FROM SIRIUS' POINT OF VIEW
The Torment of the Dead

What is most painful in these stories of glorifications and apotheoses in which the most diverse and opposed men take part is, precisely, to see with what enthusiasm and fervor the most resolute adversaries of the living sing the praises of the dead.

The Grim Reaper, certainly, puts many things into perspective! She knows how to vary points of view. Thus, in certain families, the hated mother-in-law, devoted to all the demons of Hell, assumes, as soon as she is dead, buried, sprinkled with holy water, thrown as food to the vermin, the most eminent qualities. The son-in-law who dreamed of strangling her or pushing her under the wheels of the bus, floods his handkerchief while recalling his immense goodness, the treasures of his heart, the infinite resources of his inexhaustible generosity. That's how things are. But this kind of consolation is a little ineffective, because it comes late. And the dead, the poor dead, do not even have the ability to protest.

When Jesus, definitively disgusted with the men he claimed to save, decided to go back up and place himself at the right hand of his good man of a father, there was a concert of lamentations. All those who had pursued him, chased him away, insulted him, condemned him, threw themselves on their knees to adore him. The "scoundrel of the guardhouse and the kitchens", as Baudelaire said, the judges and the merchants of the Temple began to sing his los. Whoever had reviled and vilified him became his most zealous champion. But, at the same time, the men who, during his lifetime, had constituted themselves his apostles, found themselves persecuted in turn. They paid with their lives for their fidelity to the doctrines of the divine Master.

This story is repeated throughout the centuries. Men who claim to be followers of past Revolutions fulminate against men who speak of a Revolution to come. It seems that the best way to pay homage to those who have been flouted during their existence consists of using reprisals against the family and true friends of the deceased.

Suppose that a new Zola arises, to preach the cause of Justice, against the forces of iniquity and obscurantism. You will immediately see the same people who howled at the dead on the heels of the great writer. But they will use Zoia to knock out her imitator. And when the latter, gone in turn, will have won the right to be in the admiration of men, she will be used to silence the audacious ones who were ill-inspired enough to take his example as their authority. There was already Prudhomme's sabre which was used to fight institutions and defend them. There are also great men, unfortunate great men who serve to defend noble causes and fight their apostles.

How many were there, in the Pantheon, devious politicians, whose thinking was always at the antipodes of Jaurès' thinking and whom the tribune constantly encountered on his way, ready to insult him? They came to his coffin, to lay their regrets. They went there with their tears. This sleight of hand is formidable.

Papa, my little girl said to me one day, is it true that Joan of Arc is a saint of the church and that the priests worship her?
No doubt.
Papa, is it true that Joan of Arc was condemned and burned by the priests? But yes! my child!
So, concluded my little girl, I don't understand anymore.
It's easy though. Or rather, no, it's quite difficult. But, if you like, we'll go and ask, on this subject, the enlightenment of Mr. de Selves, who was at the Pantheon, the other day, in front of Jaurès' coffin, surrounded by red flags.

Victor MERIC.