Philosophical Dictionary (Vol. 2)

I do not know why the historian expresses himself in these words:
"If these two wretches were not accomplices in the king's death, they at least deserved the most rigorous punishments. It is certain that, during the very lifetime of the king, Concini and his wife had ties with Spain contrary to the king's designs."

This is not at all certain; it is not even probable. They were Florentines; the Grand Duke of Florence had been the first to recognize Henry IV. He feared nothing so much as the power of Spain in Italy. Concini and his wife had no influence during the time of Henry IV. If they had hatched some plot with the council of Madrid, it could only have been through the queen: thus, this is accusing the queen of having betrayed her husband. And, once again, it is not permitted to invent such accusations without proof. What! A writer, in his attic, can pronounce a defamation that the most enlightened judges of the realm would tremble to listen to in their tribunal!

Why call a Marshal of France and his wife, lady-in-waiting to the queen, "these two wretches"? Does the Marshal d'Ancre, who had raised an army at his own expense against the rebels, deserve an epithet that is only fitting for Ravaillac, for Cartouche a notorious 18th-century French bandit, for public thieves, and for public slanderers?

It is only too true that a single fanatic is enough to commit a parricide without any accomplice. Damiens had none. He repeated four times during his interrogation that he committed his crime only through a principle of religion. I can say that, having once been in a position to know the convulsionnaires religious zealots known for convulsive movements during prayer, I have seen more than twenty of them capable of such a horror; their dementia was so atrocious. Misunderstood religion is a fever that the slightest occasion turns into rage. The nature of fanaticism is to heat the head. When the fire that makes these superstitious heads boil has caused a few sparks to fall into a senseless and atrocious soul; when an ignorant madman believes he is holily imitating Phinehas, Ehud, Judith, and their like, that ignorant man has more accomplices than he thinks. Many people have excited him to parricide without knowing it. Some people utter indiscreet and violent words; a servant repeats them, he amplifies them, he makes them enfuneste original: "enfuneste" (Italian: "infamare"); meaning to make deadly or calamitous, as the Italians say; a Châtel, a Ravaillac, a Damiens gathers them up; those who uttered them do not suspect the harm they have done. They are involuntary accomplices, but there has been neither plot nor instigation. In a word, one knows the human spirit very poorly if one is ignorant of the fact that fanaticism makes the populace capable of anything.