of a single sovereign established. After that came princely feudalism.
Mazarin, Richelieu, Louis XIII., and Henry IV. appeared to me at Saint
Germain. The Bourbons and the Guises resumed their skirmishes for me.
I thought I could distinguish the night of St. Bartholomew, I saw some
special events in the history of our provinces--for instance, one of
the scenes in the sorcery of Chaumont, which I had time to observe,
before the Church of Saint Jean, and the massacre of the Protestants
at Vassy. What a comedy is human life! Alas! too often a tragedy!
Suddenly I beheld in space the magnificent comet of 1577, in the
form of a sabre. In grand array in the midst of a plain, brilliantly
decorated, I recognised Francis I. and Charles V. saluting one another.
Louis XI. I perceived on a terrace of the Bastile, attended by his two
gloomy companions. Later on, my sight was turned to a square in Rouen,
where I observed flames and smoke, and in their midst I discerned the
form of the Maid of Orleans. Convinced as I was that the world I was
looking at was the exact counterpart of the Earth, I divined beforehand
the events that I was about to see. Thus, after having seen Saint
Louis dying before Tunis, I was present at the eighth Crusade, and
subsequently at the third, where I recognised Frederick Barbarossa by
his beard. Then at the first Crusade, when Peter the Hermit and Godfrey
reminded me of Tasso. I was not a little surprised. I then expected to
see, in succession, Hugh Capet, leading a procession, arrayed in his
official robes; the Council of Tauriacum deciding that the judgment of
God would be pronounced in the battle of Fontanet; Charles the Bald
ordering the massacre of a hundred thousand men and all the Merovingian
nobility; Charlemagne crowned in Rome: his war against the Saxons and
the Lombards; Charles Martel hammering away at the Saracens; King
Dagobert founding the Abbey of St. Denis, just as I had seen Alexander
III. laying the first stone of Notre Dame; Brunehaut dragged along
the pavement by a horse; the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths,
Clovis Meroveus appearing in the country of the Saliens: in a word,
the history of France, from its very beginning, unrolled itself before
me in an order inverse to the succession of events--this was what
actually happened. Many historical questions which were very important,
and which had hitherto been obscure to me, were rendered clear. I
ascertained, among other things, that the French were the original
possessors of the right bank of the Rhine, and that the Germans have no
right to claim that river, and still less to dispute the possession of
the left bank.
[Sidenote: Old Paris]
[Sidenote: Rome of the Cæsars.]
[Sidenote: Judea.]
[Sidenote: Calvary.]
[Sidenote: Death of Julius Cæsar.]
There was, I assure you, an immense interest in taking part, if I may
so express myself, in the events of which I had but the vague ideas
derived from the echoes of history, often deceptive, and in visiting
countries that are now totally transformed. The vast and brilliant
capital of modern civilisation became old to me, and had shrunk to
the size of an ordinary town, but was at the same time fortified with
crenellated towers. I admired in turns the beautiful city of the
fifteenth century, its curious types of architecture, the celebrated
tower of Nesle, and the extensive convents of Saint Germain-des-Prés.
Where the tower of St. Jacques now stands, I recognised the gloomy
court of the alchemist Nicolas Flamel. The round and pointed roofs had
the singular effect of looking like mushrooms on the banks of a river.
Then this feudal aspect disappeared, and gave place to a solitary
castle in the Seine valley surrounded by cottages; and finally there
was nothing but a fertile plain, where one could only distinguish a
few huts of savages. At the same time I remarked that the seat of
civilisation was changed, and was now in the south. I will confess to
you, my friend, that I never felt greater delight than at the moment
when I was permitted to see Rome of the Cæsars in all its splendour.
It was the day of a triumph, and no doubt under the rule of the Syrian
princes; for in the midst of magnificent surroundings, gorgeous
chariots, the purple oriflammes of the Senate, and of elegant women
and of performers of theatres, I distinguished the Emperor luxuriously
reclining in a golden car, clothed in delicately-coloured silk,
covered with precious stones and ornaments in gold and silver, which
glittered in the golden sunshine. This must have been Heliogabalus,
the priest of the sun. The Coliseum, the temple of Antoninus, the
triumphal arches, and Trajan's column were standing. Rome was in all
its ancient beauty and grandeur, that last beautiful phase which was
no more than a scene in a theatre to those crowned buffoons. A little
later I was present at the eruption of Vesuvius, which overwhelmed
Herculaneum and Pompeii. I saw Rome in flames, just for a moment; and
although I was not able to distinguish Nero on his terrace, I have no
doubt I beheld the conflagration in the year 64, and the signal for the
persecution of the Christians. A few hours after, my attention being
still occupied in examining the extensive gardens by the Tiber, I had
just seen the Emperor near a parterre of roses, when, in consequence of
the revolution of the Earth on its axis, Judea was presented to me. How
anxiously I regarded it when I distinguished Jerusalem and the mountain
of Golgotha. Jesus was climbing this mountain, accompanied by a few
women, escorted by a troop of soldiers, and followed by the Jewish
populace. I shall never forget this spectacle. It assumed a totally
different aspect to me from what it did to those who were living at
the time and who took part in it, for the glorious future (and the
past also) of the Christian Church was unfolded for me as the crown of
the Divine sacrifice.... I cannot dwell on it; you can understand what
various feelings agitated my soul on this supreme occasion.... A little
later, returning to Rome, I recognised Julius Cæsar prostrate in death,
with Antony beside him holding what I think was a roll of papyrus in
his left hand. The conspirators were hastening down to the banks of
the Tiber. With a very natural curiosity I traced back the life of
Julius Cæsar, and found him with Vercingetorix in the centre of Gaul,
and I may state that none of the suppositions of our modern historians
respecting the situation of Alesia are correct. In fact, this fortress
was situated on . . .
QUÆRENS.. Master, pardon me for interrupting you, but I am anxious to
seize this opportunity to question you on a particular point respecting
the Dictator. Since you have seen Julius Cæsar, tell me, I pray you, if
his face resembles that given by the Emperor Napoleon III. in his great
work on the life of that famous captain?
LUMEN. I should be delighted, my old friend, to enlighten you on this
point if it were possible for me to do so. But reflect for a moment,
and you will see that the laws of perspective forbid me.
QUÆRENS. Of perspective? You mean to say of politics.
LUMEN. No, of perspective (although these two things strongly resemble
one another); for in seeing great men from the height of heaven, I do
not see them as they appear to the vulgar. From the heavens we see
men geometrically from above, not face to face; that is to say, when
they are standing we have only a horizontal projection of them. You may
remember that once in a balloon, as we passed over the Vendôme Column
at Paris, you remarked to me that Napoleon seen from that height was
not above the level of other men. It was just the same with Cæsar. In
the other world material measures disappear, only intellectual measures
exist.
[Sidenote: Roman history.]
[Sidenote: Building of the Pyramids.]
[Sidenote: The Stone Age.]
To continue, however, I retraced history, from Julius Cæsar to the
Consuls, and then to the kings of Latium, in order to witness the rape
of the Sabines, which I was pleased to observe actually, as a type of
ancient manners. History has embellished many things, and I discovered
that most events as represented to us are totally different from the
actual facts. Then I saw King Candaules in Lydia, in the scene in the
bath that you remember, then the invasion of Egypt by the Ethiopians,
the oligarchical republic of Corinth, the eighth Olympiad in Greece,
and Isaiah the prophet in Judea. I saw the building of the Pyramids
by troops of obedient slaves under chiefs mounted on dromedaries.
The great dynasties of Bactria and of India appeared before me, and
China showed the marvellous skill in the arts that she possessed even
before the birth of the western world. I had an opportunity to search
for the Atlantis of Plato, and I saw that the opinions of Bailly on
that continent, now submerged, are not devoid of foundation. In Gaul I
could distinguish nothing but vast forests and swamps; even the Druids
had disappeared, and the savage inhabitants strongly resembled those
that we find now in Oceania. It was truly the _stone age_ as it is
unearthed for us by modern archæologists. Further back still, I saw
that the number of men diminished by degrees, and the domination of
nature seemed to belong to a race of the great apes, to the cave bears,
to lions, hyenas, and the rhinoceros. A moment arrived when it was
not only impossible to distinguish a single man on the surface of the
earth, but when not the least vestige of the human race was visible.
All had disappeared; earthquakes, volcanoes, deluges prevailed over the
surface of the planet, and the presence of man in the midst of such a
chaotic state of things was no longer possible.
QUÆRENS. I shall confess to you, dear Lumen, that I have waited with
impatience for the moment when you should arrive at the garden of Eden,
in order to learn in what form the creation of the human race on the
earth was presented to you. I am surprised that you do not seem to have
thought of making this important observation.
LUMEN. I relate to you only the things which I saw, my curious friend,
and I refrain from substituting the dreams of my imagination for the
evidences of my sight. I did not perceive the least trace of that
Eden so poetically depicted in the primitive theogonies. Now, this
was very extraordinary, since the resemblance between the world that
I had before my eyes and the Earth was so complete. It was more than
surprising, if the terrestrial paradise was really the cradle of
humanity. But I do not see why paradise might not have been, with as
good reason, at the end of human society.
QUÆRENS. Indeed I think it would be more just to suppose it to be at
the end rather than the beginning, as the result and the recompense,
instead of the misunderstood prelude, to a life of suffering. But since
you have not seen it I shall not urge my question.
[Sidenote: Prehistoric ages.]
[Sidenote: A dying world.]
[Sidenote: The beginning, not the end of the Earth.]
LUMEN. Finally, in concluding my observations of this singular world,
whose history was exactly the inverse of yours, I saw marvellous
animals, of monstrous forms, in combat on the shores of vast oceans.
There were enormous serpents armed with formidable paws; crocodiles
that flew in the air, sustained by wings organically longer than their
bodies; misshapen fishes with jaws wide enough to swallow an ox; birds
of prey struggling in terrible battles in the desert islands. There
were whole continents covered with forests, trees with enormous leaves
entangled in one another; a vegetation at once sombre and severe,
for the vegetable kingdom was devoid of both flowers and fruit. The
mountains vomited forth clouds of flame and vapour, the rivers fell
in cataracts, the ground opened in immense chasms in which were
engulfed hills, woods, streams, trees, and animals. But before long it
became impossible for me to perceive even the surface of the globe; a
universal sea appeared to cover it, and the vegetable kingdom, like
the animal kingdom, was slowly effaced, and gave place to a monotonous
verdure interspersed with lightning and whitish smoke. Henceforth
it was a dying world. I was present at the last palpitations of its
heart, intermittently revealed in the gloom by flashes of flame. Then
it seemed to me that it rained everywhere over its whole surface,
for the Sun threw light on nothing but clouds and torrents of rain.
The hemisphere opposite to the Sun appeared less sombre than before,
and one could perceive a dull light gleaming through the tempests.
This light increased in intensity, and spread over the entire sphere.
Great crevasses became red like iron in the furnace; and as iron in
a hot furnace becomes bright red, then orange, then yellow, then in
succession white and incandescent, so the world passed through all
the progressive phases of heat. Its volume increased, its movement of
rotation became slower. The mysterious globe seemed like an immense
sphere of molten metal enveloped in metallic vapours. Under the
incessant action of this interior furnace and the elemental combats
(or combinations) of this strange chemistry, it acquired enormous
proportions, and the sphere of fire became a sphere of smoke. Thence
it went on developing without cessation, and lost its personality. The
Sun, which at first had shed light on it, no longer surpassed it in
brightness, and it itself increased so much in circumference that it
became evident to me that the vaporous planet would soon lose its own
existence and be absorbed in the enlarged atmosphere of the Sun. It is
a rare experience to be present at the end of a world. And so in my
enthusiasm I could not prevent myself from crying out with a kind of
vanity, "Behold the end of the world, O God! and this, then, is the
fate in store for all the inhabited worlds!" "This is not _the end_,"
replied a voice in the hearing of my soul; "_this is the beginning_."
"How can this be the beginning?" thought I immediately. "The beginning
of the Earth itself," replied the same voice. "Thou hast seen over
again the whole history of the Earth _in thus withdrawing from her with
a velocity greater than that of light_."
This declaration did not surprise me so much as the first episode
of my ultra-terrestrial life, for I was now familiarised with the
astonishing effects of the laws of light; I was henceforth prepared
for every new surprise. I had some doubts of the fact, in consequence
of certain details that I have not given you to avoid disturbing the
unity of my recital or breaking the thread of my narrative, but which
were nevertheless incomparably more extraordinary than the general
succession of events.
QUÆRENS. But if it was really the Earth, how comes it that the
astronomical calculations you made in order to recognise her in the
constellation of the Altar, indicated, as you have pointed out, that
the world you were examining was neither the Earth nor a star of the
Altar?
[Sidenote: Events retraced.]
[Sidenote: Sidereal perspective.]
LUMEN. The fact is, that even that constellation had itself changed
in consequence of my voyage in space. In place of the stars of the
third magnitude, α, γ, and ϛ (alpha, gamma, zeta), and stars of the
fourth magnitude, β, δ, and θ (beta, delta, theta), which constitute
that figure as seen from the Earth, my distance towards the nebulæ had
reduced those starsa to little imperceptible points. It had placed
other brilliant stars there, which were no doubt α (alpha) and β (beta)
of Auriga, θ, ι, η (theta, iota, eta), and perhaps even ε (epsilon) of
the same constellation--stars diametrically opposite to the preceding
when seen from the Earth, but which were necessarily interposed there
when I had passed them by. The celestial perspective had already
changed, and it had become, in truth, almost impossible to determine
the position of our Sun.
[Sidenote: It was really the Earth that Lumen saw.]
QUÆRENS. I had not thought of this inevitable change of perspective
on the other side of Capella; and so it was really the Earth that you
saw, and therefore its history was unrolled before you in an inverse
order--you saw ancient events taking place _after_ modern events. By
what new process has light thus enabled you to ascend the stream of
time? Furthermore, dear Lumen, you have informed me that you have
observed some curious particulars relative to the Earth itself. I am
wishful to ask you some special questions on these details. I shall
listen, then, with interest to the extraordinary history which ought to
complete this recital, persuaded, as before, that it will fully reward
my curiosity.
II
[Sidenote: History read backwards.]
LUMEN. The first circumstance is connected with the battle of Waterloo.
QUÆRENS. No one remembers that catastrophe better than I do. I received
a ball in my shoulder there, in the neighbourhood of Mont Saint-Jean,
and a sabre-cut on my right hand from one of Blucher's blackguards.
[Sidenote: Waterloo beyond the tomb.]
LUMEN. Well, my old comrade, in taking part in this battle again,
I found it quite different from what it was in the past, as you
may judge from what I will relate to you. When I had recognised
the field of Waterloo, to the south of Brussels, I distinguished
first a considerable number of dead bodies lying on the ground
indiscriminately. Far off, through the mist, I perceived Napoleon
walking backwards, holding his horse by the bridle. The officers who
accompanied him were marching backwards also. The cannon began to
boom, and from time to time I saw the lurid gleam of their flashes.
When my sight was sufficiently habituated to the scene, I perceived
some soldiers coming to life out of the eternal night, and by a single
effort standing up. Group after group, a considerable number, were thus
resuscitated. The dead horses revived like the dead cavaliers, and
the latter remounted them. As soon as two or three thousand men had
returned to life, I saw them form unconsciously in line of battle. The
two armies took their places fronting one another, and began to fight
desperately with a fury that one might have taken for despair. As the
combat deepened on both sides, the soldiers came to life more rapidly.
French, English, Prussians, Germans, Hanoverians, Belgians--grey
coats, blue uniforms, red tunics, green, white--arose from the field
of the dead and fought. In the centre of the French army I espied the
Emperor, a battalion in square surrounded him; the Imperial Guard was
resuscitated. Their immense battalions advanced from the two camps
and engaged in a fierce onslaught; from the left and from the right,
squadrons advanced. The white manes of the white horses floated in the
wind. I remembered the strange picture by Raffet, and the spectral
epigram of the German poet Sedlitz:--
"La caisse sonne, étrange,
Fortement elle retentit.
Dans leur fosse ressuscitent
Les vieux soldats péris."
And this other:--
"C'est la grande revue,
Qu'à l'heure de minuit
Aux Champs-Élysées
Tient César décédé."
It was really Waterloo, but a _Waterloo beyond the tomb_, for the
combatants were raised from the dead. Besides, in this singular
apparition they marched backwards one against the other. Such a battle
had a magical effect, and impressed me more forcibly, because I foresaw
the event itself, and this event was strangely transformed in its
counterpart image. Not less singular was the fact, that the longer they
fought, the more the number of combatants increased; at each gap made
by the cannon in the serried ranks a group of resuscitated dead filled
up the gaps immediately. When the belligerents had spent the whole day
in tearing one another to pieces with grape-shot, with cannons and
bullets, with bayonets, sabres, and swords--when the great battle was
over, there was not a single person killed, no one was even wounded;
even uniforms that before it were torn and in disorder were in good
condition, the men were safe and sound, and the ranks in correct form.
The two armies slowly withdrew from one another, as if the heat of the
battle and all its fury had no other object than the restoration to
life, amid the smoke of the combat, of the two hundred thousand corpses
which had lain on the field a few hours before. What an exemplary and
desirable battle it was!
[Sidenote: Reascending the ages.]
Assuredly it was the most singular of military episodes, and the moral
aspect of it far surpassed the physical, when I found that this battle
resulted not in the defeat of Napoleon, but in placing him upon the
throne. Instead of losing the battle, it was the Emperor who gained
it; instead of a prisoner, he became a sovereign. Waterloo was an 18th
Brumaire!...
QUÆRENS. Dear Lumen, I do not half understand this new effect of the
laws of light. If you have discovered it, I shall be grateful to you if
you will give me an explanation of it.
LUMEN. I have helped you to divine it by telling you that I removed
from the Earth with a _greater_ velocity than that of light.
QUÆRENS. But tell me, I pray you, how does this retrogression in space
enable you to see events in an order inverse to that in which they took
place?
LUMEN. The theory is very simple. Suppose you set out from the Earth
with the velocity exactly _equal_ to that of light, you would always
have with you the aspect that the Earth assumed at the moment you
set out, since you would be receding from the globe with a swiftness
precisely equal to that which bore this very aspect into space. Thus,
even if you voyaged for a thousand years or a hundred thousand years,
this aspect would accompany you always like a photograph which did not
grow old; whilst the original is made old by the years that elapse.
QUÆRENS. I understood this fact already in our first conversation.
[Sidenote: Retrogressive light pictures.]
LUMEN. Well, suppose now that you remove from the Earth with a velocity
_superior_ to that of light, what will happen? You will find again, as
fast as you advance into space, the rays that set out _before_ you,
that is to say the successive photographs which, from second to second,
from instant to instant, project their rays into space. If, for
example, you set out in 1867 with the velocity equal to that of light,
you would retain for ever the year 1867 in sight. If you went more
quickly, you would find before you the rays that had set out in former
years, and which bore upon them the photographs of those years. In
order further to illustrate this fact, reflect, I pray you, on the many
luminous rays that have set out from the Earth in different epochs. Let
us suppose the first to be at some instant of the 1st January 1867.
At the rate of 300,000 kilometres a second, it has, at the moment in
which I am speaking to you, already passed a portion of space from the
instant of its departure till it reached a certain distance which I
shall express by the letter A. Let us now suppose that a second ray
sets out from the Earth a hundred years before, on the 1st January
1767; it is a hundred years _in advance_ of the first, and is found at
a still greater distance--a distance that I shall express by the letter
B. A third ray which I shall in like manner suppose on the 1st January
1667, is still _further off_ by a length equal to the distance that
the light would travel in a hundred years. I call the place where this
third ray reaches, C. Then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, on respectively
the 1st January 1567, 1467, 1367, &c., are posted at equal distances D,
E, F, penetrating more and more into the infinite.
Here, then, we have a series of photographs, taken on the same line,
from post to post in space. Now, the mind which travels on in passing
successively by the points A, B, C, D, E, F, can retrace successively
the secular history of the Earth in those epochs.
QUÆRENS. Master, at what distance are these photographs from one
another?
[Sidenote: Photographs of the life on Earth imprinted in space.]