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.