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Lettres sur la liberté politique, adressées à un membre de la Chambre des Communes d'Angleterre, sur son élection au nombre des membres d'une association de comté. Traduites de l'anglais en français, par le R.P. de Roze-Croix, ex-cordelier. Avec des notes de l'abbé Pacot, auteur de l'Histoire des Pays-Bas. Seconde édition

Authors of source text

David Williams

Contributions

Le R.P. de Roze-Croix (Anne-Gédéon de La Fitte de Pelleport)
translator
uncertainty aux dépens de la Société (Société typographique de Neuchâtel)
publisher

Related resources

is translation of
Letters on political liberty. Addressed to a member of the English House of Commons, on his being chosen into the Committee of an Associating County has translation
has paratext
Lettres sur la liberté politique, adressées à un membre de la Chambre des Communes d'Angleterre, sur son élection au nombre des membres d'une association de comté. Traduites de l'anglais en français, par le R.P. de Roze-Croix, ex-cordelier. Avec des notes de l'abbé Pacot, auteur de l'Histoire des Pays-Bas. Seconde édition paratext

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Notes

Library catalogues generally mention the future revolutionary journalist and politician, Jacques-Pierre Brissot as the translator but this is incorrect. He never claimed attribution for it, and correspondence convincingly indicates that Pelleport translated the text at Brissot's instigation when both were living in London. Brissot was friendly with David Williams and kept in touch on his return to France. In December 1792, Williams was invited to France, on Brissot's recommendation, to sit on the constitutional committee.

Pelleport faithfully translated Williams political work, but made it even more radical for a French readership with the addition of lengthy footnotes on nearly every page. According to Robert Darnton, this second edition was published before the opening of the Estates General on 5 May 1789, with extra footnotes containing calls for revolution.

While it is unclear who the actual publisher was, Darnton indicates that copies were supplied to provincial booksellers by the Société Typographique de Neuchatel (STN), suggesting the use of a false imprint. Both Brissot and Pellepont worked with the STN. See Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, p.139.

For his translation, Pelleport used his pseudonym, Révérend Père de Roze-Croix. A catalogue of new publications by James Ridgway added to A detail of the wonderful revolution in Paris mentions a third English edition of Williams' Letters on political liberty. The announcement further mentions, "The first edition of this work was translated into French, by M. La Fite; the translator was sent into the Bastille, the translation burnt by the executioner; but the opinion of it had some effect in the appointment of provincial assemblies".

See: Robert Darnton, The Devil in Holy Water, pp.329-331. For more on Pelleport, see Simon Burrows, Blackmail, Scandal and Revolution: London's French Libellistes, 1758-1792, pp.29-32.