Note 36 — Chapter XV · FRENCH AND DUTCH FREETHOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

For all that is known of Petit see the Avertissement to Bibliophile Jacob’s edition of Paris ridicule et burlesque au 17ième siècle, and refs. in Perrens, p. 153. After Petit’s death, his friend Du Pelletier defended him as being a deist; but he seems in his youthful writings to have blasphemed at large, and he had been guilty of assassinating a young monk. He was burned, however, for blaspheming the Virgin. ↑