“So far, so good; but there is in this world another kind of religion, in the exercise of which you have as yet shown but little zeal.  Will you at last assume this mask, and contradict the principles which you have striven to maintain during your whole life?  Will you, at the approach of death, go through with those ceremonies and observances which religion commands?”

The marquis did not reply immediately.  His eye turned to the beautiful prospect lying at his feet, upon which the last purple rays of the evening sun were now lingering.

“This is God, sire!” said he, enthusiastically; “this is truly God!  Why are men not content to worship Him in nature, to find Him where He most assuredly is?  Why do they seek Him in houses made with hands, and—­”

“And in wafers made of meal and water?” said Frederick, interrupting him; “and now tell me, marquis, will you also one day seek Him thus?”

“Yes, sire,” said D’Argens, after a short pause, “I will do thus from friendship to my brothers, and interest for my family.”

“That is to say, you will be unfaithful to the interests of philosophy and truth?”

“It will appear so, sire; but no man of intellect and thought will be duped by this seeming inconsistency.  If the part which I play seem unworthy, I may be excused in view of my motive—­at all events, I do not think it wrong.  The folly of mankind has left me but one alternative—­to be a hypocrite, or to prepare bitter grief for my relations, who love me tenderly.  ‘Out of love,’ then, for my family, I will die a hypocrite. [Footnote:  The marquis returned to Provence, in his seventieth year, and died there.  The journals hastened to make known that he died a Christian, recanting his atheistical philosophy.  The king wrote to the widow of the marquis for intelligence on this subject.  She replied that her husband had received the last sacraments, but only after he was in the arms of death, and could neither see nor hear, and she herself had left the room.  The marquise added:  “Ah, sire, what a land is this!  I have been assured that the greatest service I could render to my husband would be to burn all his writings, to give all his pictures to the flames; that the more we burn on earth of that which is sinful or leads to sin, the less we shall burn in hell!”—­Oeuvres Posthumes, vol. xii., p. 316.] But, sire, why should we speak of death? why disquiet the laughing spirits of the Greeks and Romans, who now inhabit this their newest temple by discoursing of graves and skeletons?”

“You are right, marquis—­away with the ghastly spectre!  This present life belongs to us, and a happy life it shall be.  We will sit at the feet of Voltaire, and learn how to banish the sorrows of life by wit and mocking laughter.  With the imagination and enthusiasm of poets, we will conceive this world to be a paradise.  And now tell me what other news you have brought back with you from Berlin.”