This page has been validated.
290
On Liberty.
Justice in heaven and earth must cease to dwell,
Desfontaines is not bad, not good Pucelle.[1]
Fate's impulse actuates each human breast,
And the world's chaos is by vice possessed.
The proud oppressor, miser hard of heart,
Cartouche, Mirivis, skilled in fraudful art;
The slanderer, more criminal than all,
May God the causer of his baseness call.
If I am perjured, 'tis by his command,
He plunders, robs, and murders by my hand:
'Tis thus the God who first ordained all laws,
Is made of horrors and black crimes the cause.
Could those who such a dogma dire maintain,
Speak of the devil himself in blacker strain:
Surprise seized on me, as on one at night
Who wakes surprised to see a sudden light,
Whilst yet a heavy and half-opened eye
With difficulty can the light descry.
I answered: Can it, heavenly spirit, be
That mortal man's so weak whilst he is free,
Why cannot reason's torch direct his way,
He follows it, yet often goes astray?
Why should this paragon so wise and brave,
Be always thus to vice an abject slave?
This answer straight returned the spirit kind,
What groundless grief has thus overwhelmed your mind?
Desfontaines is not bad, not good Pucelle.[1]
Fate's impulse actuates each human breast,
And the world's chaos is by vice possessed.
The proud oppressor, miser hard of heart,
Cartouche, Mirivis, skilled in fraudful art;
The slanderer, more criminal than all,
May God the causer of his baseness call.
If I am perjured, 'tis by his command,
He plunders, robs, and murders by my hand:
'Tis thus the God who first ordained all laws,
Is made of horrors and black crimes the cause.
Could those who such a dogma dire maintain,
Speak of the devil himself in blacker strain:
Surprise seized on me, as on one at night
Who wakes surprised to see a sudden light,
Whilst yet a heavy and half-opened eye
With difficulty can the light descry.
I answered: Can it, heavenly spirit, be
That mortal man's so weak whilst he is free,
Why cannot reason's torch direct his way,
He follows it, yet often goes astray?
Why should this paragon so wise and brave,
Be always thus to vice an abject slave?
This answer straight returned the spirit kind,
What groundless grief has thus overwhelmed your mind?
- ↑ The abbé Pucelle, a celebrated counsellor of parliament. The abbé Desfontaines, a man who often incurred the censure of the law. He kept open shop, where he sold panegyric and satire to those who bid highest.
