Visions and Prophecies [antikvár]

Seeing into flic Futureistoiy is full of astonishing predictions about the shape of things to come. But few have been more precise or disturbing than the prophecy reportedly delivered by Jacques Cazotte at a dinner party in Paris, early in 1788.Some time afterward, one of those present, Jean-François de La Harpe, wrote a detailed account of what he claims was said. It was evidently a lively evening. The host was a distinguished nobleman noted for his polished wit, and he had invited an equally luminous company: writers, courtiers, lawyers, members of the French Academy, and ladies of title, all of whom were known for their conversational gifts and high spirits. Cazotte himself was a well-known writer, author of the occult romance Le Diable Amoureux, "The Devil in Love." The dinner was sumptuous, the wine flowed freely, and everyone competed to be more outspoken and irreverent than his or her neighbor. No topic was considered sacred. The ladies listened to delightfully wicked stories without blushing, religion was mocked, the iconoclastic philosopher Voltaire was extolled. All agreed that revolution must soon come to France and that it should be welcomed as a new broom that would sweep away superstition and fanaticism.It was then that Cazotte is said to have stilled the laughter by declaring: "Ladies and gentlemen, be content. You will yet see, every one of you, that great revolution for which you are so eager. You know, I am something of a prophet, and I assure you, you shall all see it." He went on to describe, in chilling detail, exactly how the impending revolution would affect each of those around the table."You, Monsieur de Condorcet, will die prone on the stone floor of a prison cell. You will perish of a poison you will have taken to cheat the executioner. And you, Monsieur de Chamfort, will cut your veins twenty-two times with a razor, and still you will not dieuntil some months later. As for you, Monsieur de Nicolai, you will die on the scaffold. And you, Monsieur Bailly, also on the scaffold." As he continued, people began to whisper, "It is easy to see the man's mad." And "Don't you see he is joking? His jokes, you know, always have something eerie, fantastic, about them." La Harpe, a noted freethinker, objected that Cazotte had not predicted his fate.