Of this feature in him, the two following extracts are sufficient proof. They were written, the first at the close of his seventy-second, the other at the entry of his seventy-third year. In each, something close to his heart was at issue, and in each he gives some vent--far more than had been his wont--to passion. The first is a cry to Louis XIII to have done with the Huguenot. It was written to the camp before La Rochelle. I know of nothing in French literature which more expresses the intense current of national feeling against the nobility and rich townsmen who had attempted to warp the national tradition and who had re-introduced into French life the element which France works perpetually to throw out as un-European, ill-cultured and evil. Indeed, the reading of it is of more value to the comprehension of the national attitude than any set history you may read. The second is in its way a thing equally religious and equally catholic. This call for vengeance to God was not only an expression of anger called forth by his son's death, it was also, and very largely, the effect of a reaction against the ethics of Geneva: an attack on the idolatry at once of meekness and of fatality which was to him so intolerable a corruption of the Christian religion. There is some doubt as to whether it is his last work. I believe it to be so; but Blaise, in his excellent edition, prints the dull and unreadable ode to Lagade later, and ascribes it to the same year. _ODE TO LOUIS XIII._ _Fais choir en sacrifice au demon de la France Les fronts trop eleves de ces ames d'enfer; Et n'epargne contre eux, pour notre delivrance, Ni le feu ni le fer. Assez de leurs complots l'infidele malice A nourri le desordre et la sedition: Quitte le nom de Juste, ou fais voir ta justice En leur punition. Le centieme decembre a les plaines ternies, Et le centieme avril les a peintes de fleurs, Depuis que parmi nous leurs brutales manies Ne causent que des pleurs. Dans toutes les fureurs des siecles de tes peres, Les monstres les plus noirs firent-ils jamais rien Que l'inhumanite de ces coeurs de viperes Ne renouvelle au tien? Par qui sont aujourd'hui tant de villes desertes, Tant de grands batiments en masures changes, Et de tant de chardons les campagnes couvertes, Que par ces enrages? Marche, va les detruire, eteins-en la semence, Et suis jusqu'a leur fin ton courroux genereux, Sans jamais ecouter ni pitie ni clemence Qui te parle pour eux. Toutes les autres morts n'ont merite ni marque; Celle-ci porte seule un eclat radieux, Qui fait revivre l'homme, et le met de la barque A la table des dieux._ _SONNET ON HIS SON'S DEATH._