In 1766 he published a work entitled _L'Antiquite devoilee par ses
usages, ou Examen critique des principales Opinions, Ceremonies et
Institutions religieuses et politiques des differens Peuples de la
Terre_. Par feu M. Boulanger, Amsterdam, 1766. This is a work based
on an original manuscript by Boulanger, who died in 1759, preceded
by an excellent letter on him by Diderot, published also in the
_Gazette Litteraire_.

The use made by Holbach of Boulanger's name makes it necessary to
consider for a moment this almost forgotten writer. Nicholas Antoine
Boulanger was born in 1722. As a child he showed so little aptitude
for study that later his teachers could scarcely believe that he had
turned out to be a really learned man. As Diderot observes, "ces
exemples d'enfans, rendus ineptes entre les mains des Pedans qui
les abrutissent en depit de la nature la plus heureuse, ne sont
pas rares, cependant ils surprennent toujours" (p. 1). Boulanger
studied mathematics and architecture, became an engineer and was
employed by the government as inspector of bridges and highways.
He passed a busy life in exacting outdoor work but at the same time
his active intellect played over a large range of human interests.
He became especially concerned with historical origins and set himself
to learn Latin and Greek that he might get at the sources. Not
satisfied that he had come to the root of the matter he learned Arabic,
Syriac, Hebrew and Chaldean. Diderot says "Il lisait et etudiait
partout, je l'ai moi-meme rencontre sur les grandes routes avec un auteur
rabinnique a la main." He made a _mappemonde_ in which the globe is
divided in two hemispheres, one occupied by the continents, the other
by the oceans, and by a singular coincidence he found that the
meridian of the continental hemisphere passed through Paris. Some
such rearrangement of hemispheres is one of the commonplaces of