Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/90

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS worthy of his birth and of their services, he loaded them with gifts, and honored them still more with mementos of his regard.

What was then taking place in that soul? What new light dawned upon him? What sudden ray pierced the cloud, and instantly dissipated, not only all the darkness of sense, but the very shadows, and, if I dare to say it, the sacred obscurities of faith? What then became of those splendid titles by which our pride is flattered? On the very verge of glory, and in the dawning of a light so beautiful, how rapidly vanish the phantoms of the world! How dim appears the splendor of the most glorious victory! How profoundly we despise the glory of the world, and how deeply regret that our eyes were ever dazzled by its radiance! Come, ye people, come now—or, rather, ye princes and lords, ye judges of the earth, and ye who open to man the portals of heaven; and more than all others, ye princes and princesses, nobles descended from a long line of kings, lights of France, but to-day in gloom, and covered with your grief as with a cloud—come and see how little remains of a birth so august, a grandeur so high, a glory so dazzling! Look around on all sides, and see all that magnificence and devotion can do to honor so great a hero: titles and inscriptions, vain signs of that which is no more; shadows which weep around a tomb, fragile images of a grief which time sweeps away with everything else; columns which appear as if they would bear to