Ferney ten years ago."

"It is really most considerate of you to be so lenient in your criticism
of the greatest mind of the century!" Marcolina smilingly retorted.

"A great mind--the greatest of the century!" exclaimed Casanova. "To
give him such a designation seems to me inadmissible, were it only
because, for all his genius, he is an ungodly man--nay positively an
atheist. No atheist can be a man of great mind."

"As I see the matter, there is no such incompatibility. But the first
thing you have to prove is your title to describe Voltaire as an
atheist."

Casanova was now in his element. In the opening chapter of his polemic
he had cited from Voltaire's works, especially from the famous
_Pucelle_, a number of passages that seemed peculiarly well-fitted to
justify the charge of atheism. Thanks to his unfailing memory, he
was able to repeat these citations verbatim, and to marshal his own
counter-arguments. But in Marcolina he had to cope with an opponent who
was little inferior to himself in extent of knowledge and mental acumen;
and who, moreover, excelled him, not perhaps in fluency of speech, but
at any rate in artistry of presentation and clarity of expression. The
passages Casanova had selected as demonstrating Voltaire's spirit of
mockery, his scepticism, and his atheism, were adroitly interpreted by
Marcolina as testifying to the Frenchman's scientific genius, to his
skill as an author, and to his indefatigable ardor in the search for
truth. She boldly contended that doubt, mockery, nay unbelief itself, if
associated with such a wealth of knowledge, such absolute honesty, and
such high courage, must be more pleasing to God than the humility of