An ass cried _hihanus_, to signify _eamus_; a long
procession, preceded by four fools with baubles and rattles, closed the
performance. There remain to-day traces of these popular devotions,
which among more educated peoples would be taken for profanations. A
bad-tempered Swiss, more drunk maybe than those who played the roles of
ox and ass, came to words with them in Louvain; blows were given; the
people wanted to hang the Swiss, who escaped with difficulty.
The same man had a violent quarrel at the Hague in Holland for having
stoutly taken Barneveldt's part against an extravagant Gomarist. He was
put into prison in Amsterdam for having said that priests are the
scourge of humanity and the source of all our misfortunes. "What!" he
said. "If one believes that good works make for salvation, one finds
oneself in a dungeon; if one laughs at a cock and an ass, one risks
being hanged." This adventure, burlesque though it is, makes it quite
clear that one can be reprehensible on one or two points in our
hemisphere, and be absolutely innocent in the rest of the world.
_LOVE_
There are so many sorts of love that one does not know to whom to
address oneself for a definition of it. The name of "love" is given
boldly to a caprice lasting a few days, a sentiment without esteem,
gallants' affectations, a frigid habit, a romantic fantasy, relish
followed by prompt disrelish: people give this name to a thousand
chimeras.
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