Abstract
The problem of identifying the author who first translated Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses into English is complicated, as was suggested at the outset, by the problem of identifying the particular French edition he worked from. This would seem to say that could one but compare the 1793 English text with the earliest known French printing, the problem must automatically be carried closer to a solution. How could one fail to discover signs that the translator had or had not followed the first serialized publication of Réflexions in the Ephémérides du Citoyen of November–December, 1769, and January, 1770?
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References
Earle E. Coleman, “Ephémérides du Citoyen, 1767–1772,” Bibliographical Society of America, Papers, 1962 First Quarter, p. 19. Three men, Abbé Nicolas Baudeau, Pierre-Samuel DuPont, and the Marquis de Mirabeau, “contributed the greatest number of articles,” and of the three, the first two were editors.
See Note 16, of Introduction.
The footnote disquisitions, of which épargne, saving, crossed the Channel as “parsimony,” will be found in DuPont’s Oeuvres, V, pp. 91-100, 104, 108-109, 125; in Schelle’s Oeuvres, II, pp. 582-586, 588, 590, 594; and in Daire-Dussard, Oeuvres, I, pp. 44, 49-53, 55, 57, 64-65.
W. J. Ashley, Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Riches. By Turgot. 1770, p. x.
See Note 1. Mr. Coleman’s article carries a great deal of information that has a bearing on facets of the present study, as, for example, DuPont’s chronic inability to maintain a monthly schedule. However (Coleman, op. cit., p. 28), he wrote in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty of the articles printed.
Coleman, op. cit., p. 22. The “vocations” of the censors, whose identities were well known, as well as the issues each censored, makes interesting reading (p. 31-32).
In order, the six sets were located in: Eleutherian Mills, the DuPont family’s library; the Johns Hopkins University library; Yale University library; and abroad, Bibliothèque de l’Institut National, Bibliothèque Nationale, and Bibliothèque Ste.-Geneviève. Imperfect sets are at these institutions, as well as at l’Arsenal and Mazarin libraries in France, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Kress Library of Business and Economics, Baker Library of Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and Columbia University’s Special Collections Library, in which, in the Selig-man Collection, the present study’s examination of copies was made.
The Special Collections Library of Columbia University also possesses the Nouvelles Ephémérides Economiques in the original paper covers and the eighteen issues (1775 twelve, 1776 six) were examined for the possibility that Réflexions had again been printed in these years. It can without qualification be said that there is no point of comparison between the old and the Nouvelles Ephémérides, despite the preservation of the format that opens with Pieces Détachées and a letter by the editor, Abbé Baudeau, on page 2 of the first issue. Perhaps the distinction can be hinted at in the subtitles of the two periodicals: that of the early Ephémérides was ou Bibliothèque Raisonnée des Sciences Morales & Politiques; that of the latter is ou Bibliothèque Raisonnée de l’Histoire, de la Morale et de la Politique. Into it Turgot fed document after document and page after page of infinitely detailed calculations, all doubtless fresh from the files of Versailles. It was his intention to leave a record of his administration of the finances of the France of Louis XVI, and the magazine he was instrumental in reviving constitutes that record.
Coleman, op. cit., p. 24-25.
Ibid., p. 31. Jean Etienne Guettard, “a student of natural history and minerology,” was the man who “censored tome 11 of 1769, which appeared in January 1770.”
Ephémérides du Citoyen, 1769, tome 11, p. 14; tome 12, p. 31. Not in 1770, tome 1, where no authorship is given.
Ephémérides du Citoyen, 1770, tome 1, p. 113. This issue has two title pages, at the very bottom of the second of which the Suite & fin of Réflexions has been allowed to begin. Between that and the first title page is printed a Table raisonnée of every article printed in the twelve numbers for 1769. In the course of this detailed resumé, allusion to Réflexions chances to follow allusion to a contribution from Benjamin Franklin, identified as “clearly that of a citizen of America.” “On the contrary,” the editor continues, “one recognizes in the Réflexions sur la Formation & la Distribution des Richesses, with which we have enriched our eleventh & twelfth volumes, & this one as well, that they are by the hand of a Man who is of no Country; …”
G. Schelle, Oeuvres de Turgot, II, p. 577n, Erreurs des Scolastiques “was dropped out of the Ephémérides.”
Ibid., p. 58on. In Ephémérides, 1770, tome 1, p. 117, it is not the Réponse.
Anon., Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth, p. 115, the paragraph break occurs at “For it imports little to whom the loan has been made;…” and p. 118, where the break occurs at “We have demonstrated, that what the other classes of society received,…”
A.-R.-J. Turgot, Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses (“Novembre 1766”), p. [167].
Turgot, “Réflexions sur la Formation et la Distribution des Richesses,” Ephémérides du Citoyen (November, 1769), tome 11, p. 7.
Ibid., idem. That this represents a correction can be readily ascertained by consulting tome 11 of the 1769 Ephémérides du Citoyen, where the critical line occurs on page 17 and reads: “filer les laines, les cotons; tirer la soie des cocons;…”
Anon., (1793) op. cit., p. 4.
Anon., (“1793”), op. cit., p. 5.
See Note 8, where Réflexions was found not to have been serially reprinted in the copies examined. However, in the light of references encountered to a publication date of this period, one must entertain the possibility that the printer, in making up complete sets of past issues, could have reprinted Réflexions in 1775 or 1776.
Anon., “Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Riches, etc.,” in A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1801), p. 4.
Anon., Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth, etc., (1793) in A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Economical Tracts, ed., J. R. McCulloch, P. 245.
W. J. Ashley, op. cit., p. 5.
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© 1964 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Lundberg, I.C. (1964). Illumination. In: Turgot’s Unknown Translator. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9592-8_12
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