You will readily call to mind all that has been told of that most singular prince.  He caused to be erected amid the most magnificent scenery his kingdom afforded, veritable fairy castles.  The reality even of the beauty of the things themselves, as well as of the places, did not satisfy him.  He invented, he created, in these improbable manors, factitious horizons, obtained by means of theatrical artifices, changes of view, painted forests, fabled empires, in which the leaves of the trees became precious stones.  He had the Alps, and glaciers, steppes, deserts of sand made hot by a blazing sun; and at nights, under the rays of the real moon, lakes which sparkled from below by means of fantastic electric lights.  Swans floated on the lakes which glistened with skiffs, while an orchestra, composed of the finest executants in the world, inebriated with poetry the soul of the royal fool.  That man was chaste, that man was a virgin.  He lived only to dream, his dream, his dream divine.  One evening he took out with him in his boat, a lady, young and beautiful, a great artiste, and he begged her to sing.  Intoxicated herself by the magnificent scenery, by the languid softness of the air, by the perfume of flowers, and by the ecstacy of that prince, both young and handsome, she sang, she sang as women sing who have been touched by love; then, overcome, trembling, she falls on the bosom of the king in order to seek out his lips.  But he throws her into the lake, and seizing his oars, rows back to the shore, without concerning himself, whether anybody has saved her or not.

Gentlemen of the jury, we find ourselves in presence of a case similar in every way to that.  I shall say no more now, except to read some passages from the journal which we unexpectedly came upon in the drawer of an old secretary.

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How sad and weary is everything; always the same, always hateful.  How I dream of a land more beautiful, more noble, more varied.  What a poor conception they have of their God, if their God existed, or if he had not created other things, elsewhere.  Always woods, little woods, waves which resemble waves, plains which resemble plains, everything is sameness and monotony.  And Man?  Man?  What a horrible animal! wicked, haughty and repugnant!

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It is essential to love, to love perdition, without seeing that which one loves.  For, to see is to comprehend, and to comprehend is to embrace.  It is necessary to love, to become intoxicated by it, just as one gets drunk with wine, even to the extent that one knows no longer what one is drinking.  And to drink, to drink, to drink, without drawing breath, day and night!

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