Yet no one will refuse the due meed of honor to his
extraordinary talent. I would not myself refuse it, though I am at this
moment engaged in composing a polemic against him. Let me add that I am
not allowing myself to be influenced in his favor by recollection of the
extreme civility he was good enough to show me when I visited him at
Ferney ten years ago."
"It is really most considerate of you to be so lenient in your criticism
of the greatest mind of the century!" Marcolina smilingly retorted.
"A great mind--the greatest of the century!" exclaimed Casanova. "To
give him such a designation seems to me inadmissible, were it only
because, for all his genius, he is an ungodly man--nay positively an
atheist. No atheist can be a man of great mind."
"As I see the matter, there is no such incompatibility. But the first
thing you have to prove is your title to describe Voltaire as an
atheist."
Casanova was now in his element. In the opening chapter of his polemic
he had cited from Voltaire's works, especially from the famous
_Pucelle_, a number of passages that seemed peculiarly well-fitted to
justify the charge of atheism.
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