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

the period may be noted the fact that after the death of the atheist Damilaville his enemies contrived to deprive his brother of a post from which he had his sole livelihood. [1196] It is but one of an infinity of proofs that the spirit of sheer sectarian malevolence, which is far from being eliminated in modern life, was in the French Church of the eighteenth century the ruling passion. Lovers of moderate courses there were, even in the Church; but even among professors of lenity we find an ingrained belief in the virtue of vituperation and coercion. And it is not until the persecuted minority has developed its power of written retaliation, and the deadly arrows of Voltaire have aroused in the minds of persecutors a new terror, that there seems to arise on that side a suspicion that there can be any better way of handling unbelief than by invective and imprisonment. After they had taught the heretics to defend themselves, and found them possessed of weapons such as orthodoxy could not hope to handle, we find Churchmen talking newly of the duty of gentleness towards error; and even then clinging to the last to the weapons of public ostracism and aspersion. So the fight was of necessity fought on the side of freethought in the temper of men warring on incorrigible oppression and cruelty as well as on error. The wonder is that the freethinkers preserved so much amenity.