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== Clandestine French atheism in the 1600s and 1700s ==

== Clandestine French atheism in the 1600s and 1700s ==

The historian Jonathon Israel declared in an interview about '''French atheism''' in the 1600s and 1700s:

The historian Jonathon Israel declared in an interview about French atheism in the 1600s and 1700s:

{{Cquote|At the same time, there was a semi-clandestine, philosophical underground, that I call the Radical Enlightenment. The French have been interested in this phenomenon since before World War II, but English and American scholars were not interested in it until quite recently. The age of [[Pierre Bayle|Bayle]] and of the [[Huguenot]] diaspora was also a time when [[Atheism|atheistic]] and near-atheistic texts — rejecting religious authority and revelation — were circulating. Perhaps the most famous example of these clandestine texts, which was circulating from the 1670s, though the first printed version was in 1719, was The Treatise of the Three Impostors or Le Traite des Trois Imposteurs. But there were dozens of others, some of which were circulating on only a very small scale and others of which were actually quite widely diffused in various European countries, often in manuscript form. If they did appear in print those printed versions were suppressed rather harshly by the authorities, so in many cases only small quantities circulated and very small numbers survive today.<ref>[http://fivebooks.com/interview/jonathan-israel-on-the-enlightenment/ Jonathan Israel on The Enlightenment]</ref>}}

{{Cquote|At the same time, there was a semi-clandestine, philosophical underground, that I call the Radical Enlightenment. The French have been interested in this phenomenon since before World War II, but English and American scholars were not interested in it until quite recently. The age of [[Pierre Bayle|Bayle]] and of the [[Huguenot]] diaspora was also a time when [[Atheism|atheistic]] and near-atheistic texts — rejecting religious authority and revelation — were circulating. Perhaps the most famous example of these clandestine texts, which was circulating from the 1670s, though the first printed version was in 1719, was The Treatise of the Three Impostors or Le Traite des Trois Imposteurs. But there were dozens of others, some of which were circulating on only a very small scale and others of which were actually quite widely diffused in various European countries, often in manuscript form. If they did appear in print those printed versions were suppressed rather harshly by the authorities, so in many cases only small quantities circulated and very small numbers survive today.<ref>[http://fivebooks.com/interview/jonathan-israel-on-the-enlightenment/ Jonathan Israel on The Enlightenment]</ref>}}