that their numbers almost equalled those of the leaves protecting
them. I was still more surprised that these birds, instead of taking
fright at meeting me flew all about me; one sang in my ear, another
spread out its tail on my head, and at last, after my attention had
been occupied a long time by their little gambols I suddenly felt my
arms held down by more than a million of all kinds, weighing so heavily
that I could not move them.
They held me in this way until four large eagles arrived, two of which
grasped me by the legs in their claws, the two others by the arms, and
carried me high up.
Among the crowd I noticed a magpie flying hither and thither, backwards
and forwards with great alacrity. I heard it tell me to make no
resistance, because its companions were already debating about plucking
out my eyes. This warning prevented any resistance I might have made,
and so the eagles carried me more than a thousand leagues thence to a
large wood, which (according to what I was told by my magpie), was the
town where their king lived.
The first thing they did was to imprison me in the hollow trunk of
a large oak, while a number of the strongest birds perched on the
branches, where they carried out the functions of a company of soldiers
under arms. At the end of about twenty-four hours others came on guard
to relieve them. While I was awaiting with a good deal of melancholy
the manner in which it would please Fortune to dispose of my disasters,
my charitable magpie informed me of what was happening. Among other
things I remember it warned me that the bird-populace had strongly
protested against keeping me so long before eating me, and they had
pointed out that I was growing so thin there would be nothing on me
but the bones to gnaw. The rumour very nearly caused a rebellion. My
magpie had ventured to point out that it was a barbarous proceeding to
put to death without trial an animal which to some extent approached
their reasoning; they were ready to tear it to pieces, alleging that
it would be very ridiculous to think that a completely naked animal,
whom Nature herself had taken no care to furnish at its birth with
the things necessary to preserve it, should be capable of reason like
themselves.
"It might be different", they added, "if he were an animal approaching
a little nearer to our shape, but he is the most dissimilar and the
most horrible, a bald beast, a plucked bird, a chimera built up of all
kinds of natures, terrifying to everyone: Man, I say, so foolish and so
vain that he convinces himself we were only created for him; Man who
with his marvellously clear-sighted soul cannot distinguish sugar from
arsenic and who will swallow the hemlock his wonderful judgment causes
him to take for parsley; Man who maintains that we only reason by means
of the senses and who has the weakest, slowest and falsest senses of
any creature; Man whom Nature made like a monster, in order to create
all things, but in whom she inspired the ambition of commanding all
animals and exterminating them."
This is what the wisest said; as to the rabble, they exclaimed that it
was horrible to believe a beast whose face was not made like theirs
could possess reason.[63]
[Footnote 63: "The Abbé de Saint-Yves supposed that a man who was not
born in France possessed no common sense." Voltaire, _L'Ingénu_.]
"What!" they murmured to each other; "he has neither beak, claws nor
feathers, and yet his soul is spiritual? Gods! What impertinence!"
The pity felt for me by the most generous did not prevent my being
subjected to a criminal prosecution. They drew up all the documents on
the bark of a cypress tree, and then, after some days, I was carried
before the Tribunal of the Birds. The solicitors, counsel and judges at
the sitting were magpies, jays and starlings. Only those who understood
my language had been chosen.
Instead of interrogating me in the dock they set me astride a stump of
rotten wood; then the president of the bench, after clapping his beak
twice or thrice and ruffling up his feathers majestically, asked me
whence I was, of what nation and of what species? My charitable magpie
had given me certain instructions beforehand, which were very useful to
me, one of which was to be careful not to admit I was a man. I replied
that I came from the little world called the Earth, whereof the phœnix
and several others I saw in the assembly might have spoken to them,
that the climate in which I was born was situated in the temperate
zone of the northern hemisphere in that end of Europe called France.
As touching my species, I was not a man as they supposed but a monkey;
certain men had taken me from my cradle when I was very young and fed
me; their evil education had thus rendered my skin delicate; they had
caused me to forget my natural tongue and had instructed me in theirs;
to please these ferocious animals I had accustomed myself to walk only
upon two feet; in fine, since it is easier to fall than to rise in the
scale of animals, the opinions, the habits and the food of these dirty
beasts had acquired so much power over me that even my parents, who are
monkeys of honour, would hardly recognize me now. I added in support
of what I said that I was ready to be searched by experts and if they
should decide I was a man I submitted myself to be obliterated as a
monster.[64]
[Footnote 64: This would be "savage satire" in Swift; in Cyrano it is
merely "madness".]
[Illustration: _The Parliament of Birds._]
"Gentlemen", cried a swallow in the assembly as soon as I had ceased
speaking, "I hold him convicted. You have not forgotten he said the
country in which he was born was France; but you know that monkeys do
not breed in France; after that, judge if he is what he boasts to be."
I replied to my accuser that I had been taken from the bosom of my
parents and transported to France when I was so young that I had a
perfect right to call that my native country to which my earliest
memories were attached. Although this reason was specious, it was
insufficient. But the greater part of them, charmed to hear that I was
not a man, were very glad to believe it; for those who had never seen
one could not but persuade themselves that a man was something much
more horrible than I appeared to be, while the most sensible of them
added that a man was something so abominable it was useful to believe
he was only an imaginary being.[65]
[Footnote 65: Even the Yahoos beat this only in nastiness, not in
scorn.]
The whole assembly clapped their wings with joy and I was immediately
handed over to the Syndics for examination, with orders to produce me
next day and to make a report to the committee at the opening of the
Chambers. They took charge of me then and carried me off to a retired
wood. While they kept me there they did nothing but gesticulate about
me with a hundred different kinds of somersaults and walk about in
processions with nutshells on their heads. Sometimes they clapped
their feet together, sometimes they dug little ditches and filled them
up again; and all this time I was surprised not to see anyone else.
The day and the night were passed in these trifles until the prescribed
hour arrived next day; I was carried back at once to appear before
my judges and, when the Syndics were bidden to speak the truth, they
replied that upon their consciences they felt themselves bound to
inform the court I was assuredly not a monkey as I boasted.
"For", they said, "we leaped, walked, pirouetted and invented a hundred
tricks in his presence, whereby we meant to urge him to do the same,
according to the habit of monkeys. Now, even when brought up by men, a
monkey is always a monkey, and if he had been one we maintain it would
not have been in his power to forbear imitating our monkey-tricks. That
is our report, gentlemen."
The judges drew together to hear each other's opinion; but it was
noticed that the sky was cloudy and seemed charged with rain; and this
made them postpone the sitting. I imagined that this had happened on
account of the appearance of bad weather, when the solicitor-general
came to tell me by order of the court that I should not receive
sentence that day; that they never end a criminal prosecution when the
sky is not clear, because they fear lest the bad temperature of the
air might influence the good constitution of the judges' minds; lest
that ill humour which comes over birds during rain should be discharged
upon the case; or lest the court should visit its depression upon the
prisoner. And so my sentence was put off until finer weather. I was
taken back to prison and I remember that my charitable magpie did not
abandon me on the way; it flew continually beside me and I think it
would not have left me if its companions had not approached us.
At last I arrived at my prison, where during my captivity I had nothing
to eat but the "king's bread"[66]; by this they meant fifty worms and
as many cheese-worms,[67] which they brought me to eat every seven
hours.
[Footnote 66: "Pain du Roy", _i.e._ prisoner's rations.]
[Footnote 67: "Guillots"; I went to five dictionaries, before finding
this (dubious) meaning.]
I thought I should be brought up again the next day and everyone
thought so too; but after five or six days one of my guards told me
the whole of the time had been taken up by the plea of a community of
goldfinches, who demanded justice against one of their companions. I
asked my guard of what crime this wretch was accused.
"Of the most enormous crime", replied the guard, "by which a bird can
be blackened. He is accused.... Can you believe it? He is accused....
But, good Gods! When I only think of it, the feathers stand up on my
head. He is accused of not having merited a friend for the last six
years; so they have condemned him to be a king, and king of a people of
another species. If his subjects had been of his kind, he might have
dipped into their pleasures, at least with his eyes and his desire;
but since the pleasures of one species have no relation at all to the
pleasures of another species, he will undergo all the fatigues and will
drink all the bitterness of royalty, without being able to taste any of
its compensations. He was sent off this morning surrounded by a number
of doctors, who have to watch that he does not poison himself on the
journey."
Although my guard was naturally a great talker, he dared not converse
with me alone any longer for fear he should be suspected of a compact
with me.
At the end of about a week I was again brought before my judges. I
was placed upon the fork of a small leafless tree. The learned birds,
solicitors, counsel and judges, were perched in rows according to their
rank on the summit of a large cedar. The others, who were only present
at the assembly from curiosity, were placed pell-mell so that all the
seats were filled, that is to say, so that the cedar branches were
covered with birds' feet.
The magpie, who, as I had noticed, had always been filled with
compassion for me, came and perched on my tree, where it feigned to
amuse itself by pecking the moss.
"It is impossible for you to know", it said, "how much your misfortune
moves me; for although I am not ignorant that a man among living
beings is a pest of which every civilized state ought to purge itself,
yet when I remember I was brought up by them from the cradle, that I
learned their language so perfectly I almost forgot my own, and that
I ate such excellent soft cheeses from their hands, I cannot think
of it without water coming into my eyes and mouth; I feel for you a
tenderness which prevents me from inclining towards the juster party."
It had finished speaking when we were interrupted by the arrival of
an eagle, which came and perched on the boughs of a tree near mine. I
should have risen to get on my knees before it, thinking it was the
king, if my magpie had not kept me in my former position with its foot.
"Do you suppose", it said, "that this large eagle is our sovereign?
That is a supposition of men who, because they allow themselves to
be commanded by the largest, strongest and most cruel of their
companions, and judge all things from themselves, foolishly imagine
that the eagle must command us. But our policy is very different. We
choose only the weakest, the gentlest and the most peaceful for our
kings; moreover, we change them every six months and we choose them
weak so that the humblest individual they have wronged may be avenged
upon them. We choose them gentle so that they may neither hate nor be
hated by anybody. And we desire them to be of a peaceful temper in
order to avoid war, the channel of all injustices.
"Every week a parliament is held, where anyone may complain of him.
If there are only three birds dissatisfied with his government he
is dethroned and they proceed to a new election. During the day the
parliament is held, our king is placed on the top of a tall yew on the
edge of a pond, with his feet and wings bound. All the birds one after
another pass in front of him, and if any one of them knows he deserves
the last punishment, it may cast him into the water; but it must at
once justify itself for what it has done, otherwise it is condemned to
a sad death."
I could not forbear interrupting him to ask what he meant by a sad
death; and this is what he replied:
"When a bird is judged culpable of a crime so enormous that death is
too small an expiation, they try to choose a death which contains the
pain of several; and they proceed as follows: those among us whose
voices are the most melancholy and the most funereal are attached to
the guilty person, who is carried to a sad cypress. There these sad
musicians gather around him and fill his soul through his ears with
such lugubrious and tragical songs that the bitterness of his grief
disorders the economy of his organs and so presses upon his heart that
he pines visibly and dies suffocated with sadness. However, such a
spectacle never happens; for since our kings are very gentle they never
provide anyone with the opportunity of desiring to risk so cruel a
death for the sake of vengeance. The reigning monarch at present is a
dove, whose temper is so peaceful that the other day when two sparrows
had to be reconciled there was all the difficulty in the world to make
him understand what enmity is."
My magpie could not continue so lengthy a discourse without being
noticed by several of those present; and since it was already suspected
of some understanding with me, the chiefs of the assembly sent an eagle
of the guard to arrest him. King Dove arrived at this moment; everyone
was silent and the first thing which broke this silence was the plea
of the chief censor of the birds against the magpie. The King, fully
informed of the scandal it had caused, asked its name and how it knew
me.
"Sire", it replied in astonishment, "I am called Margot; there are many
birds of quality here who will answer for me. One day in the world
of the Earth of which I am a native I learned from Coughing-Chirper
there (who, hearing me calling in my cage, came to visit me at the
window where I was hung) that my father was Short-Tail and my mother
Crack-Nuts. I should not have known it but for him; for I had been
taken from beneath my parent's wing when I was in the cradle, very
young. Some time after my mother died of grief and my father, now too
old to beget other children and in despair at finding himself without
an heir, went off to the Jays' war, where he was killed by a beak-wound
in the brain. Those who seized me were certain savage animals called
swine-herds, who took me to a castle to sell, and there I saw this man
whom you are now prosecuting. I do not know if he conceived good-will
for me, but he took the trouble to order the servants to cut up food
for me. Sometimes he had the kindness to bring me the food himself. If
in the winter I was perishing with cold he carried me near the fire
and lined my cage or bade the gardener warm me inside his shirt. The
servants dared not tease me in his presence and I remember one day he
saved me from the cat that had me in its claws, to which I had been
exposed by my lady's little lackey. But it will not be inopportune
to acquaint you with the cause of that barbarity. To please Verdelet
(that was the little lackey's name) I was repeating one day the foolish
things he had taught me. It unfortunately happened, although I always
repeated my quirks in the same order, that just as he came in to
deliver a false message I said: 'Silence, whoreson, you have lied.' The
accused man here, knowing the rogue's lying disposition, imagined that
I might have spoken prophetically and sent to the place to inquire if
Verdelet had been there. Verdelet was convicted of deceit, Verdelet was
whipped, and to avenge himself Verdelet would have had me eaten by the
cat had it not been for this man."
The King, bowing his head, showed that he was pleased with the pity it
had had for my misfortunes, but yet forbade it to speak to me again
in secret. He then asked counsel if he were ready with his plea, who
made a sign with his foot that he was about to speak; and here are the
points upon which he insisted against me.
PLEADING MADE IN THE PARLIAMENT OF BIRDS, THE CHAMBERS ASSEMBLED,
AGAINST AN ANIMAL ACCUSED OF BEING A MAN.
GENTLEMEN,
The complainant against this criminal is Guillemette the Plump,
a partridge by birth, newly arrived from the world of the Earth
with its throat still open from a lead bullet shot at it by men,
a suitor against the human race, and, consequently, against an
animal whom I claim to be a member of that great body. It would
not be difficult for us to prevent the violence he might do by
killing him. However, since the safety or the loss of every living
thing concerns the republic of the living, it seems to me we should
deserve to be born men, that is to say degraded from the reason
and the immortality we possess above them, if we resembled them
in any of their injustices. Let us then examine, gentlemen, the
difficulties of this case with all the keenness of which our divine
minds are capable.
The main point of the case consists in discovering whether this
animal is a man; and then, if we declare he is, whether he deserves
death on that account.
For my part, I make no difficulty in declaring he is: first, from
a feeling of horror which we all felt ourselves seized with at his
sight without being able to declare the reasons; secondly, because
he laughs like a madman; thirdly, because he weeps like a fool;
fourthly, because he blows his nose like a vagabond; fifthly,
because he is plucked of feathers like one that is mangy; sixthly,
because he carries his tail in front; seventhly, because he has
always a quantity of little square stones in his mouth and has not
the wit to spit them out or to swallow them; and eighthly, and
lastly, because every morning he lifts up his eyes, his nose and
his large beak, sticks together his open hands with their flat
parts together pointing to the sky and makes of them one attachment
as if he were tired of having two free ones, breaks his legs in
the middle so that he falls on his shanks, and then hums magic
words, after which I have noticed his broken legs join up and he
rises as gay as he was before. You know, gentlemen, that of all
animals man alone has a soul sufficiently black to give himself up
to magic and, consequently, he must be a man. We must now examine
whether he deserves death for being a man.
I think, gentlemen, that it has never been doubted that all
creatures were produced by our common Mother to live together
sociably. Then if I prove that man seems only to have been born
to disturb this, shall I not prove that by going contrary to the
end for which he was created he deserves that Nature should repent
of her work? The first and fundamental law for the maintenance of
a republic is equality; but man could not endure this eternally;
he rushes upon us to devour us, he convinces himself that we were
only made for his use. As an argument of his pretended superiority
he cites the barbarity with which he massacres us and the little
resistance he finds in overcoming our weakness, and yet he will not
admit as his masters the eagles, condors, and griffins, by whom
the strongest of them are overcome. But why should this size and
position of limbs mark a diversity of species, since even among
them dwarfs and giants are found?
Moreover this empire on which they flatter themselves is an
imaginary right. On the contrary they are so inclined to servitude
that for fear of failing to serve, they sell their liberty to
each other. Thus the young are slaves of the old, the poor of the
rich, the peasants of the gentlemen, princes of monarchs, and even
monarchs of the laws they have established. But with all this the
poor serfs are so afraid of lacking masters that, as if they feared
that liberty should come to them from some unexpected quarter,
they make themselves Gods everywhere, in the water, in air, in
fire, under the earth. They would rather make them of wood than
lack them; and I even think they caress themselves with false
hopes of immortality not so much because they are terrified by
the horror of annihilation as because of the fear they have of
not being commanded after death. This is the wonderful effect of
that fantastic monarchy and natural empire of man over the animals
and ourselves; for his insolence reaches even to that point.
Nevertheless, as a consequence of this ridiculous chieftainship,
he pleasantly arrogates to himself the right of life and death
over us; he lies in ambush for us, he binds us, he throws us into
prison, he cuts our throats, he eats us; and the power to kill
those of us who remain free is made a privilege of the Nobility;
he thinks the Sun was lighted to enable him to make war upon us;
he thinks Nature allows us to make excursions through the sky
simply for him to draw favourable or unfavourable auspices from our
flight, and that when God put entrails into our bodies His only
purpose was to make a book from which man might learn the science
of future things.
Is not this pride utterly insupportable? Could one who entertained
such a conception deserve a punishment less than that of being
born a man? Yet it is not on this account that I urge you to
condemn this man; since the poor beast has not the use of reason
like ourselves, I excuse his errors in so far as they are produced
by lack of understanding; but I ask justice on account of those
which are daughters of his will. As, for example, that he kills
us without being attacked by us; that he eats us when he might
satisfy his hunger with more suitable food; and, which I consider
the most cowardly of all, that he debauches the natural disposition
of hawks, falcons and vultures, by teaching them to massacre their
kind, to feed upon their like or to deliver us into his hands.
This consideration alone is so heinous that I ask the court to
condemn him to extermination by a sad death.[68]
[Footnote 68: To the best of my knowledge this admirable indictment is
Cyrano's own.]
The whole Bar shivered with horror at the idea of so great a torture;
and, with the purpose of moderating it, the King made a sign to my
counsel to reply. It was a starling, a great jurisconsult, who,
striking his foot thrice upon the branch which supported him, spoke to
the assembly as follows:
"It is true, gentlemen, that moved by pity I undertook the case of this
wretched beast; but, at the moment of pleading, remorse of conscience
has come to me and a kind of secret voice forbidding me to undertake
so detestable an action. Thus, gentlemen, I declare to you and to the
court that for the sake of my soul's salvation I will not contribute in
any fashion towards the duration of such a monster as man."
The whole populace clapped their beaks as a sign of rejoicing and to
congratulate the sincerity of so worthy a bird.
My magpie presented itself to plead in his place, but silence was
imposed upon it because, since it had been brought up by men and was
perhaps infected by their morals, there was some fear it would approach
my case with a prejudiced mind; for the Court of Birds will not hear an
advocate who is more interested on behalf of one client than another,
unless he can show that this preference comes from the party's right.
When my judges saw that nobody came forward to defend me they stretched
out their wings, shook them and flew immediately to consultation.