Page 86 - les-miserables

derstood and admired his protest in the name of right and
liberty, his proud opposition, his just but perilous resistance
to the all-powerful Napoleon. But that which pleases us in
people who are rising pleases us less in the case of people
who are falling. We only love the fray so long as there is
danger, and in any case, the combatants of the first hour
have alone the right to be the exterminators of the last. He
who has not been a stubborn accuser in prosperity should
hold his peace in the face of ruin. The denunciator of suc-
cess is the only legitimate executioner of the fall. As for us,
when Providence intervenes and strikes, we let it work. 1812
commenced to disarm us. In 1813 the cowardly breach of
silence of that taciturn legislative body, emboldened by ca-
tastrophe, possessed only traits which aroused indignation.
And it was a crime to applaud, in 1814, in the presence of
those marshals who betrayed; in the presence of that senate
which passed from one dunghill to another, insulting after
having deified; in the presence of that idolatry which was
loosing its footing and spitting on its idol,— it was a duty
to turn aside the head. In 1815, when the supreme disasters
filled the air, when France was seized with a shiver at their
sinister approach, when Waterloo could be dimly discerned
opening before Napoleon, the mournful acclamation of the
army and the people to the condemned of destiny had noth-
ing laughable in it, and, after making all allowance for the
despot, a heart like that of the Bishop of D——, ought not
perhaps to have failed to recognize the august and touching
features presented by the embrace of a great nation and a
great man on the brink of the abyss.

86 Les Miserables