The Works of Voltaire, Vol. IV of XLIII. Romances, Vol. III of III, and A Treatise on Toleration. · Voltaire
CHAPTER XVI. A CONVERSATION BETWEEN A DYING MAN AND ONE IN GOOD HEALTH.
An inhabitant of a country village lying at the point of death was visited by a person in good health, who came to insult him in his last moments, with the following speech: “Wretch that thou art, think as I do this instant, sign this writing immediately, confess that five propositions are to be found in a book that neither thou nor I have ever read; adopt immediately the opinion of Lanfranc against Berengarius, and of St. Thomas against St. Bonaventura; join with the Council of Nice against the Council of Frankfort, and explain to me out of hand how the words ‘My Father is greater than I’ signify exactly ‘I am as great as He.’ Tell me also in what manner the Father communicates all His attributes to the Son, excepting the fatherhood, or I will have thy body thrown to the fowls of the air, thy children deprived of their inheritance, thy wife of her dowry and thy family turned out to beg their bread, which shall be refused them by those who are like myself.” DYING MAN.—I scarcely understand what you say; your threats strike my ears confusedly, they trouble my mind and render my last moments terrifying. In the name of God have pity on me! CRUEL MAN.—Pity! I can have none for thee, unless thou art exactly of my opinion.
DYING MAN.—Alas! you must be sensible that in these, my last moments, my senses are all impaired, the doors of my understanding are shut, my ideas are lost in confusion and I have hardly any sentiments remaining. Am I then in a condition to dispute? CRUEL MAN.—Well, then, if thou canst not believe as I would have thee, only say that you do, and that will content me. DYING MAN.—How! Would you have me perjure myself to please you, when I am going in an instant to appear before the judgment seat of that God who is the avenger of perjury? CRUEL MAN.—No matter; thou wilt have the pleasure to be interred in holy ground, and thy wife and children will have wherewithal to maintain them after thy death. Die a hypocrite; hypocrisy is a very good thing; I have heard say it is the homage which vice pays to virtue. A little hypocrisy, friend, can’t cost you much. DYING MAN.—Surely you must either not acknowledge a God, or hold Him very cheap, since you require me to tell a lie with my last breath, when you yourself must soon appear in judgment before Him and answer for that lie. CRUEL MAN.—Insolent wretch! Dost thou say that I do not acknowledge a God? DYING MAN.—Pardon me, brother; I rather fear you do not know Him. The God whom I adore lends me at this time an increase of strength to tell you with my dying words that if you believe in Him you ought to behave toward me with charity. He has given me my wife and children; do not you make them perish with misery. As for my body, do with it as seems good to you; I leave it at your disposal; but let me conjure you to believe in God.
CRUEL MAN.—Come, come; truce with your reasoning, and do as I bid you; I will have it so. I command you to do it. DYING MAN.—But what advantage can you have in thus tormenting me? CRUEL MAN.—What advantage? Why, if I can make you sign, it will be worth a good canonship to me. DYING MAN.—Ah! brother; my last moment approaches; I am expiring, but I will pray to God to touch your heart that you may be converted. CRUEL MAN.—The devil take the impertinent puppy; he has not signed after all! Well, I’ll e’en sign for him; it is but a little forgery. The following letter is a confirmation of the above doctrine: CHAPTER XVII. A LETTER FROM A BENEFICED PRIEST TO FATHER LETELLIER, THE JESUIT, DATED THE 6th OF MAY, 1714. Reverend Father: The following is in obedience to the orders I received from your reverence to lay before you the most effectual means for delivering Jesus and His company from their enemies. I believe there may be remaining at this time in the kingdom not more than five hundred thousand Huguenots; some say a million, others a million and a half; but let the number be what it will, the following is my advice, which, however, as in duty bound, I submit with all humility to your reverence’s judgment.
In the first place, then, it will be very easy to seize in one day all the preachers, and to hang them all at one time and in one place, which will be not only a very edifying, but also a very entertaining exhibition to the people. Secondly, I would have all the fathers and mothers who are heretics murdered in their beds, because the killing of them in the streets might occasion some little disturbance; besides, by that means, several of them might escape, which is above all to be prevented. This execution is a necessary corollary of our principles; for if we ought to kill a heretic, as so many of our great divines have incontestably proved, it is evident that we ought to kill them all without exception. Thirdly, I would, the very next day, marry all the daughters to good Catholics, inasmuch as it would not be politic to depopulate the state so much after the late war; but as for the boys of fourteen and fifteen years of age, who have already imbibed bad principles, which we cannot hope to root out, ’tis my opinion that they should be all castrated to prevent the race from ever being reproduced. As for the other younger lads, they may be brought up in our colleges, where they may be whipped till they have learned by heart the works of Sanchez and Molinos.
Fourthly, I think under correction, the same method ought to be taken with all the Lutherans of Alsace, for I remember, in the year 1704, to have seen two old women of that country laugh on the day of our defeat at Blenheim. Fifthly, What relates to the Jansenists will perhaps appear a little more difficult. I believe their numbers may amount to about six millions, a little more or less; but this ought not to give any alarm to a person of your reverence’s disposition. I reckon among the Jansenists all the parliaments who have so unworthily maintained the liberties of the Gallican church. I leave it to your reverence to weigh with your usual prudence the most effectual methods for reducing these turbulent spirits. The Gunpowder Plot failed of the desired success through the weakness of one of the conspirators, who wanted to save the life of his friend; but, as your reverence has no friend, the same inconvenience is not to be apprehended. You may very easily blow up all the parliaments in the kingdom with the composition called Pulvis Pyrius, invented by the monk Schwarz. By my calculation it will require upon an average thirty-six barrels of powder for each of the parliaments; now, if we multiply thirty-six, the number of barrels, by twelve, the number of parliaments, it will make four hundred and thirty-two barrels, which, at a hundred crowns per barrel, will amount to not quite a hundred and thirty thousand livres—a mere trifle for the reverend father-general.
The parliaments thus disposed of, you may bestow their places upon your congregationists, who are perfectly well versed in the laws of the realm. Sixthly, It will be a very easy matter to poison the Cardinal de Noailles, who is a very simple, unsuspecting man. Your reverence may take the same steps for conversion with several of the refractory prelates; and their bishoprics, by a brief from the pope, may be put into the hands of the Jesuits; thus all the bishops that remain, being staunch to the good cause, and they making a proper choice of curates, I, with your reverence’s permission, would give the following advice: Seventhly and lastly, As the Jansenists are said to take the sacrament one time in the year at least, which is at Easter, it would not be amiss to season the consecrated wafers with a little of that drug which was used to do justice upon the Emperor Henry VII. Some nice caviller may perhaps tell me that in this operation we may run some risk of poisoning the Molinists at the same time. There is some weight in this objection; but then it should be considered that there is no project without its inconveniences, nor any system but what threatens destruction in some part. And if we were to be stopped by these little difficulties we should never attain our end in anything; besides, as here we have in view the obtaining the greatest of all possible advantages, we should not suffer ourselves to be shocked, though it brings with it some bad consequences, especially as those consequences are of little or no consideration.
And, after all, we shall have nothing to reproach ourselves with, since it is proved that the Reformed, as they call themselves, and the Jansenists, have all of them their portion in hell; therefore, we only put them in possession of their inheritance a little sooner. It is as evident that heaven belongs of right to the Molinists; therefore by destroying them by mistake, and without any evil intention, we hasten their happiness; and are in both cases the ministers of Providence. As to those who may be a little shocked at the number to be thus made away with, your reverence may remark to them that from the first flourishing days of the church to the year 1707—that is to say, in about fourteen hundred years—religion has occasioned the massacre of upwards of fifty millions of persons; whereas by my proposal not above six millions and a half will be put to death by the halter, the dagger, or poison. But perhaps it may be objected that my calculation is not just, and that I have committed an error against the Rule of Three; inasmuch as, that if in fourteen hundred years there perished fifty millions of souls on account of some trifling disputes in divinity, that makes only thirty-five thousand seven hundred and fourteen and some little fraction in a year, and consequently that by my method an overplus of six millions sixty-four thousand two hundred and eighty-five and some fractions are put to death in the current year. But, indeed, this is a very childish quibble; nay, I’ll even call it impious; for is it not plain that by my method I save the lives of all the Catholics, so long as the world shall last? But, in short, there would be no end of answering every frivolous objection.
I am, with the most profound respect, reverend father, your reverence’s most humble, most devout, and most humane R———, Native of Angoulême, Prefect of the Congregation. This glorious scheme, however, could not be carried into execution, because it required considerable time to make the necessary dispositions, and that Father Letellier was banished the year following. But as it is right to examine both sides of an argument, it will be proper to inquire in what cases it may be lawful to follow in part the scheme of the reverend father’s correspondent. It would seem rather too severe to execute it in all its parts; let us therefore examine in what cases we ought to break upon the wheel, to hang, or to make galley-slaves of those who differ from us in opinion. This shall be the subject of the following chapter. CHAPTER XVIII. THE ONLY CASES IN WHICH NON-TOLERATION MAKES PART OF THE HUMAN LAW. For a government not to have a right to punish men for their errors, it is necessary that those errors should not be crimes; and they are crimes only when they disturb the public tranquillity; which they do whenever they inspire enthusiasm. It is necessary therefore that men should begin by laying aside enthusiasm in order to deserve toleration. If a number of young Jesuits, knowing that the church holds all reprobates and heretics in detestation, and that the opinion of the Jansenists having been condemned by a bull this sect is consequently reprobate, thereupon go and set fire to the house of the fathers of the oratory, because Quesnel, one of that body, was a Jansenist; it is clear that the government would be obliged to punish those Jesuits.
In like manner, if these latter have been found to teach the most reprehensible doctrines, and if their institution appears contrary to the laws of the kingdom, it becomes necessary to abolish their society, and of Jesuits to make them useful citizens; which, in fact, so far from being an oppression upon them, as has been pretended, is a real good done them; for where is the great oppression of being obliged to wear a short coat instead of a long gown, or to be free instead of being a slave? In time of peace whole regiments are broken without complaining. Why, then, should the Jesuits make such an outcry, when they are broken for the sake of peace? Were the Franciscans in a transport of holy zeal for the Virgin Mary, to go and pull down the church of the Dominicans, who hold Mary to have been born in original sin, the government would then be obliged to treat the Franciscans much in the same manner it has done the Jesuits. The same argument will hold good with regard to the Lutherans and Calvinists; for let them say, if they please, we follow the dictates of our consciences; it is more profitable to obey God than man; we are the only true flock, and therefore ought to cut off all the wolves. It is evident that in this case they themselves are the wolves.
One of the most astonishing examples of enthusiasm was in a little sect in Denmark, founded on one of the best principles in the world; for these people endeavored to procure the eternal happiness of all their brethren; but the consequences of this principle were very singular. As they believed that all the young children who died without baptism were damned, and that those who had the happiness to die immediately after receiving that sacrament enter into eternal happiness, they went forth and murdered all the young children of both sexes lately baptized, whom they could meet with. By this action they doubtless procured the little innocents the greatest of all felicity, by preserving them at once from sin, the miseries of this life, and hell, and sending them certainly to heaven. But these people, in the excess of their charitable zeal, did not consider that it is forbidden to do evil that good may come thereof; that they had no right over the lives of these infants; that the greatest part of fathers and mothers are so carnal as to desire rather to keep their children about them than to see their throats cut, though it was to send them to heaven; and, lastly, that it is the duty of the magistrate to punish murder, though committed with a good intent.
It would seem that the Jews had the greatest right of any persons to rob and murder us; for although the Old Testament abounds with examples of toleration and indulgence, yet are there several instances of the contrary, and some very severe laws. God did at times command his people to kill all idolaters, reserving only the young women fit for the nuptial state. They look upon us as idolaters; and notwithstanding that we at present tolerate them, they might certainly, had they the power in their hands, cut us all off, excepting our young women. Moreover, they would be under an indispensable obligation to exterminate the whole Turkish race. This speaks for itself, for the Turks are at present in possession of the countries of the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, etc., all of whom were laid under a curse, and their country, which was about five and twenty leagues in extent, was given to the Jews by several successive covenants; consequently they ought to resume possession of their own, which the Turks have usurped from them for upwards of a thousand years. But if the Jews were to reason in this manner nowadays, it is pretty certain we should make them no other answer than by impaling them alive. These are the only cases in which persecution appears reasonable.
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