Night Prelude - an Allegory: A Record of an Event That Might Have Happened

By Bernard J. Looks

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477100936

Bernard J. Looks

“Many thought and would say that Marty was unrealistic, that he expected far more of his friends, students and associates than they were prepared to give, perhaps more than they could give, that his way was meant for giants and not for ordinary men. To be a part of Marty’s entourage, one had to accept the banishment of complacency, since for him an easy life was not worth living. “Bernie,” he would say to me, “you’ve got it too good in Great Neck.” It was fully understandable to me, therefore, that he modified the well-known Latin saying, sine labore nihil, to read, sine tsores nihil, and applied it, but not without a sardonic smile, to himself and his work in the arts to which he was devoted. It was indeed to be the motto by which he lived, worked and died.” Bernard J. Looks from Failed Friendships Bernard J. Looks holds a Ph.D. in modern European history from Columbia University. He is Emeritus Head of the Social Studies Department of the Great Neck South High School. After retirement, he was an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Humanities at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. From 1973 to 1976, he was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in the Department of History, and from 1973 to 1974 a Visiting fellow at Princeton University in the Department of History. He has published articles on various aspects of the reform of education in Europe in the 19th century, on American education in the 20th century and on film criticism. In preparation, is a translation with introductory essay, annotations and a glossary of the philosophical memoir, entitled, How I Arrived at This Conclusion, by the distinguished French philosopher, Charles Renouvier.

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Copyright © 2012 by Bernard J. Looks.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4771-0092-9

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4771-0093-6

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Last Things First

Chapter 1   The Invitation

Chapter 2   A Pleasant Surprise

Chapter 3   Cabal

Chapter 4   A Charming Diversion

Chapter 5   An Unexpected Ally

Chapter 6   Mainly about Mademoiselle de Lespinasse

Chapter 7   A Woman of Genius

Chapter 8   The Vote Of Silence

Chapter 9   The Ride Home

Author’s Note

`DEDICATION

For Martin S. Dworkin,

Who discovered De l’éducation publique

and called it to my attention.

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Last Things First

It is now early in 1794. I am in the Pension Belhomme, a convalescent home in Paris. Little time is left, so that I am writing, all too briefly I fear, about things that were said so long ago, things that have more and more taken shape in my mind as an indication of what was to come. Any day now, I expect to be released from Pension Belhomme and brought to the tribunal’s prison to await trial.

***

I now know how it will end for me. The guillotine will be my fate. I have fought the good fight but have lost. Engaged all my life in trying to save my circumstances, I have been an advocate of causes that are now anathema to the Revolution as well as of those now cherished by it. Be that as it may, it is too late for regrets.

Moreover, I do not have any, unless it be that I didn’t flee France while there was still time. But I am too old and too sick for that, and so, let things be what they will be.

I have decided, however, that before I die I must leave a written record of what occurred at the salon of the Baron d’Holbach, since it has been gnawing at my brain, as it were, these many many years.

***

The manuscript made ready, and facing imminent death, I have sought a way of preserving it, and decided to have it sent through an intermediary to Guillaume Raynal, who, the reader will subsequently find, was present at the Baron’s salon. The erstwhile philosoph is in Paris having just been elected to the recently established Institut de France.

Having heard of his disillusionment with the violence of the Revolution and his regrets regarding the contribution of the philosophs to the terrible denouement, I thought that his aid might be enlisted to have the manuscript deposited in the archives of the Institut. I have subsequently learned that he was not only receptive to the idea but hoped to be successful. But let my story speak for me from this point on…

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Guillaume-Thomas abbé de Raynal, detail of an engraving by Nicolas Delaunay, 1780, after a drawing by Charles-Nicolas Cochin.

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