Claude Yvon

The Abbé Claude Yvon (15 April 1714 – November 1791) was a French encyclopédiste and savant who contributed to the Encyclopédie edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert.

In 1754, Yvon's book La Liberté de conscience resserrée dans les bornes légitimes ("Freedom of conscience confined within legitimate bounds") was published in London in three volumes. In this book he argued that all religions were naturally intolerant and would attack their enemies, but that civil society should be tolerant of those who disagreed with the religious leaders.

Yvon returned to France at the start of 1762. In 1763, Marc-Michel Rey in Amsterdam published a letter from Yvon answering some of Rousseau's criticisms of the Church, and more followed in the ensuing years. The tone of these letters was unexpected to those who had accused him of atheism, but was consistent with his other writings. At the time of his death he was historian of the Comte d'Artois.

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