Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 02.djvu/218

190 tenth part are hanged at our sessions. They would pass their wretched lives in taverns, with bad women. They would fight together, and fall down drunk amidst the pewter pots with which they break each other's heads. Nor would they rise but to steal and murder again, to recommence the same round of hideous brutality. Who, then, would restrain great kings in their fury? An atheist king is more dangerous than a fanatical Ravaillac.

Atheism abounded in Italy during the fifteenth century. What was the consequence? It was as common a matter to poison another as to invite him to supper. The stroke of the stiletto was as frequent as an embrace. There were then professors of crime, as we now have professors of music and mathematics. Churches, even, were the favorite scenes of murder, and princes were slain at the altar. In this way Pope Sixtus IV. and archbishop of Pisa put to death two of the most accomplished princes of Europe. Explain, my dear friend, to Parouba and his children, what I mean by a pope and an archbishop; but tell them we have no such monsters now. But to resume: A duke of Milan was also slain in a church. Every one knows the astonishing horrors of Alexander VI. Had such morals continued, Italy would have been more desolate than Peru after the invasion.

Faith, then, in a God who rewards good actions, punishes the bad, and forgives lesser faults, is most useful to mankind. It is the only restraint