Feuillants

“ In fine, I am so necessary to the making of all society and manner of life both delightful and lasting, that neither would the people long endure their governors, nor the servant his master, nor the master his footman, nor the scholar his tutor, nor one friend another, nor the wife her husband, nor the usurer the borrower, nor a soldier his commander, nor one companion another, unless all of them had their interchangeable failings, one while flattering, other while prudently conniving, and generally sweetening one another with some small relish of folly. ”

“ Husbands, and brothers, and young men, Give us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head of Foulon, Give us the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of Foulon, Rend Foulon to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that grass may grow from him! With these cries, numbers of the women, lashed into blind frenzy, whirled about, striking and tearing at their own friends until they dropped into a passionate swoon, and were only saved by the men belonging to them from being trampled under foot. ”

“ The knightly virtues range before us as distinctly as the monastic; and harsh is the contrast between the character they outline and the feudal actuality of cruelty and greed and lust. Feudalism itself presents everywhere a state of contrast between its principles of mutual fidelity and protection, and its actuality of oppression, revolt, and private war. ”

“ In trampling under his feet all moral belief which binds the vulgar, he had reserved honor as an inviolable limit. Then, under the empire of his passions, he said to himself that, after all, honor, like all the rest, was conventional. Then he encountered crime—he touched it with his hand— horror seized him—and he recoiled. He rejected with disgust the principle which had conducted him there—asked himself what would become of human society if it had no other. ”

“ And here, you may take this passing remark—How much more odious people are who have radical faults, than those who commit, I do not say positive crimes, but occasional weaknesses. Even a noble nature may fall into a great error; but what is that to the ever-enduring pride, envy, malice, and conceit of a little mind? Yes, I would at any time rather be the fallen than the one, so exult over the fall of another. ”

“ There is one question I sometimes ask of myself on that subject; are we any better, you and I, youthful Paul, than this crowd of joyous companions and pleasant viveurs, or are we simply different from them? Like ourselves, they possess honesty and honor; like ourselves, they have neither virtue nor religion properly so-called. So far, we are equal. Our tastes alone and our pleasures differ; all their preoccupations turn to the lighter ways of the world, to the cares of gallantry and material activity ”

“ The only pity is that it has inhabitants! Not but that they are agreeable, for they are only too much so; only they are also very careless, and appear to my view to live and die without reflecting much on what they are doing. ”

“ Every one has his own tastes and his own way of understanding life in this world; we differ so much, you and I, and you conceived for me, at first sight, an extreme antipathy. This disposition, which, on one side at least, madam, was to be singularly modified on better acquaintance, prompted me to some thoughtless manifestations of ill-humor and vivacity of controversy. ”

“ It was with these redoubtable weapons, and strengthened by a keen intelligence and vigorous will, that he would return to the world—his brow calm and grave, his eye caressing while unyielding, a smile upon his lips, as men had known him. ”

“ Every man keeps a sting for his neighbour’s service; and a few, like wasps, make spoil of their weaker brethren. But what are all these misty shapes that beset them on every side?
Her. Hopes, Fears, Follies, Pleasures, Greeds, Hates, Grudges, and such like. They differ in their habits. The Folly is a domestic creature, with vested rights of its own. The same with the Grudge, the Hate, the Envy, the Greed, the Know-not, and the What’s-to-do. But the Fear and the Hope fly overhead. The Fear swoops on its prey from above ”

“ But of these kind of second courses I am the only cook; though yet those ordinary practices of our feasts, as choosing a king, throwing dice, drinking healths, trolling it round, dancing the cushion, and the like, were not invented by the seven wise men but myself, and that too for the common pleasure of mankind. The nature of all which things is such that the more of folly they have, the more they conduce to human life, which, if it were unpleasant, did not deserve the name of life ”

“ In a word, this folly is that that laid the foundation of cities; and by it, empire, authority, religion, policy, and public actions are preserved; neither is there anything in human life that is not a kind of pastime of folly. ”

“ But rulers themselves under the sun are not free from folly, and this shows itself in the disorder that actually proceeds from them. Orders and ranks are not in harmony. Folly is exalted, and those with whom dignities accord are in lowly place. It is another view of the present confusion, and how fully the coming of the Highest showed it out! A stable, a manger, rejection, and the cross, were the portion under the sun of the King of kings. ”

“ The savage eagerness of this plodding multitude, the noise, the sweat and dust, the roar of their voices when they cheered, made her feel that she was watching the workings of an inevitable doom. What could stand against this brown flood of men, this whole people that had risen to smother the hated few? ”

“ I call upon you in the name of our race, I even command you in the name of violated justice and virtue, that you no longer require this self-sacrifice, this offering up of chastity, this destruction of your race, at the hand of fashionable woman.
3 To you, ye tight-lacers, I appeal! Will you not break away from the shackles of these fashionable libertines whose main end is to ruin you? Will you not turn your eyes and hearts from the fashionable to the industrious—from rakes to the virtuous; from beasts to men ”

“ It seems as though I were a thousand leagues away from the things of the world, and that there is a sort of truce and respite in the miserable routine of my existence, at once so agitated and so commonplace. ”

“ Altogether this world, with its partitioned empire and its roomy universal Church, seemed to be a handsome establishment for the few who were lucky or wise enough to reap the advantages of human folly: a world in which lust and obscenity, lying and treachery, oppression and murder, were pleasant, useful, and when properly managed, not dangerous. ”

“ Thou shalt a moral teach to me and mine.
The hand that wore thee smooth is cold, and spins
No more. Debility press'd hard around
The seat of life, and terrors fill'd her brain;
Nor causeless terrors: Giants grim and bold. ”

“ Now this, the first folly I committed in this town, though 'twas pretty gross, yet was remarked by none, much less blamed. But why? The world is so full of such fooleries that none marks them now, nor laughs at them, nor wonders at them, for all are used to them. And so was I held for a wise and good soldier, and not for a fool only fit for baby's shoes. ”

“ Causes of the Decay of Feudalism.—Chief among the various causes which undermined and at length overthrew Feudalism, were the hostility to the system of the kings and the common people, the Crusades, the revolt of the cities, and the introduction of fire-arms in the art of war. ”

“ The old and chartered Lie,
The feudal curse, whose whips and yokes
Insult humanity.
A voice is ever at thy side
Speaking in tones of might,
Like the prophetic voice, that cried
To John in Patmos, "Write!" ”

“ He had seen similar evils to those which we have seen and suffered. “There is an evil which I have seen under the sun as an error which proceedeth from the ruler: folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.” ”

“ The nice women, with their high-bred lovers, who step so daintily through his pages, to the flutter of perfumed fans and the rustle of fine silks, are as convincing as the palpitantly convincing princesses of Hans Andersen and Grimm; but Feuillet's villains and adventuresses, like the ogres and the witches we never very heartily believe in, are, for the most part, the merest stereotypes of vice and wickedness, always artificial, too often a trifle absurd. ”

“ You speak like a boy,—like a boy who thinks the old gnarled oak can be twisted as easily as the young sapling. Can I forget that I have been branded as an outlaw, stigmatized as a traitor, a price set on my head as if I had been a wolf, my family treated as the dam and cubs of the hill-fox, whom all may torment, vilify, degrade, and insult ”

“ His piety, as enlightened as profound, ranked him among the choicest spirits who then endeavored to reconcile the national faith of the past with the inexorable liberty of thought of the present. Like his co-laborers in this work, he experienced only a mortal sadness under which he sank. True, his wife contributed no little to hasten his end by the intemperance of her zeal and the acrimony of her bigotry. ”

“ Terrified at the monster, she has sought to control it, and has overloaded it with instincts, commonly called duties, and police regulations known as religion. Each one of these shackles broken, each one of these servitudes overthrown, marks a step toward the thorough emancipation of humanity.
"I must say to you, however, that I die in the faith of my century, believing in matter uncreated, all-powerful, and eternal—the Nature of the ancients. There have been in all ages philosophers who have had conceptions of the truth. ”

“ Long after feudalism had ceased, however, it was difficult to disabuse the minds of people of the idea that the blood which flowed in the veins of a gentleman was different from that of a peasant or a burgher. ”

“ When the people are made miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill-usage of arbitrary power, cry up their governors, as much as you will, for sons of Jupiter; let them be sacred and divine, descended or authorized from heaven; give them out for whom or what you please, the same will happen. The people generally ill-treated, and contrary to right, will be ready upon any occasion to ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon them. ”

“ We see established institutions rooted out, idols overthrown, and injured worshippers exasperated to fury; the air, as was inevitable at such a crisis, full of flying rumours, some lies, some half lies with fragments of truth attaching to them, bred of malice or dizzy brains, the materials out of which the popular tradition has been built. ”

“ Many and Many a time has this been our own Case, both publick and private, when we would not Believe the Danger of things 'till the Evil was come upon us: But Good Council is cast away, upon the Arrogant, die Self conceited, or the stupid, who are either too Proud to take it, or too Heavy to Understand it. ”

“ Indifferent to the outrages of public opinion, she seems ready to aspire to the coarsest incense of gallantry; but what she requires above all things is noise, movement, a whirl, worldly pleasure carried to its most extreme and most extravagant fury; what she requires every morning, every evening, and every night, is a break-neck chase, which she conducts with frenzy ”

“ His foibles were an uneasy sense of dignity, an almost childish delight in the outward trappings of authority, and a despotic temper peculiarly unsuitable to the work in hand. He quarrelled with every one who had an opinion of his own, and made personal enemies of men without whose support he was merely beating the air. ”

“ Look at my bill! it’s not meant to fight with, nor are my claws either. We don’t wish to fight with any one; we do no one any harm. Why should we be bullied and persecuted by these fat vulgar creatures, who are too lazy to build nests for themselves? ”

“ So almost universal is this foul talk, to be heard everywhere, at any time,—ribald, coarse, obscene, and altogether devilish,—that it is no wonder that the public mind is debauched and totally demoralized. ”

“ I advise my readers when they have finished the last page of The Dangerous Age to re-read La Crise. They will observe many points of resemblance, notably in the "journal" portion of the latter. Juliette, Feuillet's heroine, thus expresses herself:
"What name can I give to this moral discomfort, this distaste for my former habits, this aimless restlessness and discontent with myself and others, of which I have been conscious during the last few months?... I have taken it into my head to hate the trinkets on my husband's watchchain. ”

“ Increasing uncertainty in the political world, increasing doubt in the world of thought, very naturally combined to produce an emotional tendency which took different forms in men of different temperament. We can trace this (1) in the importance attached to omens, portents, dreams; (2) in a certain vague thought of a future life, which takes a positive shape in the deification of human beings; (3) at the close of the period, in something approaching to a sense of sin, of neglected duty, bringing down upon State and individual the anger of the gods. ”

“ The violent antipathies,—the result of an exaggerated love for, shall I call it by so big a name as the "poetry of being?"—and the natural distrust arising from being forced to hear the conversation of half-bred men, all whose petty feelings were roused to awkward life by the paltry game of local politics,—are yielding to reason and calmer knowledge. ”

“ The history of this people, full of sorrow, blood and tears, is full also of instruction for mankind. God has so ordered it that one class shall not degrade another without becoming themselves contaminated. ”