the period may be noted the fact that after the death of the atheist
Damilaville his enemies contrived to deprive his brother of a post
from which he had his sole livelihood. [1196] It is but one of an
infinity of proofs that the spirit of sheer sectarian malevolence,
which is far from being eliminated in modern life, was in the French
Church of the eighteenth century the ruling passion. Lovers of moderate
courses there were, even in the Church; but even among professors of
lenity we find an ingrained belief in the virtue of vituperation and
coercion. And it is not until the persecuted minority has developed
its power of written retaliation, and the deadly arrows of Voltaire
have aroused in the minds of persecutors a new terror, that there
seems to arise on that side a suspicion that there can be any better
way of handling unbelief than by invective and imprisonment. After
they had taught the heretics to defend themselves, and found them
possessed of weapons such as orthodoxy could not hope to handle, we
find Churchmen talking newly of the duty of gentleness towards error;
and even then clinging to the last to the weapons of public ostracism
and aspersion. So the fight was of necessity fought on the side of
freethought in the temper of men warring on incorrigible oppression
and cruelty as well as on error. The wonder is that the freethinkers
preserved so much amenity.