- ARGENSON (René-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy d'). Considérations sur le gouvernement ancien et présent de la France, comparé avec celui des autres états; suivies d'un nouveau plan d'administration. Amsterdam, 1784, in 8°, ivory vellum, smooth spine, gilt edges. Bound in contemporary style (some foxing). Second edition given by the marquis de Paulmy for this corrected edition which he gave in 1784. The work, read in manuscript form by Voltaire and Rousseau (and many others) as early as 1739, but published only after the death of the minister, forms a kind of anti-Montesquieu, whose refusal of "despotism" and confidence in freedom are blamed. It is because the marquis, like his correspondent Voltaire, inclines towards this system of "enlightened despotism" which was shared by a great proportion of the elite of the Enlightenment, and sacrifices to it what the organization of old France opposed to it of privileges and local franchises. Cioranescu, XVIII, 8397