Ne nous fions qu’à nous, voyons tout par nos yeux,
Ce sont là nos trépieds, nos oracles, nos Dieux.
And afterwards, when Jocasta pours forth another tirade of the same kind, which terminates with these lines:
Nos Prêtres ne sont point ce qu’un vain peuple pense;
Notre crédulité fait toute leur science.
I happened to sit next to the Abbé Bastiani, and, while the actress spoke this, the king started up, coughed, and laughed, with very significant gestures, to the ecclesiastic.
But though these passages, and some others, seem at first sight to be severe against priests, the tragedy of Oedipus, upon the whole, does them great honour. For all that is said against them, turns out to be unjust, and it appears that the oracle, which had been treated in such severe terms, was true, and that the high priest had acted throughout like an honest and virtuous man. It surprises me, therefore, that Voltaire should have taken the plot of his play from the Greek tragedy on this subject, which has constrained him, like Balaam the son of Barak, to do honour to those whom he would have been better pleased to have cursed.—And the King on his part (if I may presume to say it) could not have pitched upon a tragedy less à-propos, if his intention was to turn the clergy into ridicule.
I have no objection to this piece, on account of the honour done to the clergy; because I cannot help forming an opinion of men from my own experience: And I have known so many good men of that profession, that I should respect it on their account, exclusive of other reasons.
But I own I have the misfortune not to follow this great monarch, and many other respectable critics, in their admiration of the tragedy of Oedipus.—The fable, in my poor opinion, is too horrible.—The circumstance of Oedipus being married to his mother, and having children by her, is highly disgusting; and the idea it gives of Providence and the conduct of the gods, cannot have a good effect on the mind. Nothing could be more unjust, than that Heaven should send a plague among the inhabitants of Thebes, and pour such vengeance on poor Oedipus and Jocasta, for crimes of which it knew them to be innocent. We cannot help admitting the justice of Oedipus’s reproaches against the gods, when he says,