A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

the earlier part of the century freethought had been disseminated largely by way of manuscripts [1010] and reprints of foreign books in translation; but from the middle onwards, despite denunciations and prohibitions, new books multiply. To the policy of tacit toleration imposed by Malesherbes a violent end was temporarily put in 1757, when the Jesuits obtained a proclamation of the death penalty against all writers who should attack the Christian religion, directly or indirectly. It was doubtless under the menace of this decree that Deslandes, before dying in 1757, caused to be drawn up by two notaries an acte by which he disavowed and denounced not only his Grands hommes morts en plaisantant but all his other works, whether printed or in MS., in which he had "laid down principles or sustained sentiments contrary to the spirit of religion." [1011] But in 1764, on the suppression of the Jesuits, there was a vigorous resumption of propaganda. "There are books," writes Voltaire in 1765, "of which forty years ago one would not have trusted the manuscript to one's friends, and of which there are now published six editions in eighteen months." [1012] Voltaire single-handed produced a library; and d'Holbach is credited with at least a dozen freethinking treatises, every one remarkable in its day. But there were many more combatants. The reputation of Voltaire has overshadowed even that of his leading contemporaries, and theirs and his have further obscured that of the lesser men; but a list of miscellaneous freethinking works by French writers during the century, up to the Revolution, will serve to show how general was the activity after 1750. It will be seen that very little was published in France in the period in which English deism was most fecund. A noticeable activity of publication begins about 1745. But it was when the long period of chronic warfare ended for France with the peace of Paris (1763); when she had lost India and North America; when she had suppressed the Jesuit order (1764); and when England had in the main turned from intellectual interests to the pursuit of empire and the development of manufacturing industry, that the released French intelligence [1013] turned with irresistible energy to the rational criticism of established opinions. The following table is thus symbolic of the whole century's development:--