Chapter XIII: The Rise of Modern Freethought (7)

[2201] M. Labitte, himself a Catholic, speaks of Garasse's "forfanterie habituelle" and "ton d'insolence sincère qui déguise tant de mensonges" (Pref. cited, p. xxxi.). Prof. Strowski (p. 130) admits too that "Il ne faut pas trop s'attacher aux révélations sensationelles du père Garasse: les maximes qu'il prête aux beaux esprits, il les leur prête en effet, elles ne leur appartient pas toutes. La société secrète, la Confrérie des Bouteilles, ou il les dit engagés, est un invention de sa verve bouffonne." But the Professor, with a "N'importe!", forgives him, and trades on his matter.

[2202] Owen, French Skeptics, p. 659. Cp. Lecky, Rationalism, i, 97, citing Maury, as to the resistance of libertins to the superstition about witchcraft.

[2203] Doctrine Curieuse des Beaux Esprits, as cited, p. 208. This is one of the passages which fully explain the opinion of the orthodox of that age that Garasse "helped rather than hindered atheism" (Reimmann, Hist. Atheismi, 1725, p. 408).

[2204] Mersenne ascribed the quatrains to a skilled controversialist. Quæstiones, pref.