Philosophers' Bones

During the reign of terror a reactionary priest broke into the Parisian Pantheon, pried open the sarcophagi of Voltaire and Rousseau, and threw their bones into a burlap bag. Nobody has ever seen them since. This book recounts the conversation between the bones.

Canto One

My searching mind is backward bent
To France and the Enlightenment.
Oh age of Reason and Romance
Allow this poor poet a chance!
Peer through time to a dawn now far away
And find a soiree filled salon!

Equal giants before me stand:
Influential, banished and banned.
Arouet de Voltaire, solar flame
And Jean-Jacques Rousseau, lunar name.
Hear two men of opposite poles dispute
The very taproot of our souls.