Page 1076 - les-miserables

es without terror; the Revolution and the Empire presented
themselves luminously, in perspective, before his mind’s
eye; he beheld each of these groups of events and of men
summed up in two tremendous facts: the Republic in the
sovereignty of civil right restored to the masses, the Empire
in the sovereignty of the French idea imposed on Europe; he
beheld the grand figure of the people emerge from the Rev-
olution, and the grand figure of France spring forth from
the Empire. He asserted in his conscience, that all this had
been good. What his dazzled state neglected in this, his first
far too synthetic estimation, we do not think it necessary
to point out here. It is the state of a mind on the march that
we are recording. Progress is not accomplished in one stage.
That stated, once for all, in connection with what precedes
as well as with what is to follow, we continue.
He then perceived that, up to that moment, he had com-
prehended his country no more than he had comprehended
his father. He had not known either the one or the other,
and a sort of voluntary night had obscured his eyes. Now
he saw, and on the one hand he admired, while on the other
he adored.
He was filled with regret and remorse, and he reflected in
despair that all he had in his soul could now be said only to
the tomb. Oh! if his father had still been in existence, if he
had still had him, if God, in his compassion and his good-
ness, had permitted his father to be still among the living,
how he would have run, how he would have precipitated
himself, how he would have cried to his father: ‘Father! Here
I am! It is I! I have the same heart as thou! I am thy son!’

1076 Les Miserables