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Updated: May 5, 2025
"I will go and warn them that we shall all sup together this evening. By the way, M. de Voltaire has given up his house at Delices to M. de Villars, and has gone to live at Ferney." "That makes no difference to me, as I was not thinking of calling on him this time. I shall be here for two or three weeks, and I mean to devote my time to you." "You are too good."
They proposed a game of quinze, which I accepted, and after losing fifty louis I left off, and we walked about the town till dinner-time. We found the Duc de Villars at Delices; he had come there to consult Dr. Tronchin, who had kept him alive for the last ten years.
It was an ideal spot, and rightly he called it "Delices." Here he was going to end his days amid flowers and birds and books and bees, an onlooker and possibly a commentator on the times, but not a doer. His days of work were over. Of the world of strife he had had enough thus he wrote to Frederick. Visitors of a literary turn of mind at Geneva began to come his way.
Three hundred Mesliers distributed in a province have caused many conversions. Ah, if I was assisted! FERNEY, September 29, 1764. There are too few Mesliers and too many swindlers. AUX DELICES, October 8, 1764. Names injure the cause; they awaken prejudice. Only the name of Jean Meslier can do good, because the repentance of a good priest in the hour of death must make a great impression.
The same intention betrayed itself in every sort of work that issued at that time from the hermitage of Delices, the poem on Le Tremblement de Terre de Lisbonne, the drama of Socrate, the satire of the Pauvre Diable, the sad story of Candide, led the way to a series of publications every day more and more violent against the Christian faith.
He had taken the communion at Colmar, to soften down the Jesuits; he had conformed to the rules of the convent of Senones, when he took refuge with Dom Calmet; at Delices he worked at the Encyclopcedia, which was then being commenced by D'Alembert and Diderot, taking upon himself in preference the religious articles, and not sparing the creed of his neighbors, the pastors of Geneva, any more than that of the Catholic church.
Suppose a Frenchman I mean no disrespect to the great French nation, for all nations are afflicted with their peculiar parasitic growths, which are lazy, hungry forms, usually characterised by a disproportionate swallowing apparatus: suppose a Parisian who should shuffle down the Boulevard with a soul ignorant of the gravest cares and the deepest tenderness of manhood, and a frame more or less fevered by debauchery, mentally polishing into utmost refinement of phrase and rhythm verses which were an enlargement on that Shaksperian motto, and worthy of the most expensive title to be furnished by the vendors of such antithetic ware as Les marguerites de l'Enfer, or Les délices de Béelzébuth.
The Testament of Meslier ought to be in the pocket of all honest men; a good priest, full of candor, who asks God's pardon for deceiving himself, must enlighten those who deceive themselves. AUX DELICES, February 6, 1762. But no little bird told me of the infernal book of that curate, Jean Meslier; a very important work to the angels of darkness. An excellent catechism for Beelzebub.
I know nothing but powder, which with so little apparent force, could produce such great results. DELICES, July 12, 1762. It appears to me that the Testament of Jean Meslier has a great effect; all those who read it are convinced; this man discusses and proves. He speaks in the moment of death, at the moment when even liars tell the truth fully. This is the strongest of all arguments.
"Ainsi," he began, abruptly fronting and arresting me, "vous allez troner comme une reine; demain troner a mes cotes? Sans doute vous savourez d'avance les delices de l'autorite. Je crois voir en je ne sais quoi de rayonnante, petite ambitieuse!" Now the fact was, he happened to be entirely mistaken.
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