Page 1404 - les-miserables

it? The skilful do not seem to hear the murmured objection,
and they continue their manoeuvres.
According to the politicians, who are ingenious in put-
ting the mask of necessity on profitable fictions, the first
requirement of a people after a revolution, when this people
forms part of a monarchical continent, is to procure for it-
self a dynasty. In this way, say they, peace, that is to say, time
to dress our wounds, and to repair the house, can be had
after a revolution. The dynasty conceals the scaffolding and
covers the ambulance. Now, it is not always easy to procure
a dynasty.
If it is absolutely necessary, the first man of genius or
even the first man of fortune who comes to hand suffices
for the manufacturing of a king. You have, in the first case,
Napoleon; in the second, Iturbide.
But the first family that comes to hand does not suffice
to make a dynasty. There is necessarily required a certain
modicum of antiquity in a race, and the wrinkle of the cen-
turies cannot be improvised.
If we place ourselves at the point of view of the ‘statesmen,’
after making all allowances, of course, after a revolution,
what are the qualities of the king which result from it? He
may be and it is useful for him to be a revolutionary; that
is to say, a participant in his own person in that revolution,
that he should have lent a hand to it, that he should have ei-
ther compromised or distinguished himself therein, that he
should have touched the axe or wielded the sword in it.
What are the qualities of a dynasty? It should be nation-
al; that is to say, revolutionary at a distance, not through

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