The English version, by Dr.Hooper, appeared in the same year, and a new edition in 1802; the translator changed the title to Memoirs of the year Two thousand five hundred.] Its circulation in France was rigorously forbidden, because it implied a merciless criticism of the administration.

It was reprinted in London and Neuchatel, and translated into English and German.
3.
As the motto of his prophetic vision Mercier takes the saying of Leibnitz that "the present is pregnant of the future." Thus the phase of civilisation which he imagines is proposed as the outcome of the natural and inevitable march of history.

The world of A.D.2440 in which a man born in the eighteenth century who has slept an enchanted sleep awakes to find himself, is composed of nations who live in a family concord rarely interrupted by war.

But of the world at large we hear little; the imagination of Mercier is concentrated on France, and particularly Paris.

He is satisfied with knowing that slavery has been abolished; that the rivalry of France and England has been replaced by an indestructible alliance; that the Pope, whose authority is still august, has renounced his errors and returned to the customs of the primitive Church; that French plays are performed in China.