Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/132

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110
The Huron.

then in love with your godmother. If you were as well acquainted with Miss St. Yves as I am, you would be in a state of desperation."

At these words he could not refrain from tears, which greatly relieved him from his oppression.

"How is it, then, that tears solace us?" said the Huron; "it seems to me that they should have quite an opposite effect."

"My son," said the good old man, "everything is physical about us; all secretions are useful to the body, and all that comforts it, comforts the soul. We are the machines of Providence."

The ingenuous Huron, who, as we have already observed more than once, had a great share of understanding, entered deeply into the consideration of this idea, the seeds whereof appeared to be in himself, after which he asked his companion why his machine had for two years been confined by four bolts.

"By effectual grace," answered Gordon; "I pass for a Jansenist; I know Arnaud and Nicole; the Jesuits have persecuted us. We believe that the pope is nothing more than a bishop, like another, and therefore Father la Chaise has obtained from the king, his penitent, an order for robbing me, without any form of justice, of the most precious inheritance of man—liberty!"

"This is very strange," said the Huron; "all the unhappy people with whom I have met have been made so solely by the pope. With respect to your