Voltaire ascribed the work to St. Hyacinthe. Grimm recognized that the
last chapter was by another hand and considered it the weakest part of
the book. It attempts to demonstrate that all supernatural religions
have been harmful to society and that the only useful religion is
natural religion or morals. The book was refuted by Guidi, in a
"_Lettre a M. le Chevalier de... [Barthe] entraine dans l'irreligion
par un libelle intitule Le Militaire philosophe_ (1770, 12mo).

4. Holbach's next book was _La Contagion sacree ou l'Histoire
naturelle de la Superstition_, Londres (Amsterdam), 1768. In his
preface Holbach attributed the alleged English original of this
work to John Trenchard but that was only a ruse to avoid persecution.
The book is by Holbach. It has gone through many editions and been
translated into English and Spanish. The first edition had an
introduction by Naigeon. According to him manuscripts of this
book became quite rare at one time and were supposed to have been
lost. Later they became more common and this edition was corrected
by collation with six others.


[PG transcriber's note: at this point there appears to be a break
in the original text. A sentence introducing the fifth book in
this list, "Letters to Eugenie", has evidently been lost.]


The letters were written in 1764, according to Lequinio
(_Feuilles posthumes_), who had his information from Naigeon, to
Marguerite, Marchioness de Vermandois in answer to a very touching
and pitiful letter from that lady who was in great trouble over
religion. Her young husband was a great friend of the Holbachs,