988 Reviews was not so when firstexpressed by Mortier, at least fortyyears ago. This approach is given substance in the present book. An article about the Utopian thinker Anacharsis Cloots (pp. 385-94), a touchingly tragic figure, who perished under the guillotine while still holding fast to his revolutionary ideals, relates to a whole monograph on himby Mortier that appeared in 1995. But, whereas Cloots was a philosophe of a kind, the Count Cataneo, subject of the study that takes up a third of this book (pp. 1147 ), is the very opposite: an antiphilosophe of the most irredentist variety,set against every sort of reform advocated by his enemies. The world, as Cataneo saw it, should remain unchanged, since its very existence and nature were the result of God's will. Scientific enquiry is futile and indeed dangerous, for one should be cultivating one's soul in pursuit of salvation in the world to come. Mortier conducts his examination of this arcane thinker (scarcely noticed heretofore by Enlightenment scholars) with careful attention. Cataneo is given every opportunity to defend his opinions. Why then expend so much labour on such an uncompromising reactionary, and a thirdrate philosopher to boot? Because, to know truly the Enlightenment, one must also understand its opposition. In the event, Mortier is able to show that, even in such a conservative world-view, Enlightenment processes of secularization are at work. Gone is the insistence upon prayer, spiritual ascesis, and mystical exaltation. Cata? neo's beliefs are based on political attitudes, rooted in the here and now; laicization of thought is as evident here as in Voltaire. Roland Mortier's lifetime work is the pursuit of a passion, what he calls 'une discrete nostalgie' for an age whose highest values remain valid for him: a vision as aesthetic as it is socio-political. The book's epigraph quotes Diderot: 'II n'y a qu'une vertu, la justice; qu'un devoir, de se rendre heureux; qu'un corollaire [. . .] de ne pas craindre la mort.' His disciple has resolutely promoted this view all his life?and there remains much yet to come. Beatus vir, he merits the respectful admiration of all dix-huitiemistes. University of Bristol Haydn Mason L'Atelier de Montesquieu: manuscrits inedits de La Brede. Ed. by Catherine Volpilhac -Auger with Claire Bustarret. Naples: Liguori; Oxford: Voltaire Foun? dation. 2001. 315 pp. ISBN 88-207-3326-9 (Liguri edn); 0-7294-0792-6 (Voltaire Foundation edn). The Societe Montesquieu intends to publish the mass of working papers leftby Mon? tesquieu at his death. These papers, which form the fonds de la Brede, now at the Bibliotheque Municipale in Bordeaux (BM 2506), include extracts from the books he read, chapters or passages discarded from L'Esprit des lois but saved for possible use or development at another time, projects for new works, corrections, and answers to criticisms. Some of these working papers will be used, and published, in the forthcoming critical edition of L'Esprit des lois. L'Atelier de Montesquieu is concerned with a selection of the other papers. The introduction by Catherine Volpilhac-Auger explains the status and contents of thefonds. It consists ofthe unpublished working notes compiledby Montesquieu him? self either personally or by using one of his secretaries. The editors, Volpilhac-Auger with Claire Bustarret, have decided to use, as a guide to the notes, the inventory dated 10 March 1818 compiled by one grandson of the author, Joseph-Cyrille de Montesquieu (son of Denise, Montesquieu's daughter), when he sent a large number of the notes he had collected and classified to another grandson, Charles-Louis de Montesquieu (son ofJean-Baptiste, Montesquieu's son), then living in England. This inventory, entitled Catalogue des manuscrits envoyes a mon cousin en Angleterre, was MLR, 98.4, 2003 989 found at La Brede by Henri Barckhausen at the beginning of the twentieth century, with a note by Prosper, son ofJoseph-Cyrille, made in 1828, saying that Charles-Louis had burnt many of the notes and that, after his death, the remainder had been re? turned to La Brede in 1825. The Catalogue and the note were published in volume 111 of the Masson edition ofthe (Euvres...