conquerors could
have produced. I then entered this city, and it was decimated. Two
centuries ago that inexorable hand which led me through the world again
conducted me here; and on that occasion, as on the previous one, that
scourge, which at intervals the Almighty binds to my footsteps, ravaged
this city, attacking first my brethren, already wearied by wretchedness
and toil. My brethren! through me--the laborer of Jerusalem, cursed by
the Lord, who in my person cursed the race of laborers--a race always
suffering, always disinherited, always slaves, who like me, go on, on,
on, without rest or intermission, without recompense, or hope; until at
length, women, men, children, and old men, die under their iron yoke of
self-murder, that others in their turn then take up, borne from age to
age on their willing but aching shoulders. And here again, for the third
time, in the course of five centuries, I have arrived at the summit of
one of the hills which overlooks the city; and perhaps I bring again with
me terror, desolation, and death. And this unhappy city, intoxicated in a
whirl of joys, and nocturnal revelries, knows nothing about it--oh! it
knows not that I am at its very gate. But no! no! my presence will not be
a source of fresh calamity to it. The Lord, in His unsearchable wisdom,
has brought me hither across France, making me avoid on my route all but
the humblest villages, so that no increase of the funeral knell has,
marked my journey. And then, moreover, the spectre has left me--that
spectre, livid and green, with its deep bloodshot eyes. When I touched
the soil of France, its moist and icy hand abandoned mine--it
disappeared. And yet I feel the atmosphere of death surrounding me still.
There is no cessation; the biting gusts of this sinister wind, which
envelop me in their breath, seem by their envenomed breath to propagate
the scourge. Doubtless the anger of the Lord is appeased. Maybe, my
presence here is meant only as a threat, intending to bring those to
their senses whom it ought to intimidate. It must be so; for were it
otherwise, it would, on the contrary, strike a loud-sounding blow of
greater terror, casting at once dread and death into the very heart of
the country, into the bosom of this immense city. Oh, no! no! the Lord
will have mercy; He will not condemn me to this new affliction. Alas! in
this city my brethren are more numerous and more wretched than in any
other. And must I bring death to them? N