Moon -- Fiction; Science fiction, French -- Translations into English; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction
[3] The Manuscript of the _Bibliothèque Nationale_ ends differently:
"I enquired at the port when a ship would leave for France. And when I
was embarked, my mind ran upon nothing but the Wonders of my Voyage.
I admired a thousand times the Providence of God who had set apart
these naturally Infidel men in a place by themselves where they could
not corrupt his Beloved; and had punished them for their pride by
abandoning them to their own self-sufficiency. Likewise I doubt not
that he has put off till now the sending of any to preach the Gospel to
them, for the very reason that he knew they would receive it ill; and
so, hardening their hearts, it would serve but to make them deserve the
harsher punishment in the world to come."
This is very likely the original ending of the work as it was
circulated in Manuscript between 1649 and 1655. In any case, the
particular thrust-and-parry used here is a favorite stroke with the
"libertins" of the epoch in their duels against "Les Préjugés." "These
are not my opinions and arguments," they say; "Heaven forbid!... They
only express the ideas of my characters which of course I abhor." At
the same time the arguments have been stated, which was the object in
view. Cyrano has several times used this method already, notably at the
end of Chapter xvi.
The ending in the text above, that of all the editions, may have been
substituted by Cyrano himself during his last illness.
FINIS.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Voyage to the Moon, by Cyrano de Bergerac
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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