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

Sainte, par permission de Jean, Luc, Marc, et Matthieu. (Nominally Trévoux, "aux dépens des Pères de la Société de Jésus.") [Appeared later as Examen, etc. Condemned to be burnt by Parlement of Paris.] This book was republished in the same year with "demontrée par" substituted in the title for "traduite de," and purporting to be "traduit de l'Anglais de Gilbert Burnet," with the imprint "Londres, G. Cock, 1745." It appeared again in 1761 as Examen de la religion dont on cherche l'éclaircissement de bonne foi. Attribué à M. de Saint-Evremont, traduit, etc., with the same imprint. It again bore the latter title when reprinted in 1763, and again in the Évangile de la Raison in 1764. Voltaire in 1763 declared it to be the work of Dumarsais, pronouncing it to be assuredly not in the style of Saint-Evremond (Grimm, iv, 85-88; Voltaire, Lettre à Damilaville, 6 déc. 1763), adding "mais il est fort tronqué et détestablement imprimé." This is true of the reprints in the Évangile de la Raison (1764, etc.), of one of which the present writer possesses a copy to which there has been appended in MS. a long section which had been lacking. The Évangile as a whole purports to be "Ouvrage posthume de M. D. M......y." [1016] But its first volume includes four pieces of Voltaire's, and his abridged Testament de Jean Meslier. Further, De la Serre is recorded to have claimed the authorship in writing on the eve of his death. Barbier, Dict. des Anonymes, 2e éd, No. 6158. He is said to have been hanged as a spy at Maestricht, April 11, 1748.