and exhausted so much praise, — not those public records in which are set down the nobility of our birth, the antiquity of our origin, the fame of our ancestors, the dignities which have rendered them illustrious, the lustre which we have added to their name, and all the history, as I may say, of human illusion and weakness; that immortality so vaunted, which it promised to us, shall be buried in the ruins and in the wrecks of the universe; but there we shall see the most shocking and exact history of our heart, of our mind, of our imagination; that is to say, that internal and invisible part of our life, equally unknown to ourselves as to the rest of men.
Yes, my brethren, besides the exterior history of our manners, which will be all recalled, what will most astonish us is, the secret history of our heart, which will then be wholly laid open to our eyes; of that heart which we have never sounded, never known; of that heart which continually eluded our search, and, under specious names, disguised from us the shame of its passions; of that heart whose elevation, probity, magnanimity, disinterestedness, and natural goodness we have so much vaunted, which the public error and adulation had beheld as such, and which had occasioned our being exalted above other men. So many shameful desires, which were scarcely formed before we endeavoured to conceal them from ourselves; so many absurd projects of fortune and elevation, sweet delusions, up to which our seduced heart continually gave itself; so many secret and mean jealousies which were the invisible principle of all our conduct, yet, nevertheless, which we dissembled through pride; so many criminal dispositions which had a thousand times induced us ardently to wish that either the pleasures of the senses were eternal, or that, at least, they should remain unpunished; so many hatreds and animosities, which unknown to ourselves, had corrupted our heart; so many defiled and vicious intentions, with regard to which we were so ingenious in flattering ourselves; so many projects of iniquity to which opportunity had alone been wanting, and which we reckoned as nothing because they had never departed from our heart: in a word, that vicissitude of passions which in succession had possession of our heart: behold what shall all be displayed before our eyes. We shall see, says a holy father, come out, as from an ambuscade, numberless crimes of which we could never believe ourselves capable. We shall be shown to ourselves; we shall be made to enter into our own heart, where we had never resided: a sudden light shall clear up that abyss: that mystery of iniquity shall be revealed; and we shall see that which of all we knew least, that was ourselves.
To the examination of the evils we have committed will succeed that of the good which we have failed to do. The endless omissions of which our life has been full, and for which we had never felt even remorse, will be recalled; so many circumstances where our character engaged us to render glory to the truth, and where we have betrayed it through vile motives of interest, or mean compliances; so many opportunities of doing good, provided for us by the good-
