Les ruines, ou méditation sur les révolutions des empires

of a thousand thoughts. How many useful
lessons, how many touching
or strong reflections do you
not offer to the mind that knows how to consult you!
It is you who, when the
entire enslaved earth kept silent before
tyrants, already proclaimed the
truths that they detest, and who,
confounding the remains of kings
with those of the last slave, wit-
nessed the holy dogma of EQUALITY.
It is within your enclosure, that as a
solitary lover of LIBERTY, I have
seen her shadow emerge from the tombs, and, by an unhoped-for favor,

take its flight, and lead my
steps back toward my revived Homeland.

O tombs! what virtues you pos-
sess! You terrify
tyrants; you poison
with a secret terror their impious enjoy-
ments; they flee your
incorruptible aspect, and cowards
carry far from you the pride of
their palaces. You punish the op-
pressor; you snatch
gold from the greedy extortioner, and
you avenge the weak whom he has de-
spoiled; you compensate the pri-
vations of the poor, by withering