118 ' TRAVELS IN ENGLAND, 1729-31

by Montesquieu. In 1818, Montesquieu’s grandson Joseph-
Cyrille (the son of his daughter Denise) dispatched to his cousin
Charles—Louis de Montesquieu, son of Jean—Baptiste de Secondat
and then living at Bridge Hill near Canterbury, a vast collection
of manuscripts. The catalogue of these survives, and one item
listed is described thus‘: * I

Carton contenant:

Un Voyage en Italie et dans quelques parties de l’Allemagne, Voyage
en Angleterre mis au net, prét a imprimer, pouvant former un vol.
in-octavo.1

Charles-Louis died at Canterbury in July 1824. His will, drawn up
on 4 February 1822, contains the following clause:

I desire that all my manuscripts which shall be found after my
decease may be carefully packed up and sent to Prosper de Montesquieu
of Bordeaux . . . if then alive, but if he shall be dead, then that [they]
be burned immediately.”

Prosper (or Charles-Louis-Prosper) was the son of Joseph-
Cyrille. He was alive when his cousin died at Canterbury, and in
fact survived until 1871. To the catalogue of 1818 is appended a
note in the hand of Prosper:

Tous les manuscrits (deleted and amended to une partie de ces manu-
scrits) ont été brfilés par mon oncle a tr‘es peu d’exception. Je n’ai
rapporté de Londres que quatre volumes reliés . . ., deux cartons ou
portefeuilles, l’un intitulé Voyages, contenant divers matériaux . . .3

This surviving portfolio cannot be other than the manuscript of
the Voyages, published in 1894-6, sold in 1939, and now in the
possession of M. Robert Schuman. The wording of the two lists
does not make it flatly impossible that the dossier which came
back to France contained also the manuscript account of the

‘travels in England; but it is exceedingly improbable, and it must

be heldwell-nigh certain that Montesquieu’s account of his
travels in England was burned, in England, by his grandson.

I Nor are’ compensating sources other than exiguous. Fifteen
pages of Notes sur l’/lngleterre, first published in the Lefévre

I edition of 1818 with the remark ‘Il est inutile de dire comment le

1 Nagel III, p. 1575.
2 Principal Probate Registry, Somerset House. 
3 Nagel III, p. I 581, corrected from the original manuscript at La Bréde.