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Title: Superstition In All Ages (1732)
Common Sense

Author: Jean Meslier

Commentator: Voltaire

Translator: Anna Knoop

Release Date: January 25, 2006 [EBook #17607]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUPERSTITION IN ALL AGES (1732) ***

Produced by Gary Klein

SUPERSTITION IN ALL AGES

By Jean Meslier

1732

A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, WHO, AFTER A PASTORAL SERVICE OF THIRTY YEARS
AT ETREPIGNY IN CHAMPAGNE, FRANCE, WHOLLY ABJURED RELIGIOUS DOGMAS, AND
LEFT AS HIS LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT TO HIS PARISHIONERS, AND TO THE
WORLD, TO BE PUBLISHED AFTER HIS DEATH, THE FOLLOWING PAGES, ENTITLED:
COMMON SENSE.

Translated from the French original by Miss Anna Knoop

1878

LIFE OF JEAN MESLIER BY VOLTAIRE.

Jean Meslier, born 1678, in the village of Mazerny, dependency of the
duchy of Rethel, was the son of a serge weaver; brought up in the
country, he nevertheless pursued his studies and succeeded to the
priesthood. At the seminary, where he lived with much regularity, he
devoted himself to the system of Descartes.

Becoming curate of Etrepigny in Champagne and vicar of a little annexed
parish named Bue, he was remarkable for the austerity of his habits.
Devoted in all his duties, every year he gave hat remained of his salary
to the poor of his parishes; enthusiastic, and of rigid virtue, he was
very temperate, as much in regard to his appetite as in relation to
women.

MM. Voiri and Delavaux, the one curate of Varq, the other curate of
Boulzicourt, were his confessors, and the only ones with whom he
associated.

The curate Meslier was a rigid partisan of justice, and sometimes
carried his zeal a little too far. The lord of his village, M. de
Touilly, having ill-treated some peasants, he refused to pray for him in
his service. M. de Mailly, Archbishop of Rheims, before whom the case
was brought, condemned him. But the Sunday which followed this decision,
the abbot Meslier stood in his pulpit and complained of the sentence of
the cardinal. "This is," said he, "the general fate of the poor coun