[16] _Duverger de Haurane_, abbot of St. Cyran, regarded as the founder of Port Royal, wrote, in the year 1608, a treatise on suicide, which has, says Voltaire, become one of the scarcest books in Europe. He says the decalogue forbids us to kill. In this precept, self-murder seems no less to be comprised than murder of our neighbour. But if there are cases in which it is allowable to kill our neighbour, there likewise are cases in which it is allowable to kill ourselves. We must not make an attempt upon our lives until we have consulted reason. The public authority, which holds the place of God, may dispose of our lives. The reason of man may likewise hold the place of the reason of God,—it is a ray of the eternal light. Voltaire, disposed as he was to advocate the right of committing suicide whenever a man considered death preferable to a dishonourable life, had sufficient sagacity to see through the glaring sophistry of St. Cyran’s reasoning on this point. The same author says, “A man may kill himself for the good of his prince, for that of his country, or for that of his relations.” [17] It is evident that the great dramatist considered that suicide was opposed to the divine will. “Against self-slaughter There is a prohibition so divine, That cravens my weak hand.” Again, he says— “Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ’gainst self-slaughter!” [18] Warder’s “Letters from the Northumberland.” [19] London Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. v. p. 51. [20] In a table given by Professor Caspar, of Berlin, one hundred and three cases of suicide are attributed to mental affections; thirty of these may be classed under this head, and thirty-two under that of fear and despondency combined. [21] The massacre of St. Bartholomew lasted seven days, during which more than 5000 persons were slain in Paris, and from 40 to 50,000 in the country. During the execution, the king betrayed neither pity nor remorse, but fired with his long gun at the poor fugitives across the river; and on viewing the body of Coligni on a gibbet, he exulted with a fiendish malignity. In early life, this monster had been noted for his cruelty: nothing gave him greater pleasure than cutting off the heads of asses or pigs with a single blow from his _couteau de chasse_. After the massacre, he is said to have contracted a singularly wild expression of feature, and to have slept little and waked in agonies. He attributed his thirst for human blood to the circumstance of his mother having at an early period of his life familiarized his mind with the brutal sport of hunting bullocks, and with all kinds of cruelty. It is recorded that, when dying, he actually sweated blood. [22] Hist. Eccles. edit. Duaci, 1622, pp. 643-4. [23] Meaning the Duke of Gloucester. [24] King Henry, Act 3. [25] Dr. Johnson’s Rasselas. [26] Goëthe, in allusion to one of his own early attachments.