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RedditPRIESTS' ENTRAILS & PROFS' FREEDOM
New York City
In her excellent June 27 "Subject to Debate" column, Katha Pollitt attributes to Diderot the phrase "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." In fact, Diderot lifted this formulation from the atheist French priest Jean Meslier (1664-1729), who preceded Diderot, and whose multivolume memoir's subtitle says it treats "Of the Vanity and Falseness of all the Divinities and All the Religions of the World, to be addressed to my Parishioners After my Death to serve Them as a Testimony to Truth." Meslier's memoir, Mon Testament, was rediscovered and posthumously published by Voltaire, who frequently borrowed from Meslier, as did Diderot.
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