The Ruins

C >> C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney >> The Ruins


The revolution of 1789, which had drawn upon France the menaces of
Catharine, had opened to Volney a political career. As deputy in the
assembly of the states-general, the first words he uttered there were
in favor of the publicity of their deliberations. He also supported
the organization of the national guards, and that of the communes and
departments.

At the period when the question of the sale of the domain lands was
agitated (in 1790), he published an essay in which he lays down the
following principles: "The force of a State is in proportion to
its population; population is in proportion to plenty; plenty is in
proportion to tillage; and tillage, to personal and immediate interest,
that is to the spirit of property. Whence it follows, that the nearer
the cultivator approaches the passive condition of a mercenary, the less
industry and activity are to be expected from him; and, on the other
hand, the nearer he is to the condition of a free and entire proprietor,
the more extension he gives to his own forces, to the produce of his
lands, and the general prosperity of the State."

The author draws this conclusion, that a State is so much the more
powerful as it includes a greater number of proprietors,--that is, a
greater division of property.

Conducted into Corsica by that spirit of observation which belongs only
to men whose information is varied and extensive, he perceived at the
first glance all that could be done for the improvement of agriculture
in that country: but he knew that, for a people firmly attached to
ancient customs, there can exist no other demonstration or means of
persuasion than example. He purchased a considerable estate, and made
experiments on those kinds of tillage that he hoped to naturalize
in that climate. The sugar-cane, cotton, indigo and coffee soon
demonstrated the success of his efforts. This success drew upon him the
notice of the government. He was appointed director of agriculture and
commerce in that island, where, through ignorance, all new methods are
introduced with such difficulty.

It is impossible to calculate all the good that might have resulted from
this peaceable magistracy; and we know that neither instruction, zeal,
nor a persevering courage was wanting to him who had undertaken it.
Of this he had given convincing proofs. It was in obedience to another
sentiment, no less respectable, that he voluntarily interrupted the
course of his labors. When his fellow citizens of Angers appointed him
their deputy in the constituent assembly, he resigned the employment he
held under government, upon the principle that no man can represent
the nation and be dependent for a salary upon those by whom it is
administered.

Through respect for the independence of his legislative functions,
he had ceased to occupy the place he possessed in Corsica before his
election, but he had not ceased to be a benefactor of that country. He
returned thither after the session of the constituent assembly. Invited
into that island by the principal inhabitants, who were anxious to put
into practice his lessons, he spent there a part of the years 1792 and
1793.

On his return he published a work entitled: An Account of the Present
State of Corsica. This was an act of courage; for it was not a physical
description, but a political review of the condition of a population
divided into several factions and distracted by violent animosities.
Volney unreservedly revealed the abuses, solicited the interest of
France in favor of the Corsicans, without flattering them, and boldly
denounced their defects and vices; so that the philosopher obtained the
only recompense he could expect from his sincerity--he was accused by
the Corsicans of heresy.

To prove that he had not merited this reproach, he published soon after
a short treatise entitled: The Law of Nature, or Physical Principles of
Morality.

He was soon exposed to a much more dangerous charge, and this, it must
be confessed, he did merit. This philosopher, this worthy citizen, who
in our first National assembly had seconded with his wishes and his
talents the establishment of an order of things which he considered
favorable to the happiness of his country, was accused of not being
sincerely attached to that liberty for which he had contended; that is
to say, of being averse to anarchy. An imprisonment of ten months, which
only ended after the 9th of Thermidor, was a new trial reserved for his
courage.

The moment at which he recovered his liberty, was when the horror
inspired by criminal excesses had recalled men to those noble sentiments
which fortunately are one of the first necessaries of civilized life.
They sought for consolations in study and literature after so many
misfortunes, and organized a plan of public instruction.

It was in the first place necessary to insure the aptitude of those to
whom education should be confided; but as the systems were various, the
best methods and a unity of doctrine were to be determined. It was not
enough to interrogate the masters, they were to be formed, new ones were
to be created, and for that purpose a school was opened in 1794, wherein
the celebrity of the professors promised new instruction even to the
best informed. This was not, as was objected, beginning the edifice at
the roof, but creating architects, who were to superintend all the arts
requisite for constructing the building.

The more difficult their functions were, the greater care was to be
taken in the choice of the professors; but France, though then accused
of being plunged in barbarism, possessed men of transcendent talents,
already enjoying the esteem of all Europe, and we may be bold to say,
that by their labors, our literary glory had likewise extended its
conquests. Their names were proclaimed by the public voice, and Volney's
was associated with those of the men most illustrious in science and in
literature.*

* Lagrange, Laplace, Berthollet, Garat, Bernardin de Saint-
Pierre, Daubenton, Hauy, Volney, Sicard, Monge, Thouin, La
Harpe, Buache Mentelle.

This institution, however, did not answer the expectations that had been
formed of it, because the two thousand students that assembled from all
parts of France were not equally prepared to receive these transcendent
lessons, and because it had not been sufficiently ascertained how far
the theory of education should be kept distinct from education itself.

Volney's Lectures on History, which were attended by an immense
concourse of auditors, became one of his chief claims to literary glory.
When forced to interrupt them, by the suppression of the Normal school,
he might have reasonably expected to enjoy in his retirement that
consideration which his recent functions had added to his name. But,
disgusted with the scenes he had witnessed in his native land, he felt
that passion revive within him which, in his youth, had led him to visit
Africa and Asia. America, civilized within a century, and free only
within a few years, fixed his attention. There every thing was new,--the
inhabitants, the constitution, the earth itself. These were objects
worthy of his observation. When embarking for this voyage, however, he
felt emotions very different from those which formerly accompanied him
into Turkey. Then in the prime of life, he joyfully bid adieu to a
land where peace and plenty reigned, to travel amongst barbarians;
now, mature in years, but dismayed at the spectacle and experience of
injustice and persecution, it was with diffidence, as we learn from
himself, that he went to implore from a free people an asylum for a
sincere friend of that liberty that had been so profaned.

Our traveller had gone to seek for repose beyond the seas. He there
found himself exposed to aggression from a celebrated philosopher, Dr.
Priestley. Although the subject of this discussion was confined to the
investigation of some speculative opinions, published by the French
writer in his work entitled The Ruins, the naturalist in this attack
employed a degree of violence which added nothing to the force of his
arguments, and an acrimony of expression not to be expected from a
philosopher. M. Volney, though accused of Hottentotism and ignorance,
preserved in his defence, all the advantages that the scurrility of
his adversary gave over him. He replied in English, and Priestley's
countrymen could only recognize the Frenchman in the refinement and
politeness of his answer.

Whilst M. Volney was travelling in America, there had been formed in
France a literary body which, under the name of Institute, had attained
in a very few years a distinguished rank amongst the learned societies
of Europe. The name of the illustrious traveller was inscribed in it
at its formation, and he acquired new rights to the academical
honors conferred on him during his absence, by the publication of his
observations On the Climate and Soil of the United States.

These rights were further augmented by the historical and physiological
labors of the Academician. An examination and justification of The
Chronology of Herodotus, with numerous and profound researches on The
History of the most Ancient Nations, occupied for a long time him who
had observed their monuments and traces in the countries they inhabited.
The trial he had made of the utility of the Oriental languages inspired
him with an ardent desire to propagate the knowledge of them; and to be
propagated, he felt how necessary it was to render it less difficult.
In this view he conceived the project of applying to the study of the
idioms of Asia, a part of the grammatical notions we possess concerning
the languages of Europe. It only appertains to those conversant with
their relations of dissimilitude or conformity to appreciate the
possibility of realizing this system. The author has, however, already
received the most flattering encouragement and the most unequivocal
appreciation, by the inscription of his name amongst the members of
the learned and illustrious society founded by English commerce in the
Indian peninsula.

M. Volney developed his system in three works,* which prove that this
idea of uniting nations separated by immense distances and such various
idioms, had never ceased to occupy him for twenty-five years. Lest those
essays, of the utility of which he was persuaded, should be interrupted
by his death, with the clay-cold hand that corrected his last work, he
drew up a will which institutes a premium for the prosecution of his
labors. Thus he prolonged, beyond the term of a life entirely devoted to
letters, the glorious services he had rendered to them.

* On the Simplification of Oriental Languages, 1795. The
European Alphabet Applied to the Languages of Asia, 1819.
Hebrew Simplified, 1820.

This is not the place, nor does it belong to me to appreciate the merit
of the writings which render Volney's name illustrious. His name had
been inscribed in the list of the Senate, and afterwards of the House
of Peers. The philosopher who had travelled in the four quarters of
the world, and observed their social state, had other titles to his
admission into this body, than his literary glory. His public life, his
conduct in the constituent assembly, his independent principles, the
nobleness of his sentiments, the wisdom and fixity of his opinions, had
gained him the esteem of those who can be depended upon, and with whom
it is so agreeable to discuss political interests.

Although no man had a better right to have an opinion, no one was more
tolerant for the opinions of others. In State assemblies as well as
in Academical meetings, the man whose counsels were so wise, voted
according to his conscience, which nothing could bias; but the
philosopher forgot his superiority to hear, to oppose with moderation,
and sometimes to doubt. The extent and variety of his information,
the force of his reason, the austerity of his manners, and the noble
simplicity of his character, had procured him illustrious friends in
both hemispheres; and now that this erudition is extinct in the tomb,*
we may be allowed at least to predict that he was one of the very few
whose memory shall never die.

* He died in Paris on the 20th of April, 1820.


A list of the Works Published by Count Volney.


TRAVELS IN EGYPT AND SYRIA during the years 1783, 1784, and 1785: 2
vols. 8vo.--1787.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE TWELVE CENTURIES that preceded the entrance of Xerxes
into Greece.

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE TURKISH WAR, in 1788.

THE RUINS, or Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires--1791.

ACCOUNT OF THE PRESENT STATE OF CORSICA--1793.

THE LAW OF NATURE, or Physical Principles of Morality--1793.

ON THE SIMPLIFICATION OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES--1795.

A LETTER TO DR. PRIESTLEY--1797.

LECTURES ON HISTORY, delivered at the Normal School in the year 3--1800.

ON THE CLIMATE AND SOIL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, to which is
added an account of Florida, of the French colony of Scioto, of some
Canadian Colonies, and of the Savages--1803.

REPORT MADE TO THE CELTIC ACADEMY ON THE RUSSIAN WORK OF PROFESSOR
PALLAS, entitled "A Comparative Vocabulary of all the Languages in the
World."

THE CHRONOLOGY OF HERODOTUS conformable with his Text--1808 and 1809.

NEW RESEARCHES ON ANCIENT HISTORY, 3 vols. 8vo.--1814

THE EUROPEAN ALPHABET Applied to the Languages of Asia--1819.

A HISTORY OF SAMUEL--1819.

HEBREW SIMPLIFIED--1820.



INVOCATION.

Hail solitary ruins, holy sepulchres and silent walls! you I invoke; to
you I address my prayer. While your aspect averts, with secret terror,
the vulgar regard, it excites in my heart the charm of delicious
sentiments--sublime contemplations. What useful lessons, what affecting
and profound reflections you suggest to him who knows how to consult
you! When the whole earth, in chains and silence bowed the neck before
its tyrants, you had already proclaimed the truths which they abhor;
and confounding the dust of the king with that of the meanest slave,
had announced to man the sacred dogma of Equality. Within your pale, in
solitary adoration of Liberty, I saw her Genius arise from the mansions
of the dead; not such as she is painted by the impassioned multitude,
armed with fire and sword, but under the august aspect of Justice,
poising in her hand the sacred balance wherein are weighed the actions
of men at the gates of eternity!

O Tombs! what virtues are yours! You appal the tyrant's heart, and
poison with secret alarm his impious joys. He flies, with coward step,
your incorruptible aspect, and erects afar his throne of insolence.*
You punish the powerful oppressor; you wrest from avarice and extortion
their ill-gotten gold, and you avenge the feeble whom they have
despoiled; you compensate the miseries of the poor by the anxieties of
the rich; you console the wretched, by opening to him a last asylum from
distress; and you give to the soul that just equipoise of strength and
sensibility which constitutes wisdom--the true science of life. Aware
that all must return to you, the wise man loadeth not himself with the
burdens of grandeur and of useless wealth: he restrains his desires
within the limits of justice; yet, knowing that he must run his destined
course of life, he fills with employment all its hours, and enjoys the
comforts that fortune has allotted him. You thus impose on the impetuous
sallies of cupidity a salutary rein! you calm the feverish ardor
of enjoyments which disturb the senses; you free the soul from the
fatiguing conflict of the passions; elevate it above the paltry
interests which torment the crowd; and surveying, from your commanding
position, the expanse of ages and nations, the mind is only accessible
to the great affections--to the solid ideas of virtue and of glory.

* The cathedral of St. Denis is the tomb of the kings of
France; and it was because the towers of that edifice are
seen from the Castle of St. Germain, that Louis XIV. quitted
that admirable residence, and established a new one in the
savage forests of Versailles.

(This note, like many others, has been omitted from the
American editions. It seems pertinent to the subject, and
is explanatory of the text.--Pub.)

Ah! when the dream of life is over, what will then avail all its
agitations, if not one trace of utility remains behind?


O Ruins! to your school I will return! I will seek again the calm of
your solitudes; and there, far from the afflicting spectacle of the
passions, I will cherish in remembrance the love of man, I will
employ myself on the means of effecting good for him, and build my own
happiness on the promotion of his.



THE RUINS OF EMPIRES.


CHAPTER I.

THE JOURNEY.


In the eleventh year of the reign of Abd-ul-Hamid, son of Ahmid, emperor
of the Turks; when the Nogais-Tartars were driven from the Crimea, and a
Mussulman prince of the blood of Gengis-Kahn became the vassal and
guard of a Christian woman and queen,* I was travelling in the Ottoman
dominions, and through those provinces which were anciently the kingdoms
of Egypt and Syria.

* In the eleventh year of Abd-ul-Hamid, that is 1784 of the
Christian era, and 1198 of the Hegira. The emigration of
the Tartars took place in March, immediately on the
manifesto of the empress, declaring the Crimea to be
incorporated with Russia. The Mussulman prince of the blood
of Gengis-khan was Chahin-Guerai. Gengis-Khan was borne and
served by the kings whom he conquered: Chahin, on the
contrary, after selling his country for a pension of eighty
thousand roubles, accepted the commission of captain of
guards to Catherine II. He afterwards returned home, and
according to custom was strangled by the Turks.

My whole attention bent on whatever concerns the happiness of man in
a social state, I visited cities, and studied the manners of their
inhabitants; entered palaces, and observed the conduct of those who
govern; wandered over fields, and examined the condition of those
who cultivated them: and nowhere perceiving aught but robbery and
devastation, tyranny and wretchedness, my heart was oppressed with
sorrow and indignation.

I saw daily on my road fields abandoned, villages deserted, and cities
in ruin. Often I met with ancient monuments, wrecks of temples, palaces
and fortresses, columns, aqueducts and tombs. This spectacle led me to
meditate on times past, and filled my mind with contemplations the most
serious and profound.

Arrived at the city of Hems, on the border of the Orontes, and being
in the neighborhood of Palmyra of the desert, I resolved to visit its
celebrated ruins. After three days journeying through arid deserts,
having traversed the Valley of Caves and Sepulchres, on issuing into
the plain, I was suddenly struck with a scene of the most stupendous
ruins--a countless multitude of superb columns, stretching in avenues
beyond the reach of sight. Among them were magnificent edifices, some
entire, others in ruins; the earth every where strewed with fragments
of cornices, capitals, shafts, entablatures, pilasters, all of
white marble, and of the most exquisite workmanship. After a walk of
three-quarters of an hour along these ruins, I entered the enclosure of
a vast edifice, formerly a temple dedicated to the Sun; and accepting
the hospitality of some poor Arabian peasants, who had built their
hovels on the area of the temple, I determined to devote some days to
contemplate at leisure the beauty of these stupendous ruins.

Daily I visited the monuments which covered the plain; and one evening,
absorbed in reflection, I had advanced to the Valley of Sepulchres. I
ascended the heights which surround it from whence the eye commands the
whole group of ruins and the immensity of the desert. The sun had sunk
below the horizon: a red border of light still marked his track behind
the distant mountains of Syria; the full-orbed moon was rising in the
east, on a blue ground, over the plains of the Euphrates; the sky was
clear, the air calm and serene; the dying lamp of day still softened the
horrors of approaching darkness; the refreshing night breezes attempered
the sultry emanations from the heated earth; the herdsmen had given
their camels to repose, the eye perceived no motion on the dusky and
uniform plain; profound silence rested on the desert; the howlings only
of the jackal,* and the solemn notes of the bird of night, were heard
at distant intervals. Darkness now increased, and through the dusk could
only be discerned the pale phantasms of columns and walls. The solitude
of the place, the tranquillity of the hour, the majesty of the scene,
impressed on my mind a religious pensiveness. The aspect of a great city
deserted, the memory of times past, compared with its present state, all
elevated my mind to high contemplations. I sat on the shaft of a column,
my elbow reposing on my knee, and head reclining on my hand, my eyes
fixed, sometimes on the desert, sometimes on the ruins, and fell into a
profound reverie.

* An animal resembling a dog and a fox. It preys on other
small animals, and upon the bodies of the dead on the field
of battle. It is the Canis aureus of Linnaeus.



CHAPTER II.

THE REVERIE.


Here, said I, once flourished an opulent city; here was the seat of a
powerful empire. Yes! these places now so wild and desolate, were once
animated by a living multitude; a busy crowd thronged in these streets,
now so solitary. Within these walls, where now reigns the silence
of death, the noise of the arts, and the shouts of joy and festivity
incessantly resounded; these piles of marble were regular palaces; these
fallen columns adorned the majesty of temples; these ruined galleries
surrounded public places. Here assembled a numerous people for the
sacred duties of their religion, and the anxious cares of their
subsistence; here industry, parent of enjoyments, collected the riches
of all climes, and the purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious
thread of Serica;* the soft tissues of Cassimere for the sumptuous
tapestry of Lydia; the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes
of Arabia; the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule.

* The precious thread of Serica.--That is, the silk
originally derived from the mountainous country where the
great wall terminates, and which appears to have been the
cradle of the Chinese empire. The tissues of Cassimere.--
The shawls which Ezekiel seems to have described under the
appellation of Choud-choud. The gold of Ophir.--This
country, which was one of the twelve Arab cantons, and which
has so much and so unsuccessfully been sought for by the
antiquarians, has left, however, some trace of itself in
Ofor, in the province of Oman, upon the Persian Gulf,
neighboring on one side to the Sabeans, who are celebrated
by Strabo for their abundance of gold, and on the other to
Aula or Hevila, where the pearl fishery was carried on. See
the 27th chapter of Ezekiel, which gives a very curious and
extensive picture of the commerce of Asia at that period.

And now behold what remains of this powerful city: a miserable skeleton!
What of its vast domination: a doubtful and obscure remembrance! To
the noisy concourse which thronged under these porticoes, succeeds the
solitude of death. The silence of the grave is substituted for the busy
hum of public places; the affluence of a commercial city is changed into
wretched poverty; the palaces of kings have become a den of wild beasts;
flocks repose in the area of temples, and savage reptiles inhabit the
sanctuary of the gods. Ah! how has so much glory been eclipsed? how
have so many labors been annihilated? Do thus perish then the works of
men--thus vanish empires and nations?

And the history of former times revived in my mind; I remembered those
ancient ages when many illustrious nations inhabited these countries; I
figured to myself the Assyrian on the banks of the Tygris, the Chaldean
on the banks of the Euphrates, the Persian reigning from the Indus to
the Mediterranean. I enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea, of
Jerusalem and Samaria, the warlike states of the Philistines, and
the commercial republics of Phoenicia. This Syria, said I, now so
depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded
with towns, villages, and hamlets.* In all parts were seen cultivated
fields, frequented roads, and crowded habitations. Ah! whither have
flown those ages of life and abundance?--whither vanished those
brilliant creations of human industry? Where are those ramparts of
Nineveh, those walls of Babylon, those palaces of Persepolis, those
temples of Balbec and of Jerusalem? Where are those fleets of Tyre,
those dock-yards of Arad, those work-shops of Sidon, and that multitude
of sailors, of pilots, of merchants, and of soldiers? Where those
husbandmen, harvests, flocks, and all the creation of living beings
in which the face of the earth rejoiced? Alas! I have passed over this
desolate land! I have visited the palaces, once the scene of so much
splendor, and I beheld nothing but solitude and desolation. I sought the
ancient inhabitants and their works, and found nothing but a trace, like
the foot-prints of a traveller over the sand. The temples are fallen,
the palaces overthrown, the ports filled up, the cities destroyed; and
the earth, stripped of inhabitants, has become a place of sepulchres.
Great God! whence proceed such fatal revolutions? What causes have so
changed the fortunes of these countries? Wherefore are so many cities
destroyed? Why has not this ancient population been reproduced and
perpetuated?