Ludwig Tieck

“ Weak as we may be, we occupy a whole army, and with it lend efficient succour to foreign countries. Do you not think, that with these sentiments, I may call myself a good subject, though certain of my ultimate ruin, by acting thus, I spare my king and country? I fall in the fight here, or imprisonment, ignominy and martyrdom await me, no spark of commiseration lights me on. I do not kindle the fiery zeal and wrath of my people, in order, to break blindly into the land, to hazard all on a dangerous game, by which the infuriated often win, I rather restrain them. ”

“ What are a priest, country or king in comparison to my faith, in comparison to the fire that kindles through all my veins and burns in every fibre? Do you think you are permitted to reason and be men of the ordinary world? This is precisely what makes our adversaries strong and prepares so many defeats for us, because we still turn our looks back upon the world and its wisdom. ”

“ Is your heart incased in some hard metal that no feeling can penetrate it? Do not believe that, on that account, I have neglected my mass or vesper to implore the God of mercy to enlighten these wretches and to succour these poor persecuted creatures, and that he may also strengthen myself? Mark me, Edmond, although I do not belong to the community of Huguenots, but if all these murderers were extirpated in a second by one tremendous blow, our church should institute a festival of thanksgiving that this stigma was removed from her, and her holy banner would be no more dishonoured. ”

“ No my friends, my inspired brethren! let other self-sufficient, self-willed men then, who fight without heaven be your soldiers, I can never be such. Roland and Cavalier pardon the prisoners we make, send them back comforted, refresh and succour their wounded, and hope by their well-meaning kindness to arouse the hearts of the villains, that they may feel humane and brotherly towards us. But no such thing! they mock at this our weakness and call it folly, nay, they publicly term it cowardice and say, that we dare not act otherwise, for we are only rebels and outlaws. ”

“ I blame not your sentiments, far be it from me to censure what is sacred, but you do not know what it is, you have yet to learn that greatness and truth lie only on the verge, on the transition-point of this feeling; as we have beheld them in their ecstasy, we must draw back with timidity and reverence; but should the lying spirit entice us in our spiritual revellings to higher enthusiasm and visions, we sink under mental voluptuousness, and delusive images, fearful fancies take prisoners soul and heart, love dies within us ”

“ Then come chaos and anarchy bringing in their train the hellish fiends of murder, vengeance, fire, and sword, in order to destroy and slay the friends of the throne, the nobles and the priests. Oh! my father, to this only then their doctrine tends. Can my king be no more to me my visible god on earth, to whom I blindly and unreservedly submitted my whole heart with all its impulses, can I no longer believe, that to him alone belongs all responsibility? ”

“ Out of one-and-twenty parishes, three hundred young men were seized from the district of Nismes alone, besides whole families and are shut up in the dungeons and fortresses of the level country and of the mountains. The inhuman Intendant trusts no one, and how can the subject be tranquil and faithful to the king, when the tyrant in his cold-blooded intrigues only meditates how to make the people wretched? The terrible man has been heard to say with his own lips, that the best and the safest method would be to extirpate from the face of the earth all who are converted, as well as the rebels. ”

“ Gabriel also, who had become a soldier in Montpellier, was recognized and executed, and the lovely Isabelle from fear, in the dungeon of Grenoble, retracted from her faith, and thus all had the appearance of tranquillity. Sparks of the faith, however, and of the force of miracles had been scattered and lost in the Cevennes. For the spirit possesses the property of fire, which, out of a little spark, by which a small beetle cannot warm itself, grows, in a few hours, into a brand that lays woods in ashes, and mocks all human efforts to extinguish it. What may not lie in one single word? ”

“ I at least would make a vigourous attack upon him with pills and rhubarb, so that he would soon make room for us; he is the only man against whom I have ever before felt a grudge. Has he not in the space of eight months sentenced to death more men than all the doctors in the province would have been able to do. All those yonder in the mountains, Cavalier and Roland included, he considers merely as his future patients, and like an ignorant empiric he invariably prescribes one and the same remedy for the most opposite constitutions. ”

“ If we ourselves act in this manner, wherefore should we complain, when the enemies open wide the jaws of cruelty and show less compassion than the wolf in the wilderness, or the beast of prey of the mountains, then, with justice, their stakes blaze threateningly to meet us! why are we angered, when their barbarous executioners, with greedy looks, grin up towards our mountains, and in malicious joy whet their instruments of death? ”

“ Had Cavalier been with the troop, I should not have escaped him, for he possesses the utmost presence of mind, he is the boldest and indeed the most soldierly among the rebels."
"It is said that he is taken prisoner," observed the huntsman.
"The war is over then," exclaimed the hermit, "for, without him, they can undertake nothing; this powerful man is alone the soul of their venturous enterprise. The others understand well enough how to kill and to die, but not how to conduct the war. I wish he had died; for should he be taken prisoner, his fate will be one worthy of commiseration." ”

“ We met him just as we issued from a narrow defile in the mountains, I called to him to surrender; he resisted, bang! I shot a fellow dead, who was standing by him, I fell upon them with sword and gun and broke their ranks--sir, it was an epoch in my life, it was as if three regiments were in my body--shots were fired, I looked back,---there lay my whole army cut down behind me by a few villains--my courage failed, I rode off as fast as my horse would carry me, it was the same hungarian horse, my good sir, now, in your stable,--I am saved. ”

“ I tried, in my inmost soul, to unravel the mystery, why all should be thus and not otherwise, how God and man, virtue and sin, in and through one another, and how in this entwined knot, now and then the rays of eternity shine down into this temporal world, and how, in one short moment, we feel and experience within us the whole unfathomable eternity, and many thousand thoughts and feelings, of which the smallest in the tittle of time, is allowed no place. ”

“ Just as quickly as it was withdrawn, the curtain fell again over the horizon and extinguished its light, upon which the Counsellor said, "was not this like an emblem of our country and of our misfortunes? as necessity unites us all and brings us together, and as the misery that oppresses us, if I may so express myself, becomes as it were sanctified and endeared to us? all our countrymen pass through this baptism of blood, may heaven have pity on us." ”

“ Edmond, much embarrassed, drew near, she saw him not, he spoke a few words, but she heard him not. "Dearest," he exclaimed at length, "you kill me, you kill yourself! these powerful shocks will destroy your constitution." "And were it not as well?" said she in a feeble voice, without restraining her tears, "look on me, here on the ground, weep with me; all good men should now perish." "Rise, lady," said Edmond, while he assisted her, "if I must not believe that your reason has deserted you." ”

“ In my emotion I forgot to attend to the usual etiquette of life, and as I could not avoid entertaining the priest at our own table, I added the two other poor fellows, but as to that miller, who has more particularly drawn upon himself your hatred and contempt, his child-like countenance and frank, open manners, in my opinion, did more honour to my table, than your Marshal Montrevel could ever do. Accident, the weather brought us together; the times are also so changed that we do not yet know, but we ourselves may be compelled to sue for refuge among the most miserable. ”

“ No, all of us and himself too must often pray, that the Lord may moderate his ardent zeal, for he is almost always in anger, and only too frequently as if raving. Are you better now, gracious sir?" Edmond pressed his hand and said, "I feel that the wound is not of much consequence, it was the loss of blood alone made me faint; but brother Eustace, as I am now a brother to you all, leave off that empty mode of the men of the world, and call me thou, as it is customary among you." ”

“ Must my church, for which innumerable miracles, and thousands of the sublimest spirits speak and confirm it, yield to contemptible communities of yesterday, out of whatever corner they creep, who seek with gross deception and delirious ravings to cover and decorate their pitiful wretchedness;--no, I would just as soon fly to the unenlightened heathens of the North Pole, and attach myself to their absurd faith."
"Miracles!" exclaimed the old Lord, "and what then do you call miracles? the dull eye cannot discern them, just because they are too great and too mighty. ”

“ Does not the universal lament of creation strike on his ear? Do not praise and thanksgivings with tears and cries of sorrow rise equally to his throne? To this feeling were added many more, and weak, poor and unintelligible did the whole course of my past life appear to me. Do these statues, lights and temples then make any difference, said I to myself, with all this pomp of riches and splendour? will the Lord who walked bound as a slave among us, and suffered himself to be illtreated, will he not be mocked through it? ”

“ No, verily, we are ruined if we do not pay them in their own coin, return evil for evil, blood for blood, death for death, rage and fury for their inflexibility and severity. As they have been mild and compassionate towards us, let us respond to it; let the Christianity that they preach, fall burning down upon their own heads, let us dive into their hearts and entrails, to see where they have concealed pity and the feelings of humanity. ”

“ Oh thou mournful sound, like the twittering of the swallow, thou appearest to die away in the wilderness, the spirit conducts thee through the world, and puts thee on a coat of mail that armies grow out of the ground, and horses and riders, and thousands sent by kings with the thunder of artillery, were not able to make the little world as quiet and small as it lay formerly in the solitary cottage. ”

“ He took the road to Nismes; the huntsman had already slipped away.
"My Lord Counsellor of Parliament," cried the priest, "you have not seen us to-day in the most favourable light, now that all has passed off happily; I am a man again; courage revives once more within me, I could now show you that I am no coward, if a few of these villains would but return. Receive my thanks, honoured sir, and you too my young--but what do I see?" ”

“ What do they require of us? no open, direct service, no assistance which becomes citizens, and which all honorable men are ready to render: but we are required to turn spies and betray our fellow-subjects and our countrymen, to give them up to the rack and to the stake, and to rejoice in the inhumanity which depopulates the land, and congratulate ourselves at having incurred the hatred of God and of all mankind, and if we enquire into this too closely, we are looked upon as traitors to our king and country. ”

“ The glance from his tearful eyes went to my soul, then I was filled with wrathful melancholy and joyful sorrow, and in this emotion, I was smitten again when the assembly dispersed. What is nature? this question I had often asked myself when I rambled with enthusiasm through wooded mountains and verdant valleys magically lighted and covered with the breath of morning, embalmed by the fresh zephyrs, and filled with all the lovely presentiments which inspire us with such pleasing dreams. ”

“ God is our Lord.--Stephen! Favart!" Cried he, in a commanding tone, and out of the cliffs sprang forward a fair-haired young man, and behind him stole forth another, whom Edmond immediately recognised for the old huntsman, that he had met about twelve days before at his father's house. "Conduct the young man to brother Roland," said Mazel to both of them, and Edmond accompanied them in silence, still deeper into the solitude of the mountains. ”