The first volume of the Memoirs was devoted to the conspiracy of the philosophers. Voltaire, D’Alembert, Frederick II, and Diderot—“Voltaire the chief, D’Alembert the most subtle agent, Frederick the protector and often the adviser, Diderot the forlorn hope”[551]—these were the men who originally leagued themselves together “in the most inveterate hatred of Christianity.”[552] Bringing out into bold relief the most malignant and brutal of the anticlerical and anti-Christian utterances of Voltaire and his friends,[553] as well as all available evidence of a crafty strategy on the part of the conspirators to avoid detection of their plan,[554] Barruel was emboldened to affirm a desperate plan to overturn every altar where Christ was adored, whether in London, Geneva, Stockholm, Petersburg, Paris, Madrid, Vienna, or Rome, whether Protestant or Catholic.[555]
The first definite step in this campaign of the philosophers is declared to have been the publication of _L’Encyclopédie_;[556] the second, the suppression of the Jesuits and the widespread elimination of religious houses;[557] and the third, the capture of the French Academy by the philosophers and the diversion of its honors to impious writers.[558]
The foregoing were measures which primarily concerned “the chiefs,” or “better sort.”[559] Efforts to extend the conspiracy to the hovel and the cottage were also made. Accordingly, appeals to toleration, reason, and humanity became the order of the day.[560] These were intended to impress the populace and, by a show of sympathy with those who complained of their condition, prepare the way for the days of rebellion, violence, and murder which were yet to come.[561] Free schools were established, directed by men who, privy to the great conspiracy, became zealous corrupters of youth.[562] All was carefully calculated and planned to render possible the full fruitage of the designs of the conspirators when the harvest day should come.
Having thus dealt with the conspiracy against altars, Barruel turned in his second volume to consider the plot against thrones. The great inspirers of this covert attack upon monarchy were Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. Voltaire, though by nature a friend of kings, whose favor and caresses were his delight, yet, since he found them standing in the way of his efforts to extirpate Christianity, was led to oppose them, and to substitute the doctrines of equality of rights and liberty of reason for his earlier emphasis upon loyalty to sovereigns.[563] Unwittingly, through his _Spirit of Laws_, Montesquieu had helped on the anti-monarchical resolution by his heavy emphasis upon the essential differences between monarchies and democracies, thus for the first time suggesting to the French people that they lived under a despotic government and helping to alienate them from their king.[564] As for Rousseau, in his _Social Contract_ he had widened the path which Montesquieu had opened.[565] His doctrines had the effect of placing monarchy in an abhorrent light. They filled the minds of the people with a passion for Liberty and Equality.