his eyes dwelt vacantly on space, and in a low, hollow voice, he thus answered —[O 1]
"You ask how it will affect yourselves — you, its most learned, and its least selfish agents. I will answer; you, Marquis de Condorcet, will die in prison, but not by the hand of the executioner. In the peaceful happiness of that day, the philosopher will carry about with him, not the elixir but the poison."
"My poor Cazotte," said Condorcet, with his gentle smile, "what have prisons, executioners, and poison, to do with an age of liberty and brotherhood?"
"It is in the names of Liberty and Brotherhood that the prisons will reek, and the headsman be glutted."
"You are thinking of priestcraft, not philosophy, Cazotte," said Champfort.[O 2] "And what of me?"
"You will open your own veins to escape the fraternity of Cain. Be comforted; the last drops will not
- ↑ The following prophecy (not unfamiliar, perhaps, to some of my readers), with some slight variations, and at greater length, in the text of the authority I am about to cite, is to be found in La Harpe's posthumous works. The MS. is said to exist still in La Harpe's handwriting, and the story is given on M. Petitot's authority, vol. i. p. 62. It is not for me to inquire if there be doubts of its foundation on fact. — Ed.
- ↑ Champfort, one of those men of letters who, though misled by the first fair show of the Revolution, refused to follow the baser men of action into its horrible excesses, lived to express the murderous philanthropy of its agents by the best bon mot of the time. Seeing written on the walls, "Fraternité ou la Mort," he observed that the sentiment should be translated thus — "Sois mon frère, ou je te tue."[I 1]
- ↑ "Be my brother, or I kill thee."
