After
they had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of
death in the slow torture of a journey of twelve miles, protracted
to six hours, they were, under a guard composed of those very soldiers
who had thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one
of the old palaces of Paris, now converted into a bastille for kings.
Is this a triumph to be consecrated at altars? to be
commemorated with grateful thanksgiving? to be offered to the divine
humanity with fervent prayer and enthusiastic ejaculation?- These
Theban and Thracian orgies, acted in France and applauded only in
the Old Jewry, I assure you, kindle prophetic enthusiasm in the
minds but of very few people in this kingdom, although a saint and
apostle, who may have revelations of his own and who has so completely
vanquished all the mean superstitions of the heart, may incline to
think it pious and decorous to compare it with the entrance into the
world of the Prince of Peace, proclaimed in a holy temple by a
venerable sage, and not long before not worse announced by the voice
of angels to the quiet innocence of shepherds.
At first I was at a loss to account for this fit of unguarded
transport. I knew, indeed, that the sufferings of monarchs make a
delicious repast to some sort of palates. There were reflections which
might serve to keep this appetite within some bounds of temperance.
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