Atheistic utopian novel by Simon Tyssot de Patot, banned upon publication

Second edition, most likely a French pirate edition, of an atheistic utopian novel by Simon Tyssot de Patot. It "surpassed practically every other work of philosophical fiction of the age for notoriety" (Israel).

After a shipwreck, the main character ends up alone on a remote shore. After facing many challenges, he finds a perfect country where the people welcome him warmly. After a while, Jacques explains the basic ideas of Christianity. However, people laugh at them and think they are silly and unreasonable. After a sojourn of five years, Jacques leaves this utopia.

During his journey back to Europe he meets a young Gascon, "qui était bien le plus hardi Athée ou Déiste, que j'aye vû de mes yeux", as Jacques notes. The Gascon rejects all formal religion. He believes the Bible is just a book like any other. This is similar to what Adriaan Koerbagh argued in his Bloemhof in 1668. The novel closes with a fable of the bees, narrated by the Gascon, ridiculing Christianity.

Like other utopian novels "Jacques Massé seeks to persuade readers of the irrationality of European religion, politics, morality, and society by describing in detail an exotic and remote atheistic society, where peace and harmony reign, and virtue is better cultivated than among Europeans" (Israel). It comes as no surprise that the novel was banned upon publication, both in the Dutch Republic as in France.