FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132  
133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   >>   >|  
knows them no more. In the midst of their shows and their pleasures and their shallow philosophies, they could not read the handwriting on the wall, and therefore they are blotted out of existence. They went on marrying and giving in marriage; this chateau, perhaps, was still being enlarged and embellished, when the flood came upon them and destroyed them all. The science of politics is the science of regulating progress and avoiding revolutions. The hostess of the Lion d'Or is about to transfer her establishment to an inn of greater pretensions, to which, aware that the old chateau is an object of interest to visitors, she means to give the name of the Hotel de Montgomeri. On the wall of her _cafe_ is a coarse medallion bust taken from a room in the chateau. She did not know whom it represented; and I dare say it was only my fancy that made me think I recognized a rude effigy of the once adored features of Marie Antoinette. The plates at the Lion d'Or were adorned with humorous devices. On one was a satire on the hypocritical rapacity of perfidious Albion. Two English soldiers were standing with their swords hidden behind their backs, and trying to coax back to them some Indians who were running away in the distance. "Come to us, dear little Indians; you know we are your best friends!" Suppose "Arabs" or "Mexicans" had been substituted for "Indians." To a Frenchman, our conquests in India are rapine; his own conquests in Algeria or Mexico are the extension of civilization by the "holy bayonets" (I forget whether the phrase is Michelet's or Quinet's) of the chosen people. Justice gives the same name (no matter which) to both. At Ducie a handsome new church had just been built,--mainly, I was told, by the munificence of two maiden ladies. The congregation at vespers was large and apparently devout; and here the number of the men was in fair proportion to that of the women. In the churches of the cities, though the power of the clergy has everywhere increased of late, you see scarcely one man to a hundred women. On the road, a shower drove me for refuge into the house of a peasant, who received me with the usual kindliness of the French peasantry, and, when the shower was over, walked two or three miles with me on my way. The condition of these present proprietors is a subject of great interest to English economists, especially as we are evidently on the eve of a great controversy--perhaps a great struggle--respe
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132  
133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
chateau
 

Indians

 

interest

 
English
 

conquests

 

shower

 

science

 

subject

 

Michelet

 

phrase


forget

 
proprietors
 

bayonets

 
present
 
matter
 

Justice

 

people

 

Quinet

 

chosen

 

extension


substituted

 

evidently

 

controversy

 

Mexicans

 

Suppose

 
struggle
 

Frenchman

 

Algeria

 

Mexico

 

handsome


civilization

 

rapine

 
economists
 

church

 

clergy

 

received

 

French

 

churches

 

cities

 

kindliness


increased
 
peasant
 

hundred

 

scarcely

 

refuge

 
friends
 

proportion

 
munificence
 
walked
 

maiden