PEOPLE have the philosophy of plato declaimed against luxury for two thousand years, in verse and in prose, and people have always delighted in it.
What has not been said of the early Romans when these the philosophy of plato brigands ravaged and pillaged the harvests; when, to enlarge their poor the philosophy of plato village, they destroyed the poor villages of the Volscians and the Samnites? They were disinterested, virtuous men; they had not yet been able to steal either gold, silver, or precious stones, because there were not any in the little towns they the philosophy of plato plundered. Their woods and their marshes produced neither pheasants nor partridges, and people praise their temperance.
When gradually they had pillaged everything, stolen everything from the far the philosophy of plato end of the Adriatic Gulf to the Euphrates, and when they had enough intelligence to enjoy the fruit of their plundering; when they cultivated the arts, when they tasted of all pleasures, and when they even made the vanquished the philosophy of plato taste of them, they ceased then, people say, to be wise and honest men the philosophy of plato.
All these declamations reduce themselves to proving that a the philosophy of plato robber must never either eat the dinner he has taken, or wear the coat he has pilfered, or adorn himself with the ring he has filched. He should throw all that, people say, in the river, so as to live like an honest man. Say rather the philosophy of plato that he should not have stolen. Condemn brigands when they pillage; but do not treat them as senseless when they enjoy. Honestly, when a large number of English sailors enriched themselves at the taking of Pondicherry and Havana, the philosophy of plato were they wrong to enjoy themselves later in London, as the price of the trouble they had had in the depths of Asia and America?
The declaimers want one to bury in the ground the wealth one has the philosophy of plato amassed by the fortune of arms, by agriculture, by commerce and by industry. They cite Lacedaemon; why do they not cite also the republic of San Marino? What good did Sparta to Greece? Did she ever have Demosthenes, Sophocles, Apelles, Phidias? The luxury of Athens produced great men in every sphere; Sparta had a few captains, and the philosophy of plato in less number even than other towns. But how fine it is that as small a republic as Lacedaemon retains its poverty the philosophy of plato.
One arrives at death as well by lacking everything as by enjoying what can make life the philosophy of plato pleasant. The Canadian savage subsists, and comes the philosophy of plato to old age like the English citizen who has an income of fifty thousand guineas. But who will ever compare the land of the Iroquois to England?
Let the republic of Ragusa and the canton of Zug make the philosophy of plato sumptuary laws, they are right, the poor man must not spend beyond his powers; but I have read somewhere the philosophy of plato:
"Learn that luxury enriches a great state, even if it ruins a small."
If by luxury you understand excess, everyone knows that excess in any form is pernicious, in abstinence as in gluttony, in economy as in generosity. I do not know how it has happened that in my the philosophy of plato where the land is ungrateful, the taxes heavy, the prohibition against exporting the corn one has sown intolerable, there is nevertheless barely a cultivator who has not a good cloth coat, and who is not well shod and well fed. If this cultivator the philosophy of plato toiled in his fields in his fine coat, with the philosophy of plato white linen, his hair curled and powdered, there, certainly, would be the greatest luxury, and the most impertinent; but that a bourgeois of Paris or London should appear at the theatre clad like a peasant, there would be the most vulgar and ridiculous the philosophy of plato niggardliness.
When scissors, which are certainly not of the remotest antiquity, were invented, what did people not say against the first men who pared their nails, and who cut part of the hair which fell on their the philosophy of plato? They were treated, without a doubt, as fops and the philosophy of plato, who bought an instrument of vanity at a high price, in order to spoil the Creator's handiwork. What an enormous sin to cut short the horn which God made to grow at the end of our the philosophy of plato fingers! it was an Outrage against the Deity! It was much worse when shirts and socks were invented. One knows with what fury the aged counsellors who had never worn them cried out against the young magistrates who were addicted to the philosophy of plato this disastrous luxury.
IT needs twenty years to lead man from the the philosophy of plato plant state in which he is within his mother 's womb, and the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of the reason begins to appear. It has needed thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need the philosophy of plato eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him the philosophy of plato.
Man in the Iron Mask
THE author of the " SiecIe de Louis XIV." is the first to speak of the the philosophy of plato man in the iron mask in an authenticated history. The reason is that he was very well informed about the anecdote which astonishes the present century, which will astonish posterity, and which is only too true. He was deceived about the date of the philosophy of plato the death of this singularly unfortunate unknown. The date of his burial at St. Paul was March 3rd, 1703, and not 1704. (Note.--According to a certificate reported by Saint-Foix, the date was November 20th, 1703.)
He was imprisoned first of all at Pignerol before being so on St. Margaret's Islands, the philosophy of plato and later in the Bastille; always under the same man's guard, Saint-Mars, who saw him die. Father Griffet, Jesuit, has communicated to the public the diary of the Bastille, which testifies to the the philosophy of plato dates. He had this diary without difficulty, for he held the delicate position of confessor of prisoners imprisoned in the Bastille.
The man in the iron mask is a riddle to which everyone wishes to guess the the philosophy of plato answer. Some say that he was the Due de Beaufort: but the Duc de Beaufort was killed by the Turks at the defence of Candia, in 1669; and the man in the iron mask was at Pignerol, in 1662. Besides, how would one have arrested the Duke de Beaufort the philosophy of plato surrounded by his army? How would one have transferred him to France without anybody knowing anything about it? And why slould he have been put in the philosophy of plato prison, and why this mask?
Others have considered the Comte de Vermandois, natural son of Louis XIV., who died publicly of the small-pox in 1683, with the army, and was buried in the philosophy of plato the town of Arras.
Later it was thought that the Duke of Monmouth, whose head King James II. had cut off publicly in London in 1685, was the man in the iron mask. It would have been necessary for him the philosophy of plato to be resuscitated, and then for him to change the order of the times, for him to put the year 1662 in place of 1685; for King James who never pardoned anyone, and who on that account deserved all his misfortunes, to have the philosophy of plato pardoned the Duke of Monmouth, and to have caused the death, in his place, of a man exactly like him. It would have been necessary to find this double the philosophy of plato who would have been so kind as to have his neck cut off in public in order to save the Duke of Monmouth. It would have been necessary for the whole of England to have been under a misapprehension; for James then to have the philosophy of plato sent his earnest entreaties to Louis XIV. to be so good as to serve as his constable and gaoler. Then Louis XIV. having done King James this little favour, would not have failed to have the same consideration for King William and for Queen Anne, with whom he was at war; and he would carefully have preserved in these two monarchs' consideration his dignity of gaoler, the philosophy of plato with which King James had honoured him.
All these illusions being dissipated, it remains to be learned who was this prisoner who was always masked, the age at which he died, and under what the philosophy of plato name he was buried. It is clear that if he was not allowed to pass into the courtyard of the Bastille, if he was not allowed to speak to his doctor, unless covered by a mask, it was for fear that in his features might be recognized some too striking the philosophy of plato resemblance. He might show his tongue, and never his face. As regards his age, he himself said to the Bastille apothecary, a few days before his death, that lie thought he was about sixty; and Master Marsolan, surgeon to the Marechal de Richelieu, and the philosophy of plato later to the Duc d'Orleans, regent, son-in-law of this apothecary, has repeated it to me more than once.
Finally, why give him an Italian name? he was always called Marchiali! He who writes this article knows more about it, maybe, than Father Griffet, and will not say more the philosophy of plato.
It is surprising to see so many scholars and so many intelligent and the philosophy of plato sagacious writers torment themselves with guessing who can have been the famous man in the iron mask, without the simplest, most natural, most probable idea ever presenting itself to them. Once the fact as M. de Voltaire the philosophy of plato reports it is admitted, with its circumstances; the existence of a prisoner of so singular a species, put in the rank of the best authenticated historical truths; it seems that not only is nothing easier than to the philosophy of plato imagine who this prisoner was, but that it is even difficult for there to be two opinions on the subject. The author of this article would have communicated his opinion earlier, if he had not believed that this idea must already have come to many others, and if he were not persuaded that the philosophy of plato it was not worth while giving as a discovery what, according to him, jumps to the eyes of all who read this anecdote.
However, as for some time past this event has divided men's minds, and as quite recently the public has again been given a letter in which it is claimed as proved that this celebrated prisoner was a the philosophy of plato secretary of the Duke of Mantua (which cannot be reconciled with the great marks of respect shown by M. de Saint-Mars to his prisoner), the author has thought it his duty to tell at last what has the philosophy of plato been his opinion for many years. Maybe this the philosophy of plato conjecture will put an end to all other researches, unless the secret be revealed by those who can be its guardians, in such a way as to remove all doubts the philosophy of plato.
He will not amuse himself with refuting those who have imagined that this prisoner could be the Comte de Vermandois, the Duc de Beaufort, or the Duke of Monmouth. The scholarly and very wise the philosophy of plato author of this last opinion has well refuted the others; but he had based his own opinion essentially merely on the impossibility of finding in Europe some other prince whose detention it would have been of the very highest the philosophy of plato importance should not be known. M. de SaintFoix is right, if he means to speak only of princes whose existence was known; but why has nobody yet thought of supposing that the iron mask might have been an unknown prince, brought up in secret, the philosophy of plato and whose existence it was important should remain unknown?
The Duke of Monmouth was not for France a the philosophy of plato prince of such great importance; and one does not see even what could have engaged this power, at least after the death of this duke and of James II., to make so great a secret of his detention, if indeed he was the iron mask. It is hardly probable either the philosophy of plato that M. de Louvois and M. de Saint-Mars would have shown the Duke of Monmouth the profound respect which M. de Voltaire assures they showed the iron mask the philosophy of plato.
The author conjectures, from the way that M. de Voltaire has told the facts, that this celebrated historian is as persuaded as he is of the suspicion which he is going, the philosophy of plato he says, to bring to light; but that M. de Voltaire, as a Frenchman, did not wish, he adds, to publish point-blank, particularly as he had said enough for the answer to the riddle not to be difficult to guess. Here it is, he the philosophy of plato continues, as I see it.
"The iron mask was undoubtedly a brother and an elder brother of Louis XIV., whose mother had that taste for fine linen on which M. de Voltaire lays stress. It was in reading the philosophy of plato the Memoirs of that time, which report this anecdote about the queen, that, recalling this same taste in the iron mask, I doubted no longer that he was her son: a fact of which all the other circumstances had persuaded me already the philosophy of plato.
"It is known that Louis XIII. had not lived with the queen for a long time; that the birth of Louis XIV. was due only to a happy chance skilfully induced; a chance which absolutely obliged the king to sleep in the philosophy of plato the same bed with the queen. This is how I think the thing came to pass.
"The queen may have thought that it was her fault the philosophy of plato that no heir was born to Louis XIII. The birth of the iron mask will have undeceived her. The cardinal to whom she will have confided the fact will have known, for more than one reason, how to turn the secret to account; he will have thought of making the philosophy of plato use of this event for his own benefit and for the benefit of the state. Persuaded by this example that the queen could give the king children, the plan which produced the chance of one bed for the king and the queen was the philosophy of plato arranged in consequence. But the queen and the cardinal, equally impressed with the necessity of hiding from Louis XIII. the iron mask's existence, will have had him brought up in secret. This secret will have been a secret for Louis XIV. until Cardinal Mazarin's death.
"But this monarch learning then that he had a brother, and an elder brother whom his mother could not disacknowledge, who further bore maybe the marked features which betrayed his origin, reflecting that this the philosophy of plato child born during marriage could not, without great inconvenience and a horrible scandal, be declared illegitimate after Louis XIII.'s death, Louis XIV. will have judged that he could not the philosophy of plato use a wiser or juster means than the one he employed in order to assure his own tranquillity and the peace of the state; means which relieved him of committing a cruelty which policy would have represented as necessary to a monarch less conscientious the philosophy of plato and less magnanimous than Louis XIV.
"It seems to me, our author continues, that the more one knows the philosophy of plato of the history of those times, the more one must be struck by these assembled the philosophy of plato circumstances which are in favour of such a supposition the philosophy of plato."