Page 1838 - les-miserables

for men: among men geniuses are required, among events
revolutions. Great accidents are the law; the order of things
cannot do without them; and, judging from the apparition
of comets, one would be tempted to think that Heaven it-
self finds actors needed for its performance. At the moment
when one expects it the least, God placards a meteor on the
wall of the firmament. Some queer star turns up, underlined
by an enormous tail. And that causes the death of Caesar.
Brutus deals him a blow with a knife, and God a blow with
a comet. Crac, and behold an aurora borealis, behold a revo-
lution, behold a great man; ‘93 in big letters, Napoleon on
guard, the comet of 1811 at the head of the poster. Ah! what
a beautiful blue theatre all studded with unexpected flashes!
Boum! Boum! extraordinary show! Raise your eyes, boo-
bies. Everything is in disorder, the star as well as the drama.
Good God, it is too much and not enough. These resources,
gathered from exception, seem magnificence and pover-
ty. My friends, Providence has come down to expedients.
What does a revolution prove? That God is in a quandry.
He effects a coup d’etat because he, God, has not been able
to make both ends meet. In fact, this confirms me in my
conjectures as to Jehovah’s fortune; and when I see so much
distress in heaven and on earth, from the bird who has not a
grain of millet to myself without a hundred thousand livres
of income, when I see human destiny, which is very badly
worn, and even royal destiny, which is threadbare, witness
the Prince de Conde hung, when I see winter, which is noth-
ing but a rent in the zenith through which the wind blows,
when I see so many rags even in the perfectly new purple

1838 Les Miserables