Happily wiser counsels prevail now. When Defoe's jest
was discovered, and his opponents found that the book was "writ
sarcastic," they caused the unhappy author to be severely punished.
Parliament condemned his book to the flames, and its author to the pillory
and to prison. On his release he wrote other political pamphlets, which
involved him in new troubles; and, disgusted with politics, he turned his
versatile talents to other literary work, and produced his immortal book
_Robinson Crusoe_, which has been translated into all languages, and is
known and read by every one.
Young's _Night Thoughts_ might not be considered a suitable form of poem
for parody, but this M. Durosoi, or Du Rosoi, accomplished in his _Les
Jours d'Ariste_ (1770), and was sent to the Bastille for his pains. The
cause of his condemnation was that he had published this work without
permission, and also perhaps on account of certain political allusions
contained in his second work, _Le Nouvel Ami des Hommes_, published in the
same year. But a worse fate awaited Du Rosoi on account of his writings.
In the dangerous years of 1791 and 1792 he edited _La Gazette de Paris_,
which procured greater celebrity for him, and brought about his death.
When the fatal tenth of August came, the Editor was not to be found in
Paris. However, ultimately he was secured and condemned to death by the
tribunal extraordinary appointed by the Legislative Assembly to judge the
enemies of the new government.
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