priests, who waged war equally with the Pope and the disciples of Calvin.  We crushed the old priesthood by means of the new, and while we compelled every sect to contribute to the payment of a pretended national religion, we became at once the abhorrence of all the Catholics and Protestants in Europe.  The repulsion of our religious belief counteracted the attraction of our political principles.—­But truth is at length triumphant, and all the ill-intentioned shall no more be able to detach our neighbours from the dominion of the rights of man, under pretext of a religious dominion which no longer exists.—­The purpose of religion is no how so well answered as by presenting carte blanche to the abused world.  Every one will then be at liberty to form his spiritual regimen to his own taste, till in the end the invincible ascendant of reason shall teach him that the Supreme Being, the Eternal Being, is no other than Nature uncreated and uncreatable; and that the only Providence is the association of mankind in freedom and equality!—­ This sovereign providence affords comfort to the afflicted, rewards the good, and punishes the wicked.  It exercises no unjust partialities, like the providence of knaves and fools.  Man, when free, wants no other divinity than himself.  This god will not cost us a single farthing, not a single tear, nor a drop of blood.  From the summit of our mountain he hath promulgated his laws, traced in evident characters on the tables of nature.  From the East to the West they will be understood without the aid of interpreters, comments, or miracles.  Every other ritual will be torn in pieces at the appearance of that of reason.  Reason dethrones both the Kings of the earth, and the Kings of heaven.—­No monarch above, if we wish to preserve our republic below.

“Volumes have been written to determine whether or no a republic of Atheists could exist.  I maintain that every other republic is a chimera.  If you once admit the existence of a heavenly Sovereign, you introduce the wooden horse within your walls!—­What you adore by day will be your destruction at night.

     “A people of theists necessarily become revelationists, that is to
     say, slaves of priests, who are but religious go-betweens, and
     physicians of damned souls.

     “If I were a scoundrel, I should make a point of exclaiming against
     atheism, for a religious mask is very convenient to a traitor.

     “The intolerance of truth will one day proscribe the very name of
     temple ‘fanum,’ the etymology of fanaticism.

     “We shall instantly see the monarchy of heaven condemned in its turn
     by the revolutionary tribunal of victorious Reason; for Truth,
     exalted on the throne of Nature, is sovereignly intolerant.

     “The republic of the rights of man is, properly speaking, neither
     theistical nor atheistical—­it is nihilistical.”