On the day
following that, Madame Elizabeth, that Princess whom the executioners
could not guillotine, till they had turned aside their eyes from the
sight of her angelic visage, stained the same axe with her blood!--And
a month after, Robespierre, who wished to restore order for his own
purposes--who wished to still the bloody waves which for years had
inundated the state, felt that all his efforts would be in vain if
the masses who supported his power were not restrained and directed,
because without order nothing but ravages and destruction can prevail.
To ensure the government of the masses, it was indispensable that
morality, religion, and belief should be established--and, to affect
the multitude, that religion should be clothed in external forms. "My
friend," said Voltaire, to the atheist Damilaville, "after you have
supped on well-dressed partridges, drunk your sparkling champaigne,
and slept on cushions of down in the arms of your mistress, I have
no fear of you, though you do not believe in God.---But if you are
perishing of hunger, and I meet you in the corner of a wood, I would
rather dispense with your company.
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