(Lett. 55, éd. cited, i, 90). Concerning his friend Naudé, Patin writes: "Je suis fort de l'avis de feu M. Naudé, qui disoit qu'il y avait quatre choses dont il se fallait garder, afin de n'être point trompé, savoir, de prophéties, de miracles, de révélations, et d'apparitions" (Lett. 353, éd. cited, ii, 490). Again, he writes of a symposium of Naudé, Gassendi, and himself: "Peut-être, tous trois, guéris de loup-garou et delivrés du mal des scrupules, qui est le tyran des consciences, nous irons peut-être jusque fort près du sanctuaire. Je fis l'an passé ce voyage de Gentilly avec M. Naudé, moi seul avec lui tête-à-tête; il n'y avait point de témoins, aussi n'y en falloit-il point: nous y parlâmes fort librement de tout, sans que personne en ait été scandalisé" (Lett. 362, ii, 508). This seems tolerably freethinking. All that the Christian editor cares to claim upon the latter passage is that assuredly "l'unité de Dieu, l'immortalité de l'âme, l'égalité des hommes devant la loi, ces verités fondamentales de la raison et consacrées par le Christianisme, y étaient placées au premier rang" in the discussion. As to the skepticism of Naudé the editor remarks: "Ce qu'il y a de remarquable, c'est que Gui Patin soutenait que son ami ... avait puisé son opinion, en général très peu orthodoxe, en Italie, pendant le long séjour qu'il fit dans ce pays avec le cardinal Bagni" (ii, 490; cp. Lett. 816; iii, 758, where Naudé is again cited as making small account of religion). Certainly Patin and Naudé are of less importance for freethought than La Mothe le Vayer. That scholar, a "Conseiller d'Estat ordinaire," tutor of the brother of Louis XIV, and one of the early members of the new Academy founded by Richelieu, is an interesting figure [530] in the history of culture, being a skeptic of the school of Sextus Empiricus, and practically a great friend of tolerance. Standing in favour with Richelieu, he wrote at that statesman's suggestion a treatise On the Virtue of the Heathen, [531] justifying toleration by pagan example--a course which raises the question whether Richelieu himself was not strongly touched by the rationalism of his age. If it be true that the great Cardinal "believed as all the world did in his time," [532] there is little more to be said; for unbelief, as we have seen, was already abundant, and even somewhat fashionable. Certainly no ecclesiastic in high power ever followed a less ecclesiastical policy; [533] and from the date of his appointment as Minister to Louis XIII (1624), for forty years, there was no burning of heretics or unbelievers in France. If he was orthodox, it was very passively. [534]