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Updated: September 4, 2025
A sophist is a forger, and this forger sometimes brutalizes good sense. A certain logic, very supple, very implacable, and very agile, is at the service of evil, and excels in stabbing truth in the dark. These are blows struck by the devil at Providence. The worst of it was that Barkilphedro had a presentiment.
Josiana could not be struck in the heart the spot where the enigma lies is hard to wound; but she could be struck in the head that is, in her pride. It was there that she thought herself strong, and that she was weak. Barkilphedro had found it out.
Josiana had given two of these confidential keys Lord David had one, Barkilphedro the other. However, to enter straight into a bedchamber was, in the old code of manners, a thing not in the least out of the way. Thence resulted incidents. La Ferté, suddenly drawing back the bed curtains of Mademoiselle Lafont, found inside Sainson, the black musketeer, etc., etc.
The Admiral meant the Admiralty; with waifs, the Admiralty meant Barkilphedro. Barkilphedro, having uncorked and emptied the bottle, carried it to the queen. The queen immediately took the matter into consideration.
So that between two religions, Barkilphedro found himself with his soul on the ground. Not a bad posture, either, for certain reptile souls. Certain ways are impracticable, except by crawling flat on the belly. An obscure but fattening servitude had long made up Barkilphedro's whole existence. Service is something; but he wanted power besides.
The waves to which this flask had been flung watching over that past which contained a future; the whirlwind breathing kindly on it; the currents directing the frail waif across the fathomless wastes of water; the caution exercised by seaweed, the swells, the rocks; the vast froth of the abyss, taking under its protection an innocent child; the wave imperturbable as a conscience; chaos re-establishing order; the worldwide shadows ending in radiance; darkness employed to bring to light the star of truth; the exile consoled in his tomb; the heir given back to his inheritance; the crime of the king repaired; divine premeditation obeyed; the little, the weak, the deserted child with infinity for a guardian all this Barkilphedro might have seen in the event on which he triumphed.
And Barkilphedro, who had studied and laboured and taken pains, and stuffed his eyes and his brain with great books, who had grown mouldy in old works and in science, who was full of wit, who could command armies, who could, if he would, write tragedies like Otway and Dryden, who was made to be an emperor Barkilphedro had been reduced to permit this nobody to prevent him from dying of hunger.
So, half against his will, half of it because after he had done with the wapentake he had to do with Barkilphedro, and he had given a certain amount of consent to his abductions he had left the real for the chimerical; the true for the false; Dea for Josiana; love for pride; liberty for power; labour proud and poor for opulence full of unknown responsibilities; the shade in which is God for the lurid flames in which the devils dwell; Paradise for Olympus!
But these jurors being held to secrecy, there resulted for Barkilphedro a certain discretionary latitude; it depended upon him, to a certain extent, to suppress a fact or bring it to light. These fragile floating messages were far from being what Barkilphedro had told Josiana, rare and insignificant. Some times they reached land with little delay; at others, after many years.
Free licence had been given to his spite. From that day he thrust his curiosity everywhere, and his malignity with it. He was given his way, so much was he feared. He who can make the king laugh makes the others tremble. He was a powerful buffoon. Every day he worked his way forward underground. Barkilphedro became a necessity.
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