Note 112 — Chapter XIX · FREETHOUGHT IN THE REMAINING EUROPEAN STATES
Reading edition
In Spain too, as elsewhere, freethought had made way among the upper classes; and in 1773 we find the Duke d’Alba (formerly Huescar), ex-ambassador of Spain to France, subscribing eighty louis for a statue to Voltaire. “Condemned to cultivate my reason in secret,” he wrote to D’Alembert, “I see this opportunity to give a public testimony of my gratitude to and admiration for the great man who first showed me the way.”112