Page 1773 - les-miserables

in the presence of all humanity.
Rome smells worse under Vitellius than under Sylla. Un-
der Claudius and under Domitian, there is a deformity of
baseness corresponding to the repulsiveness of the tyrant.
The villainy of slaves is a direct product of the despot; a
miasma exhales from these cowering consciences wherein
the master is reflected; public powers are unclean; hearts
are small; consciences are dull, souls are like vermin; thus
it is under Caracalla, thus it is under Commodus, thus it is
under Heliogabalus, while, from the Roman Senate, under
Caesar, there comes nothing but the odor of the dung which
is peculiar to the eyries of the eagles.
Hence the advent, apparently tardy, of the Tacituses and
the Juvenals; it is in the hour for evidence, that the demon-
strator makes his appearance.
But Juvenal and Tacitus, like Isaiah in Biblical times, like
Dante in the Middle Ages, is man; riot and insurrection are
the multitude, which is sometimes right and sometimes
wrong.
In the majority of cases, riot proceeds from a material
fact; insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Riot is
Masaniello; insurrection, Spartacus. Insurrection borders
on mind, riot on the stomach; Gaster grows irritated; but
Gaster, assuredly, is not always in the wrong. In questions
of famine, riot, Buzancais, for example, holds a true, pathet-
ic, and just point of departure. Nevertheless, it remains a
riot. Why? It is because, right at bottom, it was wrong in
form. Shy although in the right, violent although strong, it
struck at random; it walked like a blind elephant; it left be-

1773