JEAN MESLIER. Oeuvres completes. Prefaces et notes par JeanDeprun - Roland Desne -Albert Soboul. Tome I. Ed. Anthropos. Paris. 1970, p. 540.

More than 200 years ago, in 1762, Voltaire published in Geneva a small book "Selected opinions of Jean Mellier". Melier's main work, which was listed in France, he gave the name "Testament". 100 years later, in 1864, the progressive Dutch writer R. Charles published in Amsterdam "Testament" in full, in 3 volumes. This Amsterdam edition, printed in a small print run of 550 copies, has long been a bibliographic rarity. And only now, in our days, a group of French cultural figures (a historian, a literary critic, a philosopher) publishes in France the works of the great rebel, atheist and utopian Jean Mellier. This is not an ordinary edition of one of the famous classics of the Enlightenment, it is a victory of the French advanced democratic science. Just 10 years ago, the Dictionary of French Literature, published under the editorship of the academician (and Cardinal-Archbishop of Mance!) Georges Grente, called "The Testament"...lampoon 1 . One can imagine from this alone what resistance the compilers had to overcome in order for this publication to come to fruition. I think that they were helped here by the tradition of studying Melie that developed in the socialist countries, first of all and most deeply in the USSR, and then in Czechoslovakia and Poland. In any case, the authors refer to the very first pages of their "Forewarning": "a this tradition. It should be recognized, however, that only "refer", and no more. Meanwhile, the USSR has long developed a real school of local history, primarily associated with the name of the late Academician V. P. Volgin, and foreign historians should know about it.

What is new in this edition in comparison with the edition of R. Charles? And how do commentators enrich our knowledge of Melier in comparison with the established scientific tradition? First of all, this publication is valuable for its completeness: for the first time, the researcher receives in full all the well-known works of Mellier, starting from the "Testament" and ending with his "Anti-Fenelon", polemical remarks of a materialist reader in the margins of a book full of Catholic apologetics. The "Testament" is reproduced as the author intended and titled it: "Memoire of the thoughts and opinions of J. M., the Curates of Etrepigny and Balaise, on certain errors and abuses in the conduct and administration of men; in the Records there are clear and obvious proofs of the vanity and falsity of all the deities and religions of the world. After the author's death, the Records should be given to his parishioners to serve as a witness to the truth for them and others like them. For a witness before them and the Gentiles." The last phrase is written by the author in the French text in Latin: it is borrowed from the Gospel (Matthew 10: 18). Even after becoming a militant atheist, Cure Mellier can't get rid of the usual quotes.

The French edition is designed for three volumes, of which only one has been published so far. But already this volume allows us to judge, at least before-

1 Dictionnaire des lettres Franchises, publ. sous La direction du cardinal Georges Grente. Le dix-huitieme siecle. P. 1960, p. 237.

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Finally, about the principles of publishing: here is a really serious and truly exhaustive collection of works by Jean Mellier. The compilers examined all the known lists of his works, determined which of them were handwritten copies of his "Testament", made their comparison, identified and clarified their discrepancies (all this was not possible for R. Charles, who had a not quite reliable list in his hands). In short, this publication is strictly scientific and textually impeccable.

The authors 'introductory articles are also interesting: the biographical essay "Man and his Legacy", compiled by R. Desnet, "Mellier-philosopher" by J. Despren and "Mellier - social critic of his time" by A. Sobul. The authors are representatives of the progressive French science of our time; their concept therefore differs only in some particulars from that adopted in our historical science .2 For them, as well as for Soviet historians or M. Dommanger , the author of a major study on Melia 3 that appeared in France, he is an exponent and preacher of spontaneous peasant rebellion. However, the text of the Testament itself is far from spontaneous: for all its emotionality, it is constructed extremely rationally and testifies to Melier's desire to bring consciousness to the very element of peasant revolt.

Some of the facts presented by French researchers significantly expand our knowledge of the Climate and its time. Thus, the data of R. Desnais 'article about the" rebellious " lower priests, contemporaries and neighbors of the cure from Etrepigny in Champagne are valuable: the presence of many cases of obstinacy, insubordination of the poor rural clergy, who lived on a pittance, to the spiritual authorities, the younger offspring of aristocratic families, shows how far the stratification of the "first estate" of the kingdom already went at the beginning of the XVIII century. centuries. From this it is clear that Jean Mellier is by no means a loner, not an exception among the lower clergy: if they did not leave the documents as strong as he did, then at least they were related to him in their moods. It is therefore understandable that he could safely bequeath copies of his "Testament" to them (in addition to the path he chose), without fear that they would run to hand them over to the bishop. And indeed, very soon, already in the 30s of the XVIII century., these copies, extracted from the vaults and reproduced in full or abridged form (it was not always possible to rewrite the "Will" in full, and the full list was too expensive), began their journey across the country. The rebellious mood of the grassroots priests of France, their proximity to the people (the publication contains a map of "disobedient" parishes) allow us to better understand the emergence of revolutionary priests during the Great French bourgeois Revolution of the late XVIII century, such as Cure Gregoire, the first of the clergy deputies who proposed to join the deputies of the third estate in the States-General of 1789. or Abbe Claude Fochet, founder and ideologue of the Social Circle.

Interesting considerations about the philosophical foundations of materialism by Jean Melier, although one can doubt their Cartesian basis: the author of this theory, J. Melier, is a philosopher. Despresne calls Melier a " Cartesian heretic "(p. LXXXVIII). It seems more correct to speak of Mellier's Spinozism, as the French scientist P. Vernier4 and the Soviet scientist B. F. Porshnev5 argue . A. Sobul's thoughts on the roots of the social ideal of Melie, which go back to the deep tradition of the peasant community, are very interesting. Let us recall in this connection that it is the community with its common lands and customary law, with its food "from a common table, bread and salt"6 protected the peasants, first of all their most oppressed strata, the mainmortables, from the arbitrariness of the seigneurs.

Especially noteworthy are the pages that tell about the life and work of R. Charles, the first publisher of the full text of The Testament, which reproduce the image of a Western European democrat of the XIX century, a nobleman by birth (he usually discarded his aristocratic surname d'ablong van Giessenburg) and a raznochinets by fate, a sensimonist by conviction.

2 For the provisions of Soviet local lore, see: V. P. Volgin. Melier and his "Testament". Intro, article to the book: "Zh. Melie. Testament", Moscow, 1954; B. F. Porshnev. Jean Mellier and the folk origins of his worldview. "The Tenth International Congress of Historians in Rome. September 1955 Reports of the Soviet delegation", Moscow, 1956. Melie, M. 1964, et al.

3 M. Dommanget. Le cure Meslier. Athee, communiste et revolutionnaire sous Louis XIX. P. 1965.

4 P. Verniere. Spinoza et la Pensee francaise. T. II. P. 1964, pp. 367 - 370.

5 B. F. Porshnev. Melier, p. 186.

6 M. Dupin et E. Laboulaye. Glossaire del'ancien droit Francais. P. 1846, p. 34.

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It is no coincidence that he admired Jean Mellier. Therefore, we should welcome the fact that the authors of the peer-reviewed publication dedicated their work to the memory of R. Charles.

The compilers hardly touched upon the question of the influence of Melie's ideas on his contemporaries (this issue is discussed in detail in the Soviet historical literature).7, confining himself to pointing out the prevalence of "Testament" lists and the success of Voltaire's "Extraction". But the passage they publish from d'Alembert's speech at the French Academy on February 16, 1775, calling on every modern writer to "leave a 'Testament' in which he would freely speak about the works, thoughts, and people he flattered (as his conscience might reproach him), and ask the forgiveness of his age, that he addresses him only with posthumous sincerity", undoubtedly speaks about the perception of Melie's words as a feat. The eighteenth century knew Melier, appreciated him, and in the era of the revolution, through the mouths of A. Kloots and S. Marechal, raised him to the shield.

Work on the publication of Mellier's works has only just begun, and much remains to be done. The compilers plan, in addition to the works of Melier himself, to include there the handwritten "Extract", which at one time went around in France by hand, was sold from under the floor and was later edited and published by Voltaire. Thus Voltaire's memory will be cleansed of the reproaches of deliberately falsifying Melier's thought. He edited the atheist for a deist: however, deism, as is well known, "is nothing more than a convenient and easy way to get rid of religion." 8 But Voltaire did not cut off Melier's revolutionary appeals: obviously, they simply did not exist in his list (he stopped at the "Eighth Proof" of the uselessness of religion). Volume 3 will finally contain Melier's Dictionary of Political Terminology, which is currently being compiled. necessary for an accurate understanding of its concept.

Our French colleagues mention the works of Soviet historians about Melia. But if they admire the feat of R. Charles, they should also appreciate one of the first people in Europe to understand the significance of Melier - a modest lecturer at the Higher Women's Courses in Moscow and Moscow University, A. A. Shakhov. Already in the 70s of the last century, he showed his listeners that " a terribly bold test of Melier... It was the result of philosophical readings and the horrifying spectacle of the old regime in all its nakedness, in all the monstrous manifestations that the village priest could see enough of."9 This insight of the scientist should not surprise us: after all, it was the Russian reality, the tragedy of the Russian peasantry after the reform of 1861, that determined the approach of advanced Russian scientists to the problems of the history of the French peasantry on the eve of the revolution of 1789.

7 See G. S. Kucherenko. The fate of the" Testament " of Jean Melier in the XVIII century. M. 1968; his, Jean Melier and French materialism of the XVIII century. "The Age of Enlightenment". Moscow - Paris. 1970.

8 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 2, p. 144.

9 A. Shakhov. Voltaire and His Time, St. Petersburg, 1907, p. 206.

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