about Holbach's book as time went on. His letters and various works
abound in references to it, and it is difficult to determine his
motives. He was accused, as has been suggested, by Holbach's circle
"de caresser les gens en place, et d'abandonner ceux qui n'y sont
plus." [58:12] M. Avenel believed that he suspected Holbach himself
of making these accusations. Voltaire's letter to the Duc de Richelieu,
Nov. 1, 1770, [58:13] seems to give them foundation.

A very different reaction was that of Goethe and his university
circle at Strasburg to whom the _Systeme de la Nature_ appeared
a harmless and uninteresting book, "grau," "cimmerisch," "totenhaft,"
"die echte Quintessenz der Greisenheit." To these fervent young men
in the youthful flush of romanticism, its sad, atheistic twilight
seemed to cast a veil over the beauty of the earth and rob the heaven
of stars; and they lightheardedly discredited both Holbach and Voltaire
in favor of Shakespeare and the English romantic school. One would
look far for a better instance of the romantic reaction which set in
so soon and so obscured the clarity of the issues at stake in the
eighteenth century thought. [58:14]

The leading refutations directed explicitly against the
_Systeme de la Nature_ are:

1. 1770, Rive, Abbe J. J., Lettres philosophiques contre le
_ Systeme de la Nature_. (Portefeuille hebdomadaire de Bruxelles.)

2. Frederick II, _Examen critique du livre intitule,
_Systeme de la Nature_. (Political Miscellanies, p. 175.)

3. Voltaire, Dieu, Reponse de M. de Voltaire au _Systeme de la Nature_.