52 - LAMENNAIS (Félicité Robert de). Priest and writer. Letter to Madame LIGERET. Paris, November 16, 1852. 3 pages, in-8.

LAMENNAIS (Félicité Robert de). Priest and writer. Letter to Madame LIGERET. Paris, November 16, 1852. 3 pages, in-8. A faithful friend and “disciple,” then living in New Orleans, Madame LIGERET DE CHAZEY is the author of *Paroles d’une femme sur le mariage* (*A Woman’s Words on Marriage*), which was heavily inspired by *Paroles d’un croyant* (*Words of a Believer*). Lamennais brings her news from France, where “every word is forbidden. Yet we know that there is great suffering and, deep within people’s souls, a dreadful anguish that, at the moment known to God, will turn into a terrible wrath. The priest, the soldier, and the informer—these are the pillars of this regime. France today is a country more closed off than China.” As for the American people, they are not judged any more leniently; they are stupefied by a passion for gold that stifles every moral impulse within them. “I very much fear,” he adds, “that this people will one day become the scourge of the world—like a gigantic England, minus whatever virtues it still retains, mingled with monstrous vices. Moreover, all of Europe is afflicted by the same disease, but it is not, as in America, the very nature of its inhabitants; and the struggle of principles raging within it will force it to look up to something beyond purely material interests. May the example of American women—so different from their husbands—have the same effect in this sad country. They will certainly not change the fathers, but perhaps, through their beneficial influence on the children, they will be able to gradually alter the spirit and character of future generations"... Source: Alfred Dupont Collection. ENCLOSED: P. A. S., half-sheet, in-8. “The first speech Omar addressed to his people was as follows: ‘O Muslims, I call God to witness that no one will ever be strong enough to make me sacrifice the rights of the weak, nor weak enough to make me sacrifice the rights of the strong’...”