[12] Pietro had sent some of his manuscripts to Morellet, perhaps in the hope that the latter would offer to translate them. Anyhow Beccaria brought back no compliments to Pietro from Paris, and the key to Pietro’s feelings lies in the words he wrote to his brother the day after Beccaria’s return: ‘Non mi ha detto una sillaba che mostri che alcuno sappia in Parigi, che io sono al mondo.’
[13] Lettere, i. 391; ii. 70, 127, 151, 211, 295. It is satisfactory for this point to be settled, for even so lately as 1862, Sig. Cantù, in his work on Beccaria, attributes the Risposta to him, saying that all the intrinsic proofs are in favour of its being his work. P. 58.
[14] Ibid. ii. 159.
[15] Lettere, ii. 225.
[16] Morellet, Mémoires, i. 167: ‘Revenu à Milan il a fait peu de chose, et sa fin n’a pas répondu à son début, phénomène commun parmi les gens de lettres d’Italie, qui ont un premier feu bien vif, mais qui, à 25 et 30 ans, se désabusent comme Salomon et reconnaissent que la science est vanité, sans avoir attendu d’être aussi savant que lui.’
[17] Cantù, Beccaria, 42.
[18] In a book called Cautio Criminalis, published in 1718.
[19] Jardine’s Reading on Torture.
[20] Tooke’s Catharine II., 441-8. Rambaud’s Russie, 476. ‘Dans l’instruction pour la confection du nouveau Code, Catharine II., suivant sa propre expression, avait pillé les philosophes d’Occident, mais surtout Montesquieu et Beccaria.’
[21] Morellet, Mémoires, i. 165.