J have read the ingenious dialogues of the dead.
J find page 134 that j am an exile, and guilty of some excesses in writing. J am oblig'd, (and perhaps for the honour of my country) to say j am not an exile, because j have not committed the excesses the author of the dialogues imputes to me.
No body rais'd his voice higher than mine in favour of the rights of human-kind. Yet j have not exceeded even in that virtue.
J am not settled in Suizzerland, as he bélieves. J live in my own lands in France. Retreat is becoming to old age and more becoming in ones own possessions. If j enjoy a little country-house near Geneva, my mannors and my castles are in Burgundy, and if my King has been pleas'd to confirm the privileges of my lands which are free from all tributes, j am the more addicted to my King.
If j was an exile, j had not obtain'd from my court many a passeport for english noblemen. The service j rendered to them intitles me to the justice j expect from the noble author.
As to relligion, j think, and j hope, he thinks with me, that God is, neither a presbiterian, nor a lutherian, nor of the low church, nor of the high church; but god is the father of all mankind, the father of the noble author and mine.
J am with respect
his most humble servt
Voltaire gentleman of the King's chamber
at my castle of Fernex in Burgundy [c. September 1760]