Page 586 - les-miserables

In this event, stamped with superhuman necessity, the
part played by men amounts to nothing.
If we take Waterloo from Wellington and Blucher, do we
thereby deprive England and Germany of anything? No.
Neither that illustrious England nor that august Germany
enter into the problem of Waterloo. Thank Heaven, na-
tions are great, independently of the lugubrious feats of the
sword. Neither England, nor Germany, nor France is con-
tained in a scabbard. At this epoch when Waterloo is only
a clashing of swords, above Blucher, Germany has Schiller;
above Wellington, England has Byron. A vast dawn of ideas
is the peculiarity of our century, and in that aurora England
and Germany have a magnificent radiance. They are ma-
jestic because they think. The elevation of level which they
contribute to civilization is intrinsic with them; it proceeds
from themselves and not from an accident. The aggrandize-
ment which they have brought to the nineteenth century has
not Waterloo as its source. It is only barbarous peoples who
undergo rapid growth after a victory. That is the temporary
vanity of torrents swelled by a storm. Civilized people, espe-
cially in our day, are neither elevated nor abased by the good
or bad fortune of a captain. Their specific gravity in the hu-
man species results from something more than a combat.
Their honor, thank God! their dignity, their intelligence,
their genius, are not numbers which those gamblers, heroes
and conquerors, can put in the lottery of battles. Often a
battle is lost and progress is conquered. There is less glory
and more liberty. The drum holds its peace; reason takes
the word. It is a game in which he who loses wins. Let us,

586 Les Miserables