e hand of Morand, his valet de chambee, who was
watching by him, pressed it, and said: "Adieu, my dear Morand, I am
gone." These were his last words. Like a peaceful river, with green
and shaded banks, he flowed without a murmur into the waveless sea,
where life is rest.

From this death, so simple and serene, so kind, so philosophic and
tender; so natural and peaceful; from these words so utterly destitute
of cant or dramatic touch, all the frightful pictures, all the
despairing utterances have been drawn and made. From these materials,
and from these alone, or rather, in spite of these facts, have been
constructed by priests and clergymen and their dupes all the shameless
lies about the death of this great and wonderful man. A man, compared
with whom all of his calumniators, dead and living, were, and are, but
dust and vermin. Let us be honest. Did all the priests of Rome
increase the mental wealth of man as much as Bruno? Did all the
priests of France do as great a work for the civilization of the world
as Voltaire or Diderot? Did all the ministers of Scotland add as much
to the such of human knowledge as David Hume? Have all the clergymen,
monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops, cardinals and popes, from
the day of Pentecost to the last election, done as much for human
liberty as Thomas Paine? What would the world be if infidels had never
been? The infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower
of all the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of
liberty and love; the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers
and prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on
the battlefields of thought, the creditors of all the years to be.

In those days the philosophers--that is to say, the thinkers--were not
buried in holy ground. It was feared that their principles might
contaminate the ashes of the just. And they also feared that on the
morning of the resurrection they might, in a moment of confusion, slip
into heaven. Some were burned and their ashes scattered; and the
bodies of some were thrown naked to beasts, and others buried in unholy
earth. Voltaire knew the history of Adrienne Le Couvreur, a beautiful
actress, denied burial. After all, we do feel an interest in what is
to become of our bodies. There is a modesty that belongs to death.
Upon this subject Voltaire was infinitely sensitive. It was that he
might be buried that he went through the farc