585 
P L A 
be a better prefervative, and would baulk no paffion or 
appetite they wiflied to gratify, drinking and revelling 
inceflantly from tavern to tavern, or in private lioufes, 
which were frequently found deferted by the owners, and 
therefore common to every one ; yet avoiding, with all 
this irregularity, to come near the infected. And fuch 
at that time was the public diftrefs, that the laws human 
and divine were no longer regarded ; for, the officers to 
put them in force being either dead, tick, or in want -of 
perfons to affift them, every one did juft as he pleafed.” 
Again, he fays, “I pafs over the little regard that'citi¬ 
zens or relations (bowed to each other; for their terror 
was fuch, that a brother even fled from his brother, a wife 
from her luifband, and, what is more uncommon, a pa¬ 
rent from its own child.” From the defertion of friends, 
and the fcarcity of fervants, who required enormous 
wages, multitudes died who might have been faved ; and 
from mere neceflity, he obferves, many cuftoms.were in¬ 
troduced, different from what had been before known in 
the city. And he adds, “'it fared no better with the ad¬ 
jacent country ; for, to omit the different caftles about us, 
which prefented the fame view, in miniature, with the 
city, you might fee the poor diftrefled labourers, with their 
families, without either the interference of phyficians or 
help of fervants, languiftiing on the highways, in the 
Helds, and in their own houfes, and dying rather like 
cattle than human creatures; and growing diffolute 
in their manners like the citizens; and carelefs of every 
thing, as fuppofing every day to be their laft, their 
thoughts were not fo much employed how to improve, 
as to make ufe of their fubftance for their fupport, &c.” 
But, while the dread of contagion and death have thus 
contributed to annihilate the belt feelings of human na¬ 
ture, and to cut afunderall the moral ties cf Society. du¬ 
ring the prevalence of peftilence ; other paffions of a fel- 
fifli kind were alfo called into action, which overcame this 
fear, and a£tually led the people to rufli into the prefence 
of contagion, and thus to multiply the victims to its fa¬ 
tal malignity. Avarice was one of thefe mifleading pro- 
penfities. M. Bertrand, when describing the effects of 
the plague at Marfeilles in 1720, remarks that “ the avi¬ 
dity to take pofleflion of an unexpe&ed inheritance was 
alfo to many the fatal caufe of their own deftru6tion. 
Called to the entire fucceflion of the wealth of a whole 
family, to whom perhaps they were very diftantly related, 
and impatient to know the extent of their new acquiii- 
tions, they entered, without precaution, into infedled 
houfes, and, fearching indiscriminately among the effects 
of the deceafed, they often found what they fought not, 
and paid with their lives the forfeit of their cupidity. 
Their fatal heritage then devolved to relations yet more 
remote, fortunate if they could profit hy fuch an example, 
and not fall equally martyrs to indecent and unreafonable 
tranfports. It was not, however, always the legitimate 
heirs on whom the punifhment of their avidity fell ; it 
was often thofe who found in the effects they Jiole the juft 
forfeit of their crime. In vain had the commandant ab¬ 
solutely prohibited the removal of any clothes or effects 
from one houfe to another; a blind and headltrong rapa¬ 
city defpifed alike thefe wife ordonnances and the perils 
of the contagion.” See Bertrand's Hiftorical Relation of 
the Plague at Marfeilles. 
Avarice, however, was not the only paffion which was 
excited in this extraordinary degree, and contributed to 
extend the infedtion. “ Another abufe of a very Angular 
nature,” fays M. Bertrand, “occaiioned more than all 
this partial renewal of the malady. Will it be believed ? 
Scarcely had the contagion begun Somewhat to diminifti 
in its ravages, when the people, impatient to repair the 
mortality it had occafioned, thought of nothing but re¬ 
peopling the city by new marriages; like mariners who 
have been in imminent peril of (hipwreck, but are no 
fooner arrived in port, than, forgetting the danger they 
have efcaped, they feek, in new pieafures, to drown the 
recolledtion of paft troubles. Our temples, long (hut up, 
Voi. XX. No. 1393. 
G U E. 
were now only opened for the adminiftration of this Sa¬ 
crament. A Species of frenzy feemed to have Seized on 
both fexes, which led them to conclude an affair of all 
others the nioft important in the world, in the fpace of 
twenty-four hours, and to confummate it almoft at the 
fame inftant. Widows, whofe cheeks were yet moift 
with the tears they had filed over a dead hulband, con- 
foled themfelves in the arms of a living one, who perhaps 
was in like manner Snatched from them a few days after, 
and in a few days more they were wedded to a third.” 
Some of the phyficians imagined that this frantic paffion 
was a confequence of the malady; but M. Bertrand ex¬ 
plains it more plaufibly upon the great change of circum- 
ftances which many had undergone; he might alfo have 
added, the extreme uncertainty of the tenure of life, and 
the confequent determination to make the moft of its 
pieafures, which has been noticed above. The numerous 
marriages, however, thus haftily concluded, were the oc- 
cafion of fpreading afrefti the fatal infection ; fo that the 
biftiop determined that no marriage fiiould be licenfed, 
unlefs the parties demanding it could produce certificates 
of health from the phyficians; and, as the ficknefs 
abated, it became their principal occupation to receive 
the difagreeable vifits of thofe who were frantic to rufh 
into the bonds of marriage. 
Even thefe were not the only moral evils attending the 
peftilence; for every Species of crime aggravated the Suf¬ 
ferings of the unfortunate city. “If the people had 
fiiown no other Signs of having forgotten their paft mis¬ 
fortunes, than the joy which thefe new marriages occa¬ 
sioned, there would have been no reafon,” fays M. Ber¬ 
trand, “ to fear that a ceremony, honoured by the firft 
miracle of our Saviour, authorised by the laws, and ne- 
ceffary to fociety, would irritate the Lord anew againft 
us, provided all was conduced in conformity with Chris¬ 
tian decency and rectitude. But what was likely to 
draw down upon us much greater judgments from his 
anger, were the thefts, the plunderings, and an infinity 
of other crimes, the horrors of which we dare not here 
retrace. For thefe their perpetrators promifed themfelves 
impunity on the part of men from the troubles of the 
contagion, and absolution on the part of heaven by the 
favour it had drown them, either in their having efcaped 
the difeafe entirely, or recovered from it when it proved 
mortal to fo many thoufands of their fellow-citizens. 
While the arm of the Lord was yet extended over us, a 
general licence was Seen to reign among the people, a de¬ 
pravity of morals frightful to think on. Some Seized on 
houfes left vacant by the mortality ; others forced open 
thofe that were (hut up, or guarded by perfons incapable 
of refiftance. They entered thofe where, perhaps, there 
remained only one perfon languilhing with the malady, 
forced open the clofets and drawers, and took away what¬ 
ever they found moft precious, often carrying their infa¬ 
my to the length of delivering themfelves from an impor¬ 
tunate witnefs, who had otherwise but a few moments to 
live. Thefe enormous crimes, much more frequent in 
the height of the malady than in its decline, were gene¬ 
rally committed either by thofe who Served the fick, who 
carried away the dead, or who attended at the hofpitals. 
By the declarations which thefe people, from their Situa¬ 
tions, were able to wring from the dying, they w'ere in¬ 
formed of the (late of their houfes; nay, it often hap¬ 
pened, that by the fame means they got pofleflion of their 
keys. This licence was yet greater in the country, where 
the diftance of the baftilles from each other, and the op¬ 
portunity of going to them in the night, favoured thefe 
criminal expeditions.” 
Thefe extracts prefent a picture of the moral evils 
which, in conjundtion with the phyfical diftreffes attend¬ 
ant upon fo Severe and fatal a malady, render a leafon of 
peftilence the moft formidable calamity that vifits man¬ 
kind. If the reader is deiirous of a more ample detail of 
its horrors, he may perufe the whole of M. Bertrand’s vo¬ 
lume; the introduction of Boccaccio, before quoted; the 
7 K Traite 
