VOLTAIRE TO THE SAME.

Ferney, February 25, 1762.

Meslier also has the wisdom of the serpent.  He sets an example for you; the good grain was hidden in the chaff of his book.  A good Swiss has made a faithful abstract and this abstract can do a great deal of good.  What an answer to the insolent fanatics who treat philosophers like libertines.  What an answer to you, wretches that you are, this testimony of a priest, who asks God’s pardon for having been a Christian!

D’ALEMBERT’S ANSWER.

Paris, March 31, 1762.

A misunderstanding has been the cause, my dear philosopher, that I received but a few days since the work of Jean Meslier, which you had sent almost a month ago.  I waited till I received it to write to you.  It seems to me that we could inscribe upon the tombstone of this curate:  “Here lies a very honest priest, curate of a village in Champagne, who, in dying, asks God’s pardon for having been a Christian, and who has proved by this, that ninety-nine sheep and one native of Champagne do not make a hundred beasts.”  I suspect that the abstract of his work is written by a Swiss, who understands French very well, though he affects to speak it badly.  This is neat, earnest, and concise, and I bless the author of the abstract, whoever he may be.  “It is of the Lord to cultivate the vine.”  After all, my dear philosopher, a little longer, and I do not know whether all these books will be necessary, and whether man will not have enough sense to comprehend by himself that three do not make one, and that bread is not God.  The enemies of reason are playing a very foolish part at this moment, and I believe that we can say as in the song: 

“To destroy all these people
You should let them alone.”

I do not know what will become of the religion of Christ, but its professors are in false garb.  What Pascal, Nicole, and Arnaud could not do, there is an appearance that three or four absurd and ignorant fanatics will accomplish.  The nation will give this vigorous blow within, while she is doing so little outside, and we will put in the abbreviated chronological pages of the year 1762:  “This year France lost all its colonies and expelled the Jesuits.”  I know nothing but powder, which with so little apparent force, could produce such great results.

VOLTAIRE TO D’ALEMBERT.

DELICES, July 12, 1762.

It appears to me that the Testament of Jean Meslier has a great effect; all those who read it are convinced; this man discusses and proves.  He speaks in the moment of death, at the moment when even liars tell the truth fully.  This is the strongest of all arguments.  Jean Meslier is to convert the world.  Why is his gospel in so few hands?  How lukewarm you are at Paris!  You hide your tight under a bushel!