“montibus altis
Levis crepante lympha desilit pede,”
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comes in the midst of the dream of the blessed islands which are to be won by following the founders of—what city, think you? The city that first sang the “Marseillaise.”
“Juppiter illa piae secrevit litora genti.”
Recollect that line, my French readers, if I chance to find any, this month, nor less the description of those ‘arva beata’ as if of your own South France; and then consider also those prophetic lines, true of Paris as of Rome,—
“Nec fera coerulea domuit Germania pube.
Impia, perdemus devoti sanguinis aetas.”
Consider them, I say, and deeply, thinking over the full force of those words, “devoti sanguinis,” and of the ways in which the pure blood of Normandie la franche, and France la solue, has corrupted itself, and become accursed. Had I but time to go into the history of that word ‘devoveo,’ what a piece of philology it would lead us into! But, for another kind of opposition to the sweet Franchise of old time, take this sentence of description of another French maiden, by the same author from whom I have just quoted the sketch of the grisette:
“C’était une vieille fille d’une cinquantaine d’années, sèche et jaune, avec un grand nez d’oiseau de proie, très noble, encore plus dévote, joueuse comme la dame de pique en personne, et médisante à faire battre des montagnes.”