out. A Spanish version of the book, printed in London in 1816, was prohibited in Spain in 1819. _Essai historique sur la Puissance temporelle des Papes_, printed in Paris in 1818, prohibited in 1823. No author’s name is connected with any of the several editions of this treatise, but the introduction to the original issue states that the work was translated from a Spanish manuscript found at Saragossa.