Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 07.djvu/205

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FRENCH AFFAIRS.
185

further describe what I saw at Père la Chaise. Hardened as I am, I could not help yielding to the deepest horror. One may learn by deathbeds how to die, and then await death with calmness, but to learn how to be buried in graves of quicklime, among cholera corpses, is beyond my power. I hastened to the highest hill of the cemetery, whence one may see the city spread out in all its beauty. The sun was setting; its last rays seemed to bid me a sad good-bye; twilight vapours covered sick Paris as with a light-white shroud, and I wept bitterly over the unhappy city, the city of freedom, of inspiration and of martyrdom, the saviour-city which has already suffered so much for the temporal deliverance of humanity.


Appendix to Letter VI.[1]

"Seest thou the foundations of usury, of theft and robbery, are our great men and lords, who take all creatures unto their possession: the fish in the waters, the birds in the air, all that groweth on the earth must be theirs (Jes. v.). Therefore they send forth God's commandment among the poor and say, 'God hath commanded that ye shall not steal!' yet it serves them naught. So they all bring it to pass that from the poor ploughman,


  1. This Appendix or Beitrage is not given in the French version Translator.