And what kind of being is he, this devil? A spark of life is communicated to him by caricaturing Rouget de Lisle. But for this he is a boneless, bloodless allegorical figure. Watch him descending to his kingdom. "Quicker than thought he traverses space, which will one day disappear (a truly marvellous idea, this!); on the farther side of the howling remains of chaos he comes to the boundaries of those regions which are as imperishable as the vengeance which created them--cursed regions, death's grave and cradle, over which time has no power, and which will still exist when the universe has been carried away like a tent that is set up for a day; ... he follows no path through the darkness, but, drawn downwards by the weight of his crimes(!), descends _naturally_ into hell." In his kingdom he is surrounded by figures which are either purely allegorical--in which case they are the funnier the more terrible the author has intended them to be--or else caricatures of Voltairians and Voltaire, which, in the middle of this solemn epic poem, produce the effect of scraps of ill-natured newspaper articles which have found their way in by some mistake.
Death is thus described: "A phantom suddenly appears upon the threshold of the inexorable portals--it is Death. It shows like a dark spot against the flames of the burning prison-cells behind it; its skeleton allows the livid yellow beams of hell-fire to pass through the apertures between its bones.... Satan, seized with horror, turns away his head to avoid the skeleton's kiss." And here are two other demons: "Bound by a hundred knots of adamant (!) to a throne of bronze, the demon of Despair sits ruling the empire of Sorrow.... At the entrance of the first vestibule the Eternity of Sufferings lies stretched upon a bed of iron; he is motionless; his heart does not even beat; in his hand he holds an inexhaustible hour-glass. He knows and says only one word--Never." We are reminded of the automaton upon a clock, which says nothing but Cuc-koo.
These demons are like nothing upon earth, but the prototypes of the demons of false wisdom are unmistakable. We have seen that all the ideas of the day on the subject of religion might be summed up in the one word, _order_. Hence in hell, as well as in heaven, order is pertinaciously insisted on. Apropos of a quarrel in hell we read: "A terrible conflict would have ensued if God, who is the sole origin of all _order_, even in hell, had not reduced the brawlers to silence." And we are told of the demon of False Wisdom: "He found fault with the works of the Almighty; he desired in his pride to establish another _order_ amongst the angels and in the kingdom of heavenly wisdom; it was he who became the father of Atheism, that horrible spectre whom Satan himself had not begotten, and who fell in love with Death."