十六七年前，我在凡尔赛宫见到法国皇后，其初为太子娇妻，恍若天仙下凡，带来世间从未有过的美妙光景。我见其又如晨星，满是生机、活力、快乐，在地极之上，为这高地带来装点与庆祝。呜呼，这革命！这高升，这陨落，每当念想就难以释怀。渐渐地，她给我起初热情的，遥远的，尊敬的爱加增了几分敬畏，而我做梦也想不到，有朝一日她要用那藏在胸间的尖刀才能抵御卑鄙的攻击。我做梦也想不到有朝一日会目睹，在这勇士的、骑士的、大丈夫的国度，会有如此的灾难降在她身上。我本以为，若有小人妄敢斜眼瞟她，便有千万猛将拔出刀剑置之死地。
如今辩论士，经济师，算数人横行，骑士风度一去不返，欧洲的荣耀永远地消逝了。我们对尊位，对女士，曾经的忠贞不再了，不再了。我们一度如此骄傲地称臣，如此光荣地俯伏，哪怕身为臣子，顺从的心中却是崇高的自由！我们的生命不加修饰便怡然自乐，我们的国家无需多虑便固若金汤。这里孕育了多少千古佳话，英勇事迹，尽都不再了。我们一度坚守道德，尊严，稍加玷污便血指汗颜，使得壮士勇猛却不蛮横，言行无处不得体。劣行虽有，却无所谓邪，更无至于恶也。
It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like the morning star full of life and splendor and joy. 0h, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.
But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.
But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.
