Page 48 of 63 PARIS NOTES - Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories

foreign spies; that the 5th September was its own justification

before heaven and humanity; that the 18th Brumaire contained the

seeds of its own punishment; that the 14th July was the mighty voice

of liberty proclaiming the resurrection, the new day, and inviting

the oppressed peoples of the earth to look upon the divine face of

France and live; and let us here record our everlasting curse

against the man of the 2d December, and declare in thunder tones,

the native tones of France, that but for him there had been no 17th

March in history, no 12th October, no 19th January, no 22d April,

no 16th November, no 30th September, no 2d July, no 14th February,

no 29th June, no 15th August, no 31st May--that but for him, France

the pure, the grand, the peerless, had had a serene and vacant

almanac today!

I have heard of one French sermon which closed in this odd yet eloquent way:

My hearers, we have sad cause to remember the man of the 13th

January. The results of the vast crime of the 13th January have

been in just proportion to the magnitude of the set itself. But for

it there had been no 30 November--sorrowful spectacle! The grisly

deed of the 16th June had not been done but for it, nor had the man

of the 16th June known existence; to it alone the 3d September was

due, also the fatal 12th October. Shall we, then, be grateful for

the 13th January, with its freight of death for you and me and all

that breathe? Yes, my friends, for it gave us also that which had

never come but for it, and it atone--the blessed 25th December.

It may be well enough to explain, though in the case of many of my readers this will hardly be necessary. The man of the 13th January is Adam; the crime of that date was the eating of the apple; the sorrowful spectacle of the 30th November was the expulsion from Eden; the grisly deed of the 16th June was the murder of Abel; the act of the 3d September was the beginning of the journey to the land of Nod; the 12th day of October, the last mountain-tops disappeared under the flood. When you go to church in France, you want to take your almanac with you--annotated.

		"Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure." Victor Hugo

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