To conceive so many Horrors, one must figure to one's self, in one View, all the Miseries and Calamities that Human Nature is subject to; and one cannot venture to draw near such a Scene, without being struck dead, or seiz'd with unutterable Horrors of Mind.
The 30th, those Heaps of dead Bodies which are in every Quarter of the City, are increas'd by new ones; every Night adds a thousand Dead; and now none of the Slaves are left to work, they are all dead, or sick of the Distemper; nor can more be demanded, after the Protestation made by the Officers of the Gallies.
What can be done in Circumstances so full of Desolation? The Sheriffs have Recourse, as usual, to the First President, and intreat him to dispatch a Courier for them to the Court, to sollicit his Royal Highness to send Orders for their being supplied with as many Galley-Slaves as they shall have occasion for: They desire him also to write to M. _de Rancé_ and _de Vaucresson_, to persuade them to grant, in the mean while, at least a Hundred.
The 31st, it is impossible for the Hospitals to receive the Number of Sick who crowd thither: As soon as one Person in a House is seized with the Distemper, that Person becomes an Object of Horror and Affright to the nearest Relations; Nature instantly forgets all ordinary Duties; and the Bands of Flesh and Blood being less strong than the Fear of certain Death, shamefully dissolve in an Instant.
As the Distemper which has seized that Person, threatens to attack them; as the Contagion communicates it self with extreme Quickness; as the Danger is almost equal to him that suffers, and to those who approach him; and as those who tend and help him have no other Prospect than that of following him in a few Days; they take at first the barbarous Resolution, either to drive him out of the House, or to fly and desert it themselves, and to leave him alone without Assistance or Relief, abandoned to Hunger, Thirst, and all that can render Death the more tormenting.
Thus Wives treat their Husbands, and Husbands their Wives, Children their Parents, and Parents their Children: Vain Precaution, inspired by Love of Life, and Horror of Death! By that time they take their Resolution, they have already catch'd the subtle Effluvia of the fatal Poison they would secure themselves from; they are soon sensible of its Malignity, a speedy Death is the Punishment of their Cruelty and Baseness: Others have the same Hardness of Heart towards them; they are forced into the open Street in their Turn, or are left alone in their Houses to perish without Help.