Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One VolumeVoltaire
Philosophy
Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume
Voltaire
French fiction -- Translations into English
Amazan collared the high Inquisitor upon his tribunal, and threw him
upon the pile, which was prepared about forty paces distant; and he also
cast upon it the other Inquisitors, one after the other. He then
prostrated himself at Formosanta's feet. "Ah! how amiable you are," said
she; "and how I should adore you, if you had not forsaken me for the
company of an opera singer."
Whilst Amazan was making his peace with the princess, whilst his
Gangarids cast upon the pile the bodies of all the _Anthropokaies_, and
the flames ascended to the clouds, Amazan saw an army that approached
him at a distance. An aged monarch, with a crown upon his head, advanced
upon a car drawn by eight mules harnessed with ropes. An hundred other
cars followed. They were accompanied by grave looking men in black
cloaks or frize, mounted upon very fine horses. A multitude of people,
with greasy hair, followed silently on foot.
Amazan immediately drew up his Gangarids about him, and advanced with
his lance couched. As soon as the king perceived him, he took off his
crown, alighted from his car, and embraced Amazan's stirrup, saying to
him: "Man sent by the gods, you are the avenger of human kind, the
deliverer of my country. These sacred monsters, of which you have
purged the earth, were my masters, in the name of the Old Man of the
Seven Mountains. I was forced to submit to their criminal power. My
people would have deserted me, if I had only been inclined to moderate
their abominable crimes. From this moment I breathe, I reign, and am
indebted to you for it."
He afterward respectfully kissed Formosanta's hand, and entreated her to
get into his coach (drawn by eight mules) with Amazan, Irla, and the
phœnix.
The two Palestine bankers, who still remained prostrate on the ground
through fear and terror, now raised their heads. The troop of unicorns
followed the king of Betica into his palace.
As the dignity of a king who reigned over a people of characteristic
brevity, required that his mules should go at a very slow pace, Amazan
and Formosanta had time to relate to him their adventures. He also
conversed with the phœnix, admiring and frequently embracing him. He
easily comprehended how brutal and barbarous the people of the west
should be considered, who ate animals, and did not understand their
language; that the Gangarids alone had preserved the nature and dignity
of primitive man; but he particularly agreed, that the most barbarous of
mortals were the _Anthropokaies_, of whom Amazan had just purged the
earth. He incessantly blessed and thanked him. The beautiful Formosanta
had already forgotten the affair in Gaul, and had her soul filled with
nothing but the valor of the hero who had preserved her life. Amazan
being made acquainted with the innocence of the embrace she had given to
the king of Egypt, and being told of the resurrection of the phœnix,
tasted the purest joy, and was intoxicated with the most violent love.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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