A Memoir- the Testament

by Jean Meslier

  It is, therefore, clearly an abuse and manifest injustice to want, on such a vain and odious basis and pretext, to establish and maintain such a strange and odious disproportion between the different states and conditions of men, which sets, as is obvious, all the authority, all the property, all the pleasures, all the comforts, all the wealth, and even idleness on the side of the powerful, the rich, and the nobles, and sets on the side of the poor everything that is painful, tiresome, that is, dependency, cares, misery, anxiety, all the pains and all the weariness of labor; which disproportion is all the more unjust and odious, as it puts them as it were in a complete dependency on the noble and rich, and makes them, as it were, their slaves, to the point that they are obliged to suffer, not only all their rebuffs, their scorn, and their insults, but also their humiliations, their injustice, and their mistreatment. This led an author to say that there was nothing as vile and abject, nothing as poor and contemptible as a French peasant, since he only works for the Powerful and the Noble, and he finds it immensely hard, work as he might, to win any bread for himself. In short, he said, the peasants are the absolute slaves of the Powerful and the Nobles, whose land, and that of the farm owners, they improve: they are oppressed, both by the public taxes and the gabelle, as by the particular burdens imposed on them by their masters, without including, he adds, whatever wicked demands the Clergy requires from these poor wretches. Indeed, the vexation, the violence, the injustice, and the mistreatment they inflict on the poor is shown by daily example. They are not content with having the first honors everywhere, or even having the finest houses, the finest lands, and the best inheritances, they must also try to get, whether by finesse and subtlety or by violence, what others have, they must also be paid from the rights, and benefit by the imposed drudgery of others, and requisition undue services. They are not even content unless they receive everything they ask for and see everyone crawling below them. Even the least lordlings and minor village lords are feared and obeyed by the people, unjustly demanding things of them, and who aren’t a public burden, who don’t always strive to usurp something over someone, and who don’t try to take whatever they can get. These people have quite aptly been compared to vermin, since, just as vermin only cause discomfort and only eat and continually gnaw on the bodies of those who are infested by them, in the same way these people do nothing but upset, torment, eat, and gnaw on the poor people. They would be happy, these poor people, if they were not made uncomfortably by these nasty vermin: but it is sure that they will always be unhappy, as long as they allow them to remain.

  You are told, my dear friends, you are told of devils, you are terrified, even at the very mention of the Devil, because you’re made to believe that the devils are the most wicked and fearsome thing to see, that they are the greatest enemies of the salvation of men, and that they love nothing better than to destroy men and make them miserable forever in Hell. But know, my dear friends, that, as far as you’re concerned, no Devils are more wicked or truly fearsome than the people I'm talking about; for you truly have no greater or more wicked adversaries and enemies to fear than the Powerful, the Nobles, and the Rich of the Earth, since these are truly the ones who trample on you, who torment you, and who make you as miserable as you are. And thus, our Painters are mistaken and deceived, when they fill their canvases with devils that are monsters, horrible and fearsome to look upon; they’re deceived, I say, and they deceive you like your Preachers, when they represent them so ugly, so hideous, so deformed. Both of these ought rather to make them resemble all these fine Gentlemen, the Powerful and the Noble, and like all the fine Ladies and Demoiselles that you see so well dressed, so well turned out, with their hair so well curled, so well powdered, so fragrant, glistening with gold, silver, and so many precious stones. For these, as I’ve said, are the only real Devils and she-Devils, since they’re the ones who cause you the most harm. The Devils that your Preachers and your Painters represent for you in forms and shapes that are so ugly and so monstrous, are surely only imaginary Devils, they can only frighten children and ignoramuses, and can only cause imaginary harm to anyone who is afraid of them. But these Devils and She-Devils, these Ladies and Gentlemen I’ve mentioned, are certainly not imaginary, they are really visible, they are well aware of how to make themselves fearsome, and the evils they bring upon the poor are all too real and painful. So, this is, once more, an abuse, and a very great abuse at that, to see, as we do, such a strange and enormous disproportion between the different states and conditions of men. And, as the Christian religion allows, and even authorizes such a strange, enormous, and unjust disproportion in human states and conditions, this is a striking proof that it does not come from God and that it is not of divine Institution, since right reason clearly shows us that a God who is supposed to be infinitely good, infinitely just, and infinitely wise, would never establish or authorize and maintain such massive and flagrant injustice.

  45. THE SECOND ABUSE: ALLOWING AND AUTHORIZING ALL SORTS OF ESTATES AND CONDITIONS OF MEN WHO EITHER DO NOTHING, OR WHOSE EMPLOYMENTS AND OCCUPATIONS ARE OF NO UTILITY IN THE WORLD, AND MANY OF WHOM DO NOTHING BUT PILLAGE, DESPOIL, AND OPPRESS OTHERS.

  A second abuse that reigns among men, especially in our France, is the tolerance, the maintenance, and even the authorization of many others sorts of conditions of men who are of no necessity, nor of any true utility in the world, and that, not only are many sorts of people tolerated and authorized, who hare of no utility, but even worse, many sorts of people are tolerated and even authorized, whose employments serve no purpose but to trample on, to plunder, and oppress the masses, which is again a clear abuse, since all these people unjustly and unnecessarily burden the public, and since it is contrary to reason and contrary to justice to want to burden the masses with harsh and heavy burdens and also to expose them to any harmful and unjust vexations. But, the fact that there, among men, so many sorts of conditions of people who are of no necessity, or any true utility in the world, and many whose employments are, in fact, only a burden on the good. That is obvious, not only in an infinity of scoundrels, both male and female, who make a calling of scrounging and begging for their bread, instead of putting themselves to some useful task, as they ought to do; but that is also obvious about many rich do-nothings, who, on the pretext that they have plenty, or enough to live on, from what they call their rents and annual revenues, don’t take part in any work or any business, but live as if in a continual idleness, with no other care or occupation than to stroll, play, enjoy themselves, sleep, drink, eat, and enjoy all of life’s pleasures and satisfactions. It is manifestly obvious that, since all those people, whether beggars or the idle rich, are of no utility in the world, and have no true usefulness to anyone, they must necessarily be dependent on the public since they live and subsist only from the work of others. Therefore, it is clearly an abuse to allow and to authorize such idleness and laziness from people, and it is an abuse to allow people who neither do nor want to do anything themselves to be uselessly maintained at the public expense. Far more wisely were things once ordained among the Egyptians, where everyone had to declare before the Magistrate what art and profession he lived on, or claimed to live from, and if anyone happened to be lying, or was later shown not to make a just and honest living, they were severely punished.

  46. ANOTHER ABUSE: ALLOWING AND AUTHORIZING SO MANY ECCLESIASTICS, ESPECIALLY DO-NOTHING AND USELESS MONKS.

  This abuse appears even more plainly with the great numbers of useless Ecclesiastics and Priests, both lay and regulars, as are so many Monseigneurs, Abbots, Priors, and Canons; and particularly in a prodigious quantity of Monks and Nuns as are in the Roman Church; for certainly there is no need for all these people, nor are they of any true utility in the world, with the exception, though, of the Bishops and Parish Priests or Vicars. For, although their role as Bishop or Parish Priest is completely vain and useless, still, as they are established and they are appointed to teach good morals and all the moral virtues, as well as to teach and to m
aintain errors and superstitions of a false Religion, they should not be considered completely unnecessary, since, in every well-regulated Republic, there must be teachers who teach virtue and good morals, as well as in the sciences and arts; and so the Bishops and Parish Priests or Vicars, being commissioned, as they say, with the spiritual government of souls and the care of moral instruction, as well as the vain superstitions of their religion, they can be said to work to some extent for the public good, and in this respect, they have a certain claim to live and be maintained at the public expense.

  47. THE ABUSE OF ALLOWING THEM TO OWN SO MUCH, DESPITE THEIR VOWS OF POVERTY.

  But all these Priests or Ecclesiastics, all these Abbots and Priors, all these Canons and Chaplains, and especially all these pious and ridiculous masquerades of monks and nuns, of so many different kinds, and so numerous in the Roman and Gallic Church, how are these needed by or useful to anyone? None whatsoever! What services do they render to the public? None whatsoever! What functions do they perform in the parishes? Not one! However, these people are still the best compensated and provided with the best of everything and all of life’s comforts; they have the best homes, the best furnishings, they’re the best dressed, they have the best footwear, they’re the best fed, and the least exposed to the insults and discomforts of times and seasons; they are not, like other people, worn out from work; they are not, like them, struck by the afflictions and miseries of life. In laboribus hominum non sunt et eum hominibus non flagellabuntur[656]. If they sometimes fall victim to disease or infirmities, they are so quickly and carefully supported and looked after in their needs, that the evil has almost no chance to offend them; and more particularly, with the Monks, who, despite vows of poverty and renunciation of the world in all its pomp and all vanity, despite professing to live amid bodily and spiritual mortifications, and in exercises of continual penitence, still, they don’t cease to live comfortably in the world, they do not cease to own wealth and property, or to have all the pleasant conveniences of life. This is also why their convents resemble Lordly Houses, or Princely Palaces, their gardens are like earthly Paradises, where all kinds of flowers and all sorts of fruit that please the sight and tongue, their pantries are always abundantly supplied with everything that could satisfy their appetite, both in meat and fish, according to the weather and the season, or according to the institution of their orders. They have huge farms everywhere, which bring them large profits, without their making the least effort with their own hands, in most parishes they receive many large tithes and they often also enjoy the rights of Seigneurs, such that they are lucky enough to be able to harvest abundantly without any toil or work, where they have never planted anything, and they have the good fortune to lay up copious stores where they never scattered any seed, which makes them truly rich without doing anything, where they all find themselves enabled to live well and at ease, softly, amid a sweet and pious laziness.

  “The Order of St. Benedict alone,” says Trithemius, a famous monk of the Order, “owns, by right, a third of the property of Christianity, and if it doesn’t own it, that’s because so much has been stolen from it.” “And it’s currently so poor,” says the Bishop of Belley, “that it doesn’t have, in its reduced state, less than 100 million in gold for its annual revenue or rent.” “Its Abbots, which St. Bernard praises so beautifully and so magnificently, in so many places for their humility, wished,” said Mr. du Belley[657], “to first have all the Episcopal marks and to pontificate as a Bishop with the ring, the sandals or the ankle-boots, the gloves, the tunicella, the miter, the staffs, the throne; subsequently, not content with the exemption from the jurisdiction of the Ordinaries, i.e., of the Bishops, they wanted to have in various places the episcopal jurisdiction, not only over their brethren, but also over the Ecclesiastics of the Clergy, to also have great Synods of Vicars, Procurators, Tribunals, in short, of all that is called Diocesan Fort and Law. In nearly every Bishopric,” he continues, “they have raised Church against Church, dignity against dignity, authority against authority, jurisdiction against jurisdiction, riches against riches, and have effaces all the sheen and the power from Episcopal Dignity. Few are the Cathedrals,” he also says, “without an opposing Monastery of the Order of St. Benedict, thwarting it in all matters, and even far surpassing the splendor of the Episcopals. There is one such that brings in a hundred thousand écus annually in a city where the Bishop only brings in six thousand, another which makes 50 thousand écus in rent annually in a city where the Bishop doesn’t even bring in two thousand livres in rent; the abundance and wealth of this Order is a sea,” he says, “which has neither bottom nor shore.” “Among most of the Episcopal cities, there is almost none without some Abbey of the Order of St. Benedict, whose magnificence, authority, and wealth doesn’t entirely rival the honor due to Bishop of the place, for example,” he says, “the Abbey of Frescamp, of Jumièges, of Le Bec, of St. Ouin in the Diocese of Rouen, how far these surpass the wealth of the Archbishop of St. Remy at Rheims, St. Liévain of Beauvais, St. Etienne of Caen, St. Servin of Toulouse, St. Martin of Tours, St. Vincent of Le Mans, St. Martin of Cais, St. Michel near Avranches, and a hundred other examples of this truth that could be named. The Bishopric of Paris, the most populous one in Europe and possibly the whole world, before Msgr. the Cardinal of Gondy had increased its revenues more than fivefold, wasn’t ten thousand livres in rent, however, he had before him the Abbey of St. Denis, that of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and even the Priory of St. Martin des Champs, one of the daughters of the Abbey of Cluny: these two Abbeys, in addition to all the Episcopal marks and jurisdictions, and the Diocesan Law, had 30 times as much revenue as the Bishop, and the Priory 30 times as much. The Benedictines are right,” as the Bishop of Belley mocks: “they are right to set at the feet of their Founder their miters and staffs, to show that they address the Bishops as little boys. It’s held that there are no less than 15 thousand Abbeys of men in this order, of which all the Abbots are furnished with the staffs and miters of 15 thousand Abbeys and Nuns, whose Abbesses bear the staff and some even have the Diocesan Law in addition, and an Episcopal jurisdiction, along with Officials, Vicars-general, Procurers, Tribunals, and Synods over parish priests and secular clerics, and beyond these, 14 thousand Priories, whose Priors bear the staff and all that at the feet of venerable St. Benedict, and on the head of the blessed Benedictine brothers.”

  The single Abbey of Monte Cassino, which is more or less the head of the whole Order of St. Benedict, has, according to Stillatius, a monk of the Order, five cities under his rule, i.e., five Episcopal cities, which raise four Duchies, two Principalities, twenty-four Counties, and so many thousands of villages, farms, lands, mills, rents, the perpetual government of the countryside and of the farmland, and 2 Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples; from which it might be conjectured that there isn’t a single Sovereign Prince in Italy with as much revenue, as this single Abbey has, without counting 30 thousand other Abbeys of the same Order, all of which have considerable rents and revenues of their own. It’s also in that sense that one might set at the feet of the venerable St. Benedict the crowns of the Dukes, Princes, Marquis, Counts, with the Tiaras, Miters, and Staffs. Trithemius writes that St. Placid, a Benedictine, having been sent to Sicily to promulgate his Order there, he met with so much success and acquired so much wealth, from one sea to the other, that, before his death, he had gained most of the Island for his Order, i.e., more than half of it; such that the King of Sicily was only a little Companion of the disciple of St. Benedict. After this, who could be shocked,” said Mr. du Belley, “if the blessed Benedictine Monk Brethren place crowns and scepters, along with mitres and crosses, at the feet of their beloved Father.

  All the other Monasteries of the other different Orders which are rented, also have immense properties, and immense revenues, to the extent that all of them can be called reservoirs of all properties, of all abundance, and all riches. How can they then harmonize the supposed vows of poverty and mortification with the po
ssession and enjoyment of so many goods and so many riches? Can a little Benedictine Monk, for example, who has 15 thousand Monasteries to retire to, as Trithemius claims, or 37 thousand, as Fallengius claims, both of whom are Monks of this Order, which Monasteries were mostly built as Palaces for Princes and Kings, really be called or thought poor? To be in one of the Convents of 50, 80, or 100 thousand Ecus in rent, or in the one on Monte Cassino, which has nearly two million in gold for its annual revenue, for the upkeep of a hundred or 120 cells of Monks, is this what poverty looks like? Is this what affliction looks like? Is this what a vow of poverty means, to have possession and enjoyment of so such property and to live amid such wealth? Truly, what pitiful wretches they are! What an abuse! And what a farce! To pretend like this to take vows and observe them so badly! What an abuse and what folly to allow and approve such disorder! What an abuse and folly, to give and leave such wealth to people who profess to renounce the world, and who ought to live in poverty and the strict exercises of penitence! What an abuse and what folly to give and leave one’s riches to people who do nothing worthwhile and who are completely useless to the world. But, at the same time, what folly and what injustice to want so many lazybones to live so fatly from the labor of another, and for them to be so uselessly kept at the public's expense; I say that they live at public expense, because, although they have great wealth and great riches, there is no denying that they live from other’s labor, and that they live at public expense, since they don’t work on their own property, and it’s effectively from the public and others’ work that they get all their subsistence and all their wealth? It is a striking injustice to feed these layabouts, these lazy and useless people, in this way, the food that should go to the good workers; it’s a striking injustice to rip from their hands what they have earned and what they produce with the sweat of their bodies, to give it to so many useless monks.