L’édition de la Correspondance générale de La Beaumelle : un bilan
This article is a follow-up to the one published in the RHP on the first thirteen volumes of the Correspondance générale de La Beaumelle (RHP 5 (2017), p. 251-280), now presenting the final five volumes, which appeared between 2018 and 2024. These latest volumes cover the period from March 1761 to La Beaumelle’s death in November 1773, and beyond that to December 1778, detailing the preparation and publication of the Commentaire sur la Henriade and the echoes which this posthumous work has left in correspondences and the scholarly press (vol. XIV: March 1761 – December 1763; vol XV: January 1764 – December 1766 ; vol. XVI: January 1767 – August 1769; vol. XVII: September 1769 – 1 August 1772; vol. XVIII: August 1772 – December 1778). These volumes offer a plethora of biographical information (marriage, date of birth of children, illness and inoculation, La Beaumelle’s return to grace with the aid of the Countess Du Barry) and numerous particulars on Toulouse, Mazères, and Paris; new details on the Calas affair, which La Beaumelle followed closely and in which he had discretely involved himself; details on his writings (Vie de Maupertuis, the critical edition of the Henriade), his conflict with Voltaire, and his efforts on behalf of his coreligionists around the time of the French national synod of 1763.