Chapter 3
Look at Madam Roland, that strong woman of the Revolution,--upon the car that carries her to death. She looks with scorn upon the stupid People, who kill their prophets and their sibyls. Not one glance to Heaven; only an exclamation for the earth she leaves:--"O, Liberty!"
Approach the prison door of the Girondines: their last night is a banquet, and their last hymn is the _Marseillaise_!
Follow Camille Desmoulins to punishment:--a cold and indecent pleasantry at the tribunal; one long imprecation on the road to the guillotine;--those are the last thoughts of this dying man, about to appear on high!
Listen to Danton, upon the platform of the scaffold, one step from God and immortality:--"I have enjoyed much; let me go to sleep," he says;--then, to the executioner, "You will show my head to the People; it is worth while!" Annihilation for a confession of faith; vanity for his last sigh: such is the Frenchman of these latter days!
What do you think of the religious sentiment of a free People, whose great characters seem to walk thus in procession to annihilation; and die, without even death, that terrible minister, recalling to their minds the fear or the promises of God?
Thus the Republic,--which had no future,--reared by these men, and mere parties, was quickly overthrown in blood. Liberty, achieved by so much heroism and genius, did not find in France a conscience to shelter it, a God to avenge it, a People to defend it, against that other Atheism called Glory! All was finished by a soldier, and by the apostacy of republicans travestied into courtiers! And what could you expect? Republican Atheism has no reason to be heroic. If it is terrified, it yields. Would one buy it, it sells itself; it would be most foolish to sacrifice itself. Who would mourn for it?--the People are ungrateful, and God does not exist.
Thus end atheistic revolutions!
XIX.
If you wish that this revolution should not have the same end, beware of abject Materialism, degrading Sensualism, gross Socialism, of besotted Communism; of all these doctrines of flesh and blood, of meat and drink, of hunger and thirst, of wages and traffic, which these corruptors of the soul of the People preach to you, exclusively, as the sole thought, the sole hope, as the only duty, and only end of man! They will soon make you slaves of ease, serfs of your desires.
Are you willing to have inscribed on the tomb of our French race, as on that of the _Sybarites_, this epitaph: "This People ate and drank well, while they browsed upon the earth?" No! You desire that History should write thus: "This People worshipped well, served God and humanity well,--in thought, in philosophy, in religion, in literature, in arts, in arms, in labor, in liberty, in their Aristocracies, in their Democracies, in their Monarchies, and their Republics! This nation was the spiritual laborer, the conqueror of truth; the disciple of the highest God, in all the ways of civilization,--and, to approach nearer to him, it invented the Republic, that government of duties and of rights, that rule of spiritualism, which finds in _ideas_ its only sovereignty."
Seek God, then. This is your nature and your grandeur. And do not seek Him in these Materialisms! For God is not below,--he is on high!
LAMARTINE,
_Representative of the People_.
THE END.
Transcriber's Note
This text uses some variant spelling--for example, partizan, demagoguical, apostacy, corruptors. This has been preserved as printed.
The ellipsis in this text uses asterisks rather than dots.
On page 62, the semicolon following 'rose' has been moved to follow 'suffered'--"... fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell ..."
A repetition of the book title has been deleted.
End of Project Gutenberg's Atheism Among the People, by Alphonse de Lamartine