104 DISCOUESES OF FATHEIl HYACINTHE. 



pie go on decaying in this terri])le calm — and with them 

 its understanding perishes also. I have sometimes com- 

 pared the sophist and the harlot : I must never do it 

 again in this pulpit, if I have any regard for rhetoric. 

 But I don't care for rhetoric ; I am resolved to lay bare 

 the wounds which society so obstinately hides. Yes ; 

 while luxury is consuming a nation's vitals, while in 

 the midst of increasins:^ dissoluteness the harlots lift 

 their shameless heads on every side, like worms upon 

 the corpse on which they feed, there rises up another 

 brood of corruption and death, which attacks, not the 

 heart, but the brain — it is the sophists, corrupters at 

 once of the public reason and of the language which is 

 its organ. They make their attack in succession on 

 the greatest words of that language — liberty, progress, 

 civilization, morality, and even God ; and in these sa- 

 cred vessels of speech, in place of the perfume of the 

 truth, they leave a deadly poison. They make it their 

 business to pervert all just ideas and suj^plant them by 

 vague and unreal abstractions. Then, amid these i)han- 

 toms that they are chasing in the void, and embracing 

 in the sweet delusion of a dream, as Orpheus embraced 

 Eurydice at the gates of hell, these demented souls 

 keej) crying out, " Facts ! facts ! leave theories to the 

 old folks ! give us facts and realities !'' 



Facts, forsooth ! AYell, here they are Î The enemy at 

 our gates, our honor insulted, our independence men- 

 aced ! If nothing less than this will serve to save us 

 from the toils of those wlio would drag us down to 

 ruin, then God will grant us this, for he loves us and will 

 save us from ourselves. Facts ! Ilere are facts which 

 sober us from our intoxication with abstractions, and 

 bring back the sense of reality — war! victory or death ! 

 Tlie flag of France torn with shot, stained with blood, 



