Against Voltaire And
Rousseau Implacable War Is Waged, And Their Works Are Immediately
Confiscated.
Other authors too are sometimes examined, to see whether they
contain anything against Mother Church.
As the people employed in
inspecting books are not much versed in any litterature or language but
their own, except perhaps a little French, it is not easy for them to find
out the contents of books in other languages. I had Schiller's works with
me, a volume of which one of the douaniers took up and looked at; on
seeing the Gothic letter he seemed as much astonished as if he had got hold
of a book of Cabbala or Magic. He detained the whole work, but it was
sent to me the next day, on my declaring that there was nothing damnable or
heretical in it; for there was no person belonging to the department who
could read German. When the douaniers proceeded to the examination of the
books belonging to one of my fellow travellers, the Neapolitan lady, she
expressed great repugnance to the procedure; the douaniers however
insisted and, behold! there were several livres galants with plates
somewhat lubriques, the discovery of which excited blushes on her part
and considerable laughter on the part of the byestanders. These books,
however, not being contraband, were immediately returned to her, as was an
edition of Baffo, belonging to my other fellow traveller, returned to him.
Now this Baffo was a Venetian poet and his works are the most profligate
that ever were penned or imagined by mortal man.
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