but having had a strict Catholic bringing up she was shocked at
their infidelity and warned by her confessor to keep away from them.
"Yet in their home she saw all the domestic virtues exemplified and
beheld that sweet and unchangeable affection for which the d'Holbachs
were eminently distinguished among their acquaintances and which was
remarkable for its striking contrast with the courtly and Christian
habits of the day. Her natural good sense and love for her friends
struggled with her monastic education and reverence for the priests.
The conflict rendered her miserable and she returned to her country
seat to brood over it. In this state of mind she at length wrote
to the Baron and laid open her situation requesting him to comfort,
console, and enlighten her." [47:7] His letters accomplished the
desired effect and he later published them in the hope that they
would do as much for others. They were carefully revised before
they were sent to the press. All the purely personal passages were
omitted and others added to hide the identity of the persons concerned.
Letters of the sort to religious ladies were common at this time.
Freret's were preventive, Holbach's curative, but appear to be rather
strong dose for a _devote_. Other examples are Voltaire's _Epitre a Uranie_
and Diderot's _Entretien d'un Philosophe avec la Marechale de..._.

6. In 1769 Holbach published two short treatises on the doctrine
of eternal punishment which claimed to be translations from English,
but the originals are not to be found. The titles are _De l'intolerance
convaincue de crime et de folie_ as it is sometimes given, and--

7. _L'Enfer detruit ou Examen raisonne du Dogme de l'Eternite des
Peines_. Londres, Amsterdam, 1769. This letter was translated
into English under the title _Hell Destroyed!_ "Now first translated
from the French of d'Alembert without any mutilations," London 1823,