DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0055
AND LOWER EGYPT. 2g
down the theatre : we were not greatly disquieted
at this. At length, after five or six representations,
during which the opposition gradually diminished,
we had the satisfaction to see our principles gene-
rally adopted. The actress who, before our arri-
val, had constantly been received with unbounded
applause, ceased to enjoy the public approbation,
which was all transferred to her whom we protected.
Satisfied with this triumph, which was that of good
taste, we gave an entertainment on board the fri-
gate to both the ladies. She whose success we had
interrupted accepted with a very good grace, and
we did every thing in our power to compensate the
slight reverse of reputation which we procured her.
At this same spectacle it was that I saw, for the
first time, those degraded beings who have nothing
of man but the exterior. Sacrificed to the improve-
ment of the loveliest of arts, they acquire, at the
expense of their very existence, a voice sonorous,
melodious, but which is totally out of nature, as it
is neither the voice of a man nor of a woman.
France has not sullied itself with such a crime.
Unknown likewise to most of the nations of Eu-
rope, it was reserved for priests beyond the Alps,
the men, in whose hands excommunication was a
piece of armour so harmless, that they discharged it
in season, out of season; these men shuddered not
at the thought of composing choirs destined to sing
the
down the theatre : we were not greatly disquieted
at this. At length, after five or six representations,
during which the opposition gradually diminished,
we had the satisfaction to see our principles gene-
rally adopted. The actress who, before our arri-
val, had constantly been received with unbounded
applause, ceased to enjoy the public approbation,
which was all transferred to her whom we protected.
Satisfied with this triumph, which was that of good
taste, we gave an entertainment on board the fri-
gate to both the ladies. She whose success we had
interrupted accepted with a very good grace, and
we did every thing in our power to compensate the
slight reverse of reputation which we procured her.
At this same spectacle it was that I saw, for the
first time, those degraded beings who have nothing
of man but the exterior. Sacrificed to the improve-
ment of the loveliest of arts, they acquire, at the
expense of their very existence, a voice sonorous,
melodious, but which is totally out of nature, as it
is neither the voice of a man nor of a woman.
France has not sullied itself with such a crime.
Unknown likewise to most of the nations of Eu-
rope, it was reserved for priests beyond the Alps,
the men, in whose hands excommunication was a
piece of armour so harmless, that they discharged it
in season, out of season; these men shuddered not
at the thought of composing choirs destined to sing
the