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ANECDOTE RESPECTING HIS VISIT TO PARIS. 115
Swedenborg being in all things most scrupulous as to the
truth, peremptorily refused to concur in this falsehood,
and accordingly went to Amsterdam, where the work was
printed.
The following authentic anecdote, which proves that
this was the fact, is extracted from the advertisement pre
fixed to the French edition of the first volume of the
True Christian Religion, printed at Paris in 1802 :—
"" Swedenborg came to Paris in 1769. He wished to
have his True Christian Religion printed there ; but it
was necessary that the work should be submitted to the
censors. M. Chevreuil, then censor royal and doctor of
the Sorbonne, who was appointed to examine it, told
him, after having read it, that a tacit permission would
be granted him, on condition, as was customary in such
cases, that the title should say, printed at London, or at
Amsterdam. But Swedenborg, with a rare delicacy,
perfectly suited to his principles, would not consent to
it ; and the work, therefore, was not printed at Paris.*
This anecdote, which has not hitherto been known, was
attested to one of the editors by M. Chevreuil himself.
Our author speaks of this journey in a letter to Dr.
Beyer, dated Amsterdam, March 15, 1769, in which he
* In respect to Swedenborg’s intention of having this work
published at Paris, the English editor of these " Documents" begs
here to record a fact which has appeared to him rather extra
ordinary, since it indicates that the original design of Sweden
borg, namely, that of having the work published at Paris, was,
to a certain extent, carried out. The editor, when at Paris in the
autumn of 1826, went one day into a respectable old book shop ;
theproprietor, nearly eighty years of age, on being asked if he had
any of the theological works of Swedenborg, replied, that he had
a few copies of the " True Christian Religion," and one or two of
Heaven and Hell. The editor having purchased a copy of each
of these works, the old gentleman observed, that about fifty years
ago, he had met with the " True Christian Religion," and thinking
it to be a very curious book, he wrote to Amsterdam, requesting
his agent to buy up all the copies of the said work he could find,
and to send them to Paris, so that this work, although printed at
Amsterdam, was, according to Swedenborg’s original intention,
chiefly issued from Paris,
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