Anacharsis CLOOTS (1755-1794) conventionnel (Oise), fanatica - Lot 132

Lot 132
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Anacharsis CLOOTS (1755-1794) conventionnel (Oise), fanatica - Lot 132
Anacharsis CLOOTS (1755-1794) conventionnel (Oise), fanatical opponent of religion, guillotined with the Hebertists. L.A.S., Paris April 20, 1791, to Abbé Claude FAUCHET; 8 pages in-4 (engraved portrait enclosed). Rare, beautiful and long letter fighting against religion in the name of Reason and of the human race. [Claude FAUCHET (1744-1793), constitutional bishop of Calvados and future conventionnel of this department, was a supporter of the renewal of the Catholic religion as "National Religion"]. Cloots reproached Fauchet for loving too much "the Christian trinity and not enough the civic trinity [...] The Nation, the Assembly and the Prince form a trinity better proven and more beneficial than the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. A "baptismal war" or dispute between them would be the "best means to uproot religious error and to make philosophical truth triumph"; but he refuses to discuss in public with Fauchet, because "it would be strangely compromising the cause of the human race, to present himself imprudently in your Church of the Circus". He will send him his book on the Certainty of the Proofs of Mohammedanism in which he destroys "from top to bottom all past, present and future revelations. I began in the career of letters by overthrowing all priestly tyrannies, and I continue my career by destroying all political tyrannies. He invites Fauchet to a contradictory debate in the presence of commissioners chosen on both sides: "the discussion will be lively, pressing and decisive [...Invoke your Holy Spirit, I invoke my Holy Reason; it is a question of a fight to the death; and we will see if the French, if the human race is condemned to the perpetual yoke of the aristocratic clergy: we will see if the fifth of the taxes must be used eternally to nourish fortune-tellers or misfortune-tellers; we will see if invented Judaic stories [....] must deserve the respect of a regenerated nation, which will send the tellers of such nonsense to Bicetre or Charenton"... Etc. The whole letter, too long to quote, is in this tone. He concludes: "We are going to give the world a new proof of the energy of reason against the arguments of prevention. Let all the tribunes of the kingdom seize then our polemical work whose publicity will cure the men radically of the sacred evil "...Former collection Max Thorek (ink stamp).
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