providential work of the time and of men, of maturation
and of action, was blended in the common labour, and the great epoch
had for its true home the great nation.

O my country! it is at this moment, when I see you bleeding, inanimate,
your head hanging, your eyes closed, your mouth open, and no words
issuing therefrom, the marks of the whip upon your shoulders, the nails
of the executioner's shoes imprinted upon your body, naked and ashamed,
and like a thing deprived of life, an object of hatred, of derision,
alas! it is at this moment, my country, that the heart of the exile
overflows with love and respect for you!

You lie there motionless. The minions of despotism and oppression
laugh, and enjoy the haughty illusion that you are no longer to be
feared. Fleeting joy! The peoples that are in the dark forget the past;
they see only the present, and despise you. Forgive them, they know not
what they do. Despise you! Great Heaven! despise France? And who are
they? What language do they speak? What books have they in their hands?
What names do they know by heart? What is the placard pasted on the
walls of their theatres? What forms do their arts assume, their laws,
their manners, their clothing, their pleasures, their fashions? What is
the great date for them, as for us? '89! If they take France from out
their hearts, what remains to them? O my people! Though it be fallen
and fallen for ever, is Greece despised? Is Italy despised? Is France
despised? Look at those breasts, they are your nurse; look at that
womb, it is your mother.

If she sleeps, if she is in a lethargy, silence, and off with your hat.
If she is dead, to your knees!

The exiles are scattered; destiny has blasts which disperse men like a
handful of ashes. Some are in Belgium, in Piedmont, in Switzerland,
where they do not enjoy liberty; others are in London, where they have
no roof to shelter them. One, a peasant, has been torn from his native
field; another, a soldier, has only a fragment of his sword, which was
broken in his hand; another, an artisan, is ignorant of the language of
the country, he is without clothes and without shoes, he knows not if
he shall eat food to-morrow; another has left behind him a wife and
children, a dearly loved group, the object of his labour, and the joy
of his life; another has an old mother with grey hairs, who weeps for
him; another an old father, who will die without seeing him again;
another is a lover,--he has