iate and actual
reality. His genius was far-reaching and agile; his intelligence, vast
in extent but common and vulgar in character, embraced humanity, but did
not rise above it. He thought what every grenadier in the army thought;
but he thought it with unprecedented force. He loved the game of chance,
and it pleased him to tempt fortune by urging pigmies in their hundreds
and thousands against each other. It was the game of a child as big as
the world. He was too wily not to introduce old Iahveh into the
game,--Iahveh, who was still powerful on earth, and who resembled him in
his spirit of violence and domination. He threatened him, flattered him,
caressed him, and intimidated him. He imprisoned his Vicar, of whom he
demanded, with the knife at his throat, that rite of unction which,
since the days of Saul of old, has bestowed might upon kings; he
restored the worship of the demiurge, sang _Te Deums_ to him, and made
himself known through him as God of the earth, in small catechisms
scattered broadcast throughout the Empire. They united their thunders,
and a fine uproar they made.

"While Napoleon's amusements were throwing Europe into a turmoil, we
congratulated ourselves on our wisdom, a little sad, withal, at seeing
the era of philosophy ushered in with massacre, torture, and war. The
worst is that the children of the century, fallen into the most
distressing disorder, formed the conception of a literary and
picturesque Christianity, which betokens a degeneracy of mind really
unbelievable, and finally fell into Romanticism. War and Romanticism,
what terrible scourges! And how pitiful to see these same people nursing
a childish and savage love for muskets and drums! They did not
understand that war, which trained the courage and founded the cities of
barbarous and ignorant men, brings to the victor himself but ruin and
misery, and is nothing but a horrible and stupid crime when nations are
united together by common bonds of art, science, and trade.

"Insane Europeans who plot to cut each others' throats, now that one and
the same civilisation enfolds and unites them all!

"I renounced all converse with these madmen and withdrew to this
village, where I devoted myself to gardening. The peaches in my orchard
remind me of the sun-kissed skin of the Maenads. For mankind I have
retained my old friendship, a little admiration, and much pity, and I
await, while cultivating this enclosure, that still distant day when the