Amenthes, this term was for the Egyptians what ἀδὴς was for the Greeks, an underground place where all souls go when they leave their bodies. It was a place that both receives and gives back again, since it was supposed that when an animal died, its soul descended underground before returning to the world to live in a new body. Almost every Lawgiver has conceived that the good and the wicked will live on in another world when this life is over, with some being rewarded and others punished. Only this idea or metempsychosis seemed to them to bring Providence into line with the uneven distribution of good and evil fortune in this world. Philosophy inspired both these ideas in the wise, and revelation taught us which of them we should see as true. Now we can no longer feel uncertain about our future existence, nor about the nature of the good or evil things that await us after death. The word of God having been positively expressed on these important subjects, no room is left for other hypotheses. But I am very surprised that among the classical philosophers who did not benefit from such enlightenment, none, as far as I know, ever imagined adding to the torments of Tartarus or the pleasures of Elysium the only ornament they lacked, that the wicked should hear in Tartarus all the bad things and the good in Elysium all the good things that people say or think about them when they are no longer alive. This idea has occurred to me several times when contemplating the equestrian statue of Henry IV of France. I was annoyed that this great monarch could not hear the praise my heart was showering on him. This praise would have pleased him so much! for I was no longer his subject.