"Surely, gentlemen, that would be treating ourselves with a very strange contempt! Speaking for myself, I cannot thus belittle myself, nor reduce myself to the condition of childhood at the age of strength and reason. I cannot confine myself within the narrow circle which they would trace around the writer. For instance, gentlemen, if I wished to pass a eulogy on the man of letters, on the man of the Court who presides over this meeting[41], do you believe that I would content myself with praising in him the light and ingenious French wit which he received from his mother[42], and of which he displays to us the last model? No, assuredly: I should wish to make glow once more in all its brilliancy the noble name which he bears. I should mention the Duc de Boufflers[43] who forced the Austrians to raise the blockade of Genoa. I should speak of the marshal, his father[44], of the governor who held the ramparts of Lille against the enemies of France, and who, by that memorable defense, consoled a great king's unhappy old age. It was of that companion of Turenne that Madame de Maintenon said: "'In him the heart was the last to die.' [Sidenote: My speech continued.] "Lastly, I should go back to that Louis de Boufflers[45], called the Robust, who displayed in combat the vigour and valour of Hercules. Thus, at the two extremities of this family, I should find force and grace, the knight and the troubadour. They say that the French are sons of Hector: I would rather believe that they descend from Achilles, for like that hero they wield both the lyre and the sword. "If I wished, gentlemen, to talk to you of the celebrated poet[46] who sang the charms of nature in such brilliant tones, do you think that I would confine myself to pointing out to you the admirable flexibility of a talent which succeeded in rendering with equal distinction the regular beauties of Virgil and the less correct beauties of Milton? No: I would also show you the poet refusing to part from his unfortunate countrymen, accompanying them with his lyre to foreign shores, singing their sorrows to console them; an illustrious exile among that crowd of banished men whose number I increased. It is true that his age and his infirmities, his talents and his glory had not protected him against persecution in his own country. Men tried to make him purchase peace with verses unworthy of his muse, and his muse could sing only the redoubtable immortality of crime and the reassuring immortality of virtue: "Rassurez-vous, vous êtes immortels[47]!