Page 53 - les-miserables

On some semi-official occasion or other, I do not recol-
lect what, Count*** [this senator] and M. Myriel were to dine
with the prefect. At dessert, the senator, who was slightly
exhilarated, though still perfectly dignified, exclaimed:—
‘Egad, Bishop, let’s have a discussion. It is hard for a sena-
tor and a bishop to look at each other without winking. We
are two augurs. I am going to make a confession to you. I
have a philosophy of my own.’
‘And you are right,’ replied the Bishop. ‘As one makes
one’s philosophy, so one lies on it. You are on the bed of
purple, senator.’
The senator was encouraged, and went on:—
‘Let us be good fellows.’
‘Good devils even,’ said the Bishop.
‘I declare to you,’ continued the senator, ‘that the Mar-
quis d’Argens, Pyrrhon, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are no
rascals. I have all the philosophers in my library gilded on
the edges.’
‘Like yourself, Count,’ interposed the Bishop.
The senator resumed:—
‘I hate Diderot; he is an ideologist, a declaimer, and a rev-
olutionist, a believer in God at bottom, and more bigoted
than Voltaire. Voltaire made sport of Needham, and he was
wrong, for Needham’s eels prove that God is useless. A drop
of vinegar in a spoonful of flour paste supplies the fiat lux.
Suppose the drop to be larger and the spoonful bigger; you
have the world. Man is the eel. Then what is the good of the
Eternal Father? The Jehovah hypothesis tires me, Bishop. It is
good for nothing but to produce shallow people, whose rea-

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