opinions, and allowed them to govern in place of themselves. Then was
the sovereign power subordinate to the sacerdotal, and the prince was
only the first servant of the church; she degraded him to such a
degree as to make him her hangman; she obliged him to execute her
sanguinary decrees; she forced him to dip his hands in the blood of
his own subjects whom the clergy had proscribed; she made him the
visible instrument of her vengeance, her fury, and her concealed
passions. Instead of occupying himself with the happiness of his
people, the sovereign has had the complaisance to torment, to
persecute, and to immolate honest citizens, thus exciting the just
hatred of a portion of his people, to whom he should have been a
father, to gratify the ambition and the selfish malevolence of some
priests, always aliens in the state which nourishes them, and who only
style themselves members of the realm in order to domineer, to
distract, to plunder, and to devour with impunity.

How little soever you are disposed to reflect, you will be convinced,
Madam, that I do not exaggerate these things. Recent examples prove to
you that even in this age, so ambitious of being considered
enlightened, nations are not secure from the shocks that the priests
have ever caused nations to suffer. You have a hundred times sighed at
the sight of the sad follies which puerile questions have produced
among us. You have shuddered at the frightful consequences which have
resulted from the unreasonable squabbles of the clergy. You have
trembled with all good citizens at the sight of the tragical effects
which have been brought about by the furious wickedness of a
fanaticism for which nothing is sacred. In fine, you have seen the
sovereign authority compelled to struggle incessantly against
rebellious subjects, who pretend that their conscience or the
interests of religion have obliged them to resist opinions the most
agreeable to common sense, and the most equitable.

Our fathers, more religious and less enlightened than ourselves, were
witnesses of scenes yet more terrible. They saw civil wars, leagues
openly formed against their sovereign, and the capital submerged in
the blood of murdered citizens; two monarchs successively immolated to
the fury of the clergy, who kindled in all parts the fire of sedition.
They afterwards saw kings at war with their own subjects; a famous
sovereign, Louis XIV., tarnishing all his glory by persecuting,
contrary to the