At the bidding of Attorney General, Omer de Fleury, Paris Parlement had just ordered the Faculties of Theology and Medicine to give their opinion on smallpox vaccination and forbid its use in the meanwhile. “Having entered, have said” adopts the pompous language of these notices. Since a king referred to himself as we, Omer also refers to himself in the plural. As even the Royal family had lost innumerable members to smallpox (the present king, Louis XV, would die of it in 1774) and as Voltaire been arguing for the vaccination since his Letters on England in 1734, this piece ridicules the absurdity of leaving matters of health and science up to religious authorities.

Gentlemen,

As I am charged, by my status (page 3), with proposing theses on medicine to you, and as we are concerned with dissipating the clouds that weaken security and with desiring solutions to fears, the Wisdom that presides over your procedures will give new weight to what your authority can determine on inoculation, which presents itself under two aspects.

And as common smallpox (page 4) is usually left to the prudence of patients and doctors, you can well sense that inoculation, in which the mind is freer, must not be left to prudence of anyone.

But as what interests religion does not interest the public good in any manner (page 3) and as the public good does not interest religion, we must consult the Sorbonne which, by its status, is in charge of deciding whether a Christian should be bled or purged; and the Faculty of Medicine which, by its status, is in charge of determining whether inoculation is permitted by Canon Law.1

Thus, gentlemen, you who are the best physicians and the best theologians of Europe, must pronounce a decision on smallpox, just as you have done on the categories of Aristotle, on the circulation of the blood, on emetics, and on quinine.

It is known that you understand everything, by status, just as you do finance.²

Since inoculation, gentlemen, has succeeded in all the neighboring nations that have tried it; since it has saved the lives of foreigners who reason, it is just that you forbid this practice, given that it has not been registered, and to attain this goal, you will employ the decisions of the Sorbonne, who will tell you that St. Augustine did not know of inoculation, and of the Faculty of Paris, who is always of the opinion of foreign doctors.

Above all, gentlemen, do not give a time limit to the salutary and sacred Faculties for deciding, because the useful inserting of smallpox will be forbidden for as long as we wait.

As to syphilis, sister to smallpox, gentlemen of the inquiry are exhorted to scrupulously examine the pills of Keyser,³ as much for the public good as for the particular good of those young gentlemen who have need of them, by their status; the Sorbonne having previously rendered its decree on this theological matter.

We hope that you order the pain of death (as Faculties of Medicine have sometimes done in slighter matters) against the children of our princes inoculated without your permission and against whoever may call into doubt your recognized wisdom and impartiality.