By far the greater part of "all the glories" of France (as of most other
countries) is made up of these military men: and a fine satire it is on
the cowardice of mankind, that they pay such an extraordinary homage to
the virtue called courage; filling their history-books with tales about
it, and nothing but it.
Let them disguise the place, however, as they will, and plaster the walls
with bad pictures as they please, it will be hard to think of any family
but one, as one traverses this vast gloomy edifice. It has been humbled to
the ground, as a certain palace of Babel was of yore; but it is a monument
of fallen pride, not less awful, and would afford matter for a whole
library of sermons.
The cheap defense of nations expended a thousand millions in the erection
of this magnificent dwelling-place. Armies were employed, in the intervals
of their warlike labors, to level hills, or pile them up; to turn rivers,
and to build aqueducts, and transplant woods, and construct smooth
terraces, and long canals. A vast garden grew up in a wilderness, and a
stupendous palace in the garden, and a stately city round the palace: the
city was peopled with parasites, who daily came to do worship before the
creator of these wonders--the Great King.
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