May the last king be strangled in the bowels of the last priest
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"May the last king be strangled in the bowels of the last priest" is a famous anti-religious and anti-establishment dictum, originating in the writings of the atheist priest Jean Meslier (1664 – 1729) and popularized by French Revolution philosophe Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784).
It has been translated in English since the end of the 18th century.[1].
Jean Meslier version
- "je voudrais que le dernier des rois fût étranglé avec les boyaux du dernier prêtre"[2]
or
- "Je voudrais, et ce sera le dernier et le plus ardent de mes souhaits, je voudrais que le dernier des rois fût étranglé avec les boyaux du dernier prêtre."
English translation:
- "I would like — and this would be the last and most ardent of my wishes — I would like the last of the kings to be strangled by the guts of the last priest" [3]"
Diderot version
Denis Diderot popularized the dictum in two lines from the poem "Les Éleuthéromanes" (1796):
- "Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du prêtre,
- au défaut d’un cordon pour étrangler les rois.[4]
English: And his hands would plait the priest's entrails, for want of a rope, to strangle kings or "his hands would plait the priest’s guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings."
There is a second different version, also attributed to Diderot and according to this source[5] , to the same poem:
- Et des boyaux du dernier prêtre
Serrons le cou du dernier roi.
- (Let us strangle the last king
- with the guts of the last priest.)
However, it cannot be found in most versions of that poem.
Ultimately the quote is from Jean Meslier, a French atheist priest, famous for his Testament (1725), of which Voltaire published extracts.
See also
