TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. LAHARPE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE.
BY H. J. BEYERLE, M.D.
It seems to me as if it had been but yesterday, and yet it happened in the beginning of the year 1788. We were at table with one of our colleagues of the Academy, a respectable and lively gentleman. The company was numerous, and selected from all ranks: nobles, judges, professional men, academicians, &c. We had enjoyed ourselves as is customary at a well-loaded table. At the desert, the malvasier and Cape wine exalted the pleasure and increased in a good company that kind of liberty which does not remain within precise limits.
People in the world had then arrived at the point where it was allowed to say every thing, if it was the object to excite laughter. Chamfort had read to us some of his blasphemous and unchaste tales, and the noble ladies heard them without even taking for refuge to the fan. Then followed a whole volley of mockery on religion. One mentioned a tirade from the Pucelle; the other reminded us of those philosophical stanzas of Diderot, wherein he says: "With the intestines of the last priest tie up the throat of the last king;" and all clapped approbation. Another rises, holds up the full tumbler, and cries: "Yes, gentlemen, I am just as certain that there is no God, as I am certain that Homer was a fool!" and really, he was of the one as certain as he was of the other: we had just spoken of Homer and of God, and there were guests present, too, who had said something good of the one and of the other.
The conversation now became more serious. We spoke with astonishment of the revolution Voltaire had effected, and we agreed that it is the most distinguished foundation of his fame. He had given the term to his half-century; he had written in such a manner, that he is read in the anteroom as well as in the hall.
One of the guests told us with great laughter, that his hairdresser, as he powdered him, said, "You see, sir, though I am only a miserable fellow, I yet have not more religion than others." We concluded that the revolution would soon be completed, and that superstition and fanaticism must absolutely yield to philosophy; we calculated the probability of the time, and who of this company may have the happiness to live to see the reign of reason. The older ones were sorry that they could not flatter themselves to see this; those younger rejoiced with the hope that they shall live to the time, and we particularly congratulated the Academy for having introduced the great work, and that they have been the chief source, the centre, the mainspring of freedom of thought.
One of the guests had taken no part in this gay conversation, and had even scattered a few jokes in regard to our beautiful enthusiasm. It was M. Cazotte, an agreeable and original gentleman; but who, unfortunately, was prepossessed by the idle imaginations of those who believe in a higher inspiration. He took the word, and said, in the most serious manner: "Sirs, rejoice; you all will be witnesses of that great and sublime revolution for which you wish so much. You are aware that I make some pretensions to prophecy. I repeat it to you, you will all see it!"
"For this a man needs no prophetic gifts," was answered him.
"This is true," he replied, "but probably a little more for what I have to tell you yet. Do you know what will arise from this revolution (where, namely, reason will triumph in opposition to religion)? what her immediate consequence, her undeniable and acknowledged effects will be?"
"Let us see," said Condorcet, with his affected look of simplicity, "a philosopher is not sorry to meet a prophet."
"You, M. Condorcet," continued M. Cazotte, "you will be stretched out upon the floor of a dungeon, there to yield up your ghost. You will die of poison, which you will swallow to save yourself from the hangman—of the poison which the good luck of the times, which then will be, will have compelled you always to have carried with you."
This at first excited great astonishment, but we soon remembered that the good Cazotte occasionally dreamed waking, and we all laughed heartily.
"M. Cazotte," said one of the guests, "the tale you relate to us here is not as merry as your 'Devil in Love' (a romance which Cazotte had written). What kind of a devil has given you the dungeon, the poison, and the hangman?—what has this in common with philosophy, and with the reign of Reason?"
"This is just what I told you," replied Cazotte. "In the name of philosophy, in the name of humanity, of liberty, of reason, it shall be that you shall take such an end; and then reason will still reign, for she will have temples; yes, at the same time there will be no temples in all France, but temples of Reason."
"Truly," said Chamfort, with a scornful smile, "you will not be one of the priests in these temples?"
"This I hope," replied Cazotte, "but you, M. de Chamfort, who will be one of them—and very worthy you are to be one—you will open your veins with twenty-two incisions of the razor—and yet you will only die a few months afterwards."
They look at each other, and continue to laugh. Cazotte continues:
"You, M. Vicq d'Azyr, you will not open your veins yourself; but afterwards you will get them opened six times in one day, and during the night you will die."
"You, M. Nicolli, you will die on the scaffold."
"You, M. Bailly, on the scaffold!"
"You, M. Malesherbes—you, on the scaffold!"
"God be thanked," exclaimed M. Roucher, "it appears M. Cazotte has it to do only with the Academy; he has just started a terrible butchery among them; I—thanks to heaven—"
Cazotte interrupted him: "you?—you, too, will die on the scaffold."
"Ha! this is a bet," they exclaimed from all sides; "he has sworn to extirpate everything!"
Cazotte.—"No, it is not I that has sworn it."
"Then we must be put under the yokes of the Turks and Tartars?—and yet—"
Cazotte.—"Nothing less: I have told you already; you will then be only under the reign of philosophy and reason; those who shall treat you in this manner, will all be philosophers, will always carry on the same kind of conversation which you have peddled out for the last hour, will repeat all your maxims; they will, like you, cite verses from Diderot and the Pucelle."
It was whispered into one another's ear: "You all see that he has lost his reason—(for he remains very serious while he is talking)—Do you not see that he is joking?—and you know that he mixes something mysterious into all his jokes." "Yes," said Chamfort, "but I must confess his mysteries are not agreeable, they are too scaffoldish! And when shall all this occur?"
Cazotte.—"Six years will not expire, before all I told you will be fulfilled."
"There are many wonders." This time it was I (namely Laharpe) who took the word, "and of me you say nothing?"
"With you," replied Cazotte, "a wonder will take place, which will at least be as extraordinary; you will then be a Christian!"
Here was a universal exclamation. "Now I am easy," cried Chamfort, "if we don't perish until Laharpe is a Christian, we shall be immortal!"
"We, of the female sex," then said the Duchess de Grammont, "we are lucky that we shall be counted as nothing with the revolutions. When I say nothing, I do not mean to say as if we would not mingle ourselves a little into them; but it is assumed that nobody will, on that account, loath at us or at our sex."
Cazotte.—"Your sex will this time not protect you, and you may ever so much desire not to mingle into anything; you will be treated just like men, and no distinction will be made!"
Duchess.—"But what do you tell us here, M. Cazotte? You preach to us the end of the world!"
Cazotte.—"That I do not know; but what I do know, is, that you, Madame Duchess, will be led to the scaffold, you, and many other ladies, and on the public cart, with your hands tied on your back!"
Duchess.—"In this case, I hope I shall have a black trimmed coach?"
Cazotte.—"No, madam! Nobler ladies than you, shall, like you, be drawn on that same cart, with the hands tied on the back!"
Duchess.—"Nobler ladies? How? the princesses by birth?"
Cazotte.-"Nobler yet!"
Now was observed a visible excitement in the whole company, and the master of the table took on a dark appearance; they began to see that the joke had been carried too far.
Madame de Grammont, to scatter the clouds which the last answer had occasioned, contented herself by saying in a facetious tone: "You shall see that he will not even allow me the comfort of a father confessor!"
Cazotte.—"No, madam! you will not get one; neither you nor any one else! The last one executed, who, out of mercy, will have received a father confessor"—here he stopped a moment—
Duchess.—"Well, who will be the fortunate one, when this fortunate preference will be granted?"
Cazotte.—"It will be the only preference that he shall yet keep; and this will be the king of France!"
Now the host arose from the table, and all with him. He went to Cazotte, and said with an excited voice, "My dear M. Cazotte, this lamentable jest has lasted long. You carry it too far, and within a degree where you place the company in which you are, and yourself, into danger."
Cazotte answered not, and made himself ready to go away, when madame Grammont, who always tried to prevent the matter from being taken seriously, and exerted herself to restore the gaiety of the company, went to him, and said: "Now, M. Prophet! you have told us all our fortunes, but you say nothing of your own fate?"
He was silent and cast down his eyes; then he said: "Have you, madame, read, in Josephus, the history of the siege of Jerusalem?"
Duchess.—"Certainly! who has not read it? but you seem to think that I have not!"
Cazotte.—"Well, madame, during the siege a man went round the city, upon the walls, for seven days, in the face of the besiegers and the besieged, and cried continually, with a mournful voice, 'Wo unto Jerusalem! Wo unto Jerusalem!' but on the seventh day he cried, 'Wo unto me!' and at that moment he was dashed to pieces by an immense stone, which the machines of the enemy had thrown."
After these words, M. Cazotte bowed himself, and went away.
In relation to the above extraordinary prediction, a certain M.... has inserted the following article in the public journals of Paris: "That he well knew this M. Cazotte, and has often heard from him the announcement of the great oppression which was to come over France, and this at a time when not the least of it was suspected. The attachment to the monarchy was the reason why, on the second of September, 1792, he was brought to the abbey, and was saved from the hands of the bloodthirsty rabble only through the heroic courage of his daughter, who mitigated the raging populace. This same rabble which wanted to destroy him, led him to his house in triumph. All his friends came to congratulate him, that he had escaped death. A certain M. D... who visited him after the terrible days, said to him: "Now, you are saved!"—"I believe it not," answered Cazotte; "in three days I shall be guillotined!"—"How can this be?" replied M. D... Cazotte continued: "Yes, my friend, in three days I will die on the scaffold!" As he said this he was very much affected, and added: "Shortly before your arrival, I saw a gend'armes enter, who fetched me by order of Petion; I was under the necessity of following him: I appeared before the mayor of Paris, who ordered me to the Conciergerie, and thence I came before the revolutionary tribunal. You see, therefore (by this vision, namely, which Cazotte had seen), my friend, that my hour has arrived; and I am so much convinced of this, that I am arranging my papers. Here are papers for which I care very much, which you will deliver to my wife; I entreat you to give them to her, and to comfort her.""
M. D... declared this all folly, and left him with the conviction, that his reason had suffered by the sight of the scenes of terror from which he had escaped.
The next day he came again; but he learned that a gensd'arme had taken M. Cazotte to the Municipality. M. D... went to Petion; arrived at the mayoralty, he heard that his friend had just been taken to prison; he hurried thither; but he was informed that he could not speak to him, he would be tried before the revolutionary tribunal. Soon after this, he heard that his friend had been condemned and executed.