Dans les cieux cependant le globe suspendu,
Par la loi generale a jamais retenu,
Ignore les terreurs, l'existence de Rome,
Et la Terre peut-etre, et jusqu'au nom de l'homme,
De l'homme, etre credule, atome ambitieux,
Qui tremble sous un pretre et qui lit dans les cieux."
This ancient comet witnessed many revolutions in human history, at
each of its appearances, even in its later ones, in 1682, 1759, 1835;
it was also presented to the Earth under the most diverse aspects,
passing through a great variety of forms, from the appearance of a
curved sabre, as in 1456, to that of a misty head, as in its last
visit. Moreover, this is not an exception to the general rule, for
these mysterious stars have had the gift of exercising a power on the
imagination which plunged it in ecstasy or trouble. Swords of fire,
bloody crosses, flaming daggers, spears, dragons, fish, and other
appearances of the same kind, were given to them in the middle ages
and the Renaissance.
Comets like those of 1577 appear, moreover, to justify by their
strange form the titles with which they are generally greeted.
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