It seems altogether improbable, however, that Cyrano himself left the work thus incomplete, as Lebret would imply. And in fact we can supply from a Manuscript recently acquired (1890) by the _Bibliothèque Nationale_, a long passage not printed by Lebret (see pp. 60 ff.*). There can be little doubt that the passages were deliberately _cut out_ by some one on account of their "heretical" character. It even seems probable, from passages at the beginning of the _Voyage to the Sun_, that when the work was circulated in Manuscript, Cyrano had been the object of persecution on account of them. (*search: start p. 60: "the Earth, I threw out my Bowl...") The passages lacking were cut out then but by whom? The usually accepted opinion is that of our English translator, who says the gaps are "occasioned, not by the Negligence of our Witty French Author, but by the accursed Plagiary of some rude Hand, that in his sickness rifted his Trunks and stole his Papers, as he himself complains." M. Brun has suggested, however, and with some plausibility, that Lebret himself was responsible for the omissions; and that he thus continued, after Cyrano's death, his lifelong attempts at reforming and toning down the impolitic, unorthodox notions of his too-independent friend. So Cyrano was conquered once more in his battle with "les Compromis, les Préjugés, les Lâchètes," and finally "la Sottise": "Je sais bien qu' à la fin vous me mettrez à bas; N'importe! je me bats, je me bats, je me bats!" We are proud of printing for the first time in any edition of the _Voyage to the Moon_, at least a part of what had been cut out; and of being able to indicate for the first time what must have been the substance of the other lost passages, and what is the sense of the fragments preserved. [2] The Apple of the Tree of Life. [3] The translation is not fully adequate here; the French means: "... was fully satisfied, and left me in its place only a slight memory of having lost it." [4] This beautiful Nature-description, the like of which cannot be found in all seventeenth-century French literature outside of Cyrano's works, was apparently his favorite passage, since it is the only one he has used twice. _Cf_. his _Lettre XI_., "D'une maison de campagne." [5] In the literal sense, _full of delight_, delighted. CHAPTER VI. _Of a Youth whom he met there, and of their Conversation: what that country was, and the Inhabitants of it._