"Count de Valmont is one of those sceptics who are often met with in
the world. A man of weak mind, pretentious and foppish, incapable of
thinking and reflecting for himself, ignorant into the bargain, and
without any kind of knowledge upon any subject, he meets his hapless
father with all sorts of difficulties against morality, religion and
Christianity in particular, just as if he had a right to an opinion on
matters the study of which requires so much enlightenment and takes up
so much timed. The best thing the poor fellow can do is to reform
his ways, and he does not fail to neglect doing this at nearly every
volume.
"The seventh volume of the edition which I have before me is entitled,
_La Theorie du Bonheur; ou, L' Art de se rendre Heureux mis a la
Portee de tous les Hommes, faisant Suite ait 'Comte de Valmont_,'
Paris Bossange, 1801, eleventh edition. This is a different book,
whatever the publisher may say, and I confess that this secret of
happiness, brought within the reach of everybody, did not create a
very favourable impression upon me."]
THE ST. SULPICE SEMINARY.
PART I.
The house built by M. Olier in 1645 was not the large quadrangular
barrack-like building which now occupies one side of the square of St.
Sulpice. The old seminary of the seventeenth and eighteenth century
covered the whole area of what is now the square, and quite concealed
Servandoni's facade. The site of the present seminary was formerly
occupied by the gardens and by the college of bursars nicknamed
the Robertins.
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