[141] See Duruy, Hist. de la France, ii, 253; Bonet-Maury, as cited, pp. 53–66. [↑]
[142] As to whose attitude at this crisis see O. Douen, L’Intolérance de Fénelon, 1880. [↑]
[143] Lanson, Hist. de la litt. française, p. 627. [↑]
[144] Id ib. Cp. Demogeot, p. 468. [↑]
[145] Not printed till 1743, in the Nouvelles libertés de penser; and still read in MS. by Grimm in 1754. Fontenelle was also credited with a heretical letter on the resurrection, and an essay on the Infinite, pointing to disbelief. It should be noted, however, that he stands for deism in his essay, De l’existence de Dieu, which is a guarded application of the design argument against what was then assumed to be the only alternative—the “fortuitous concourse of atoms.” [↑]
[146] But Voltaire and he were not at one. He is the “nain de Saturne” in Micromégas. [↑]
[147] B. 1613; d. 1703. A man who lived to ninety can have been no great debauchee. [↑]
[148] Cp. Dynamics of Religion, p. 172. [↑]
[149] Cp. Gidel, Étude prefixed to Œuvres Choisies de Saint-Evremond, ed. Garnier, pp. 64–69. [↑]