Page 2451 - les-miserables

justice springs from your tribunals? Do you chance to be so
fortunate as to be ignorant of the meaning of those gloomy
words: public prosecution, legal infamy, prison, the scaf-
fold, the executioner, the death penalty? Italians, with you
as with us, Beccaria is dead and Farinace is alive. And then,
let us scrutinize your state reasons. Have you a government
which comprehends the identity of morality and politics?
You have reached the point where you grant amnesty to he-
roes! Something very similar has been done in France. Stay,
let us pass miseries in review, let each one contribute his
pile, you are as rich as we. Have you not, like ourselves, two
condemnations, religious condemnation pronounced by
the priest, and social condemnation decreed by the judge?
Oh, great nation of Italy, thou resemblest the great nation
of France! Alas! our brothers, you are, like ourselves, Mis-
erables.
From the depths of the gloom wherein you dwell, you do
not see much more distinctly than we the radiant and dis-
tant portals of Eden. Only, the priests are mistaken. These
holy portals are before and not behind us.
I resume. This book, Les Miserables, is no less your mir-
ror than ours. Certain men, certain castes, rise in revolt
against this book,— I understand that. Mirrors, those re-
vealers of the truth, are hated; that does not prevent them
from being of use.
As for myself, I have written for all, with a profound love
for my own country, but without being engrossed by France
more than by any other nation. In proportion as I advance
in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more

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