Un Fair at St. Ovid's

Un Fair at St. Ovid's by J.B. Pravda

As I wandered about the street spectacle, it no longer redeemed by
nominal homage to one anciently beatified, I happened upon revulsion,
paraded as entertainment: there, at the Place de la Concorde, a
burlesque so cruel as to belay the luncheon I had undertaken.

Arrayed as a madman's orchestra were several pitiable souls attired in
dunce caps, exaggerated paper eyeglasses and the ears of an ass, oddly
accoutered with, now, useless instruments of that which the ancients'
Muse renders sublime ! Was this some misguided offense aimed at that
seeming pagan goddess by the merciless civilized Church whose mere
nominee did somehow sanctify this inhumaneness? These miserable
inhabitants of the Hospice Quinze-Vingts, the place of honor erected by
King Louis IX for those blinded by lance and boiling oil and tar in the
battles for the Holy Land, had been employed in this mockery of
discordance for the eye and ear so as to earn their supper!

Splayed upon a music-rack below which certain 'ladies &; gentlemen'
delicately dined these meek, now bereft of sight, must surely have
silently offered tearful thanks to God that the silvered glass was at
once denied their visage and, fittingly, availing as the ironic
fun-house for that of their unwitting, yea, witless, specatators, upon
whom I now summon the fittingly 'pagan' Fates to reek the torments of
Oedipus!

Entered upon my Diary on this 14th day of September, Year of My Lord
1771

Valentin Hauy

Author's note: for a wonderful old engraving of this event, see:
www.nyise.org/blind/hauy.htm