despair, insensibility. Children of fifteen, seated listlessly under
flowering shrubs, conversed for pastime on subjects which would have made
shudder with terror the still thickets of Versailles. The Communion of
Christ, the Host, those wafers that stand as the eternal symbol of divine
love, were used to seal letters; the children spit upon the Bread of God.

Happy they who escaped those times! Happy they who passed over the abyss
while looking up to Heaven. There are such, doubtless, and they will
pity us.

It is unfortunately true that there is in blasphemy a certain outlet
which solaces the burdened heart. When an atheist, drawing his watch,
gave God a quarter of an hour in which to strike him dead, it is certain
that it was a quarter of an hour of wrath and of atrocious joy. It was
the paroxysm of despair, a nameless appeal to all celestial powers; it
was a poor, wretched creature squirming under the foot that was crushing
him; it was a loud cry of pain. Who knows? In the eyes of Him who sees
all things, it was perhaps a prayer.

Thus these youth found employment for their idle powers in a fondness for
despair. To scoff at glory, at religion, at love, at all the world, is a
great consolation for those who do not know what to do; they mock at
themselves, and in doing so prove the correctness of their view. And
then it is pleasant to believe one's self unhappy when one is only idle
and tired. Debauchery, moreover, the first result of the principles of
death, is a terrible millstone for grinding the energies.

The rich said: "There is nothing real but riches, all else is a dream;
let us enjoy and then let us die." Those of moderate fortune said:
"There is nothing real but oblivion, all else is a dream; let us forget