Jean Meslier

(1664 - 1729)

The son of a serge weaver, Jean Meslier spent his entire adult life in the priesthood. According to Voltaire, who was deeply influenced by his French predecessor’s critique of religion, while at the seminary Meslier “devoted himself to the system of Descartes.” Meslier’s Testament, consisting of three manuscripts with 366 pages each, was only discovered upon his death at the age of fifty-five in 1733.