Early Deism in France

I. Prehistory, from 1564 to about 1670.- 1. Introductory; Pierre Viret's 'déistes' at Lyon, and two characters in Bodin.- Viret's 'déistes': anti-Christian or anti-trinitarian?.- Natural religion and tolerance in Bodin's Colloquium heptaplomeres.- 2. The 1620s: Mersenne and the 'poème des déistes'.- 3. The absence of deistic ideas from 1630 to 1670.- II. The later seventeenth century: precursors and definitions, from Saint-Evremond to Bayle.- 4. Saint-Evremond and the decline of fideism.- Early fideism.- Satire, eirenism and Christian morality in Holland.- Detached worldliness in the late works.- 5. The Utopian religions of Foigny and Veiras.- Foigny's La Terre australe connue: faith against reason.- Veiras' Histoire des Sévarambes:ritual and tolerance.- The two Utopias compared.- 6. Definitions and accusations, 1670-1700; 'deism' as a term of opprobrium.- Natural religion, travel and religious conflict.- D'Assoucy.- Jurieu's usage.- Abbadie and Le Clerc.- Simon and Bossuet.- Fontenelle and Bayle.- Two end-of-century examples.- 7. The Turkish Spy.- The question of Marana's authorship.- Mahmut's pious doubts.- Three deistic letters.- The later volumes.- Tite de Moldavie and Christianity.- III. The first French deists, 1700-1715.- 8. Gilbert's Calejava: rational deism with Protestant overtones.- 9. Lahontan and Gueudeville: natural religion from Canada.- 10. The anti-Christian deism of the Militaire philosophe.- Critical deism: rational principles and the attack on belief and faith.- Critical deism in detail.- A system of deism based on justice.- 11. The Examen de la religion and other clandestine works.- Rationalist preliminaries.- The critique of Christian proofs.- Catholicism replaced by rational secularismy.- The Examen and other deist manuscripts.- Boulainviller and the Opinions des anciens.- Chaulieu and La Fare.- 12. Tyssot de Patot: types of deism and religious criticism.- Austral deists again.- A Chinese anti-trinitarian in Goa.- A Gascon renegade in