Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/200

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS to you to suspend from the vault of the French Pantheon a model of the Vengeur, and to inscribe upon a pillar of the Pantheon the names of the brave Republicans who made up the crew of the ship, and the courageous act they have done?

It is by such honors that the memory of great men is perpetuated, and the seeds of greatness and virtue cast upon the soil of the Republic. Thus will the Pantheon, by a single decree of the National Convention, be changed into a terrible workshop, where, at the voice of the Republic, ships and sailors will come into being.

But it is not enough to create heroes by the influence of national rewards; we must also give back to the French navy the ship that the sea has swallowed up. No, the memory of the Vengeur shall not perish from among us, and this glorious name shall be given by your orders to the three-decker now building at Brest.

But are there not still more durable monuments to glory? Time, which tears down mountains and destroys the works of man, will not always respect those which the Republic erects, and in this world to ruins will succeed new ruins. Have we not other means of immortalizing the deeds we admire? Do not the acts of the celebrated men of antiquity, to whom were erected temples which are no more, still live in pictures and in writings? It is for the poets, sculptors and painters to depict the episode of the Vengeur; it is for their solacing verses, it is