Page:Books Condemned to be Burnt - James Anson Farrer.djvu/28

12 a Polish follower of the same faith, escaped with expulsion from Poland, when the Diet condemned his book, Confessio Fidei Christianæ to be burnt by the executioner. Sainte Foi, or Gerberon, whose Miroir de la Verité Chrétienne was condemned by several bishops and archbishops, and burnt by order of the Parlement of Aix (1678), lived to write other works, of probably as little interest. La Peyrfere was only imprisoned at Brussels for his book on the Preadamites, which was burnt at Paris (1655). And Pascal saw his famous Lettres à un Provincial, which made too free with the dignity of all authorities, secular and religious, twice burnt, once in French (1657), and once in Latin (1660), without himself incurring a similar penalty. So did Derodon, professor of philosophy at Nismes, outlive the Disputatio (1645), in which he made light of Cyril of Alexandria, and which was condemned and burnt by the Parlement of Toulouse for its opposition to some beliefs of Roman Catholicism.

Passing now to the eighteenth century, we find book-burning, then declining in England, in full vigour on the Continent.

The most important book that so suffered was Rousseau's admirable treatise