Brennus took Rome.
Then he cried: ‘V? victis!’ That is what right is.
Ah! what beasts of prey there are in this world!
What eagles!
It makes my flesh creep.”
He held out his glass to Joly, who filled it, then he drank and went on, having hardly been interrupted by this glass of wine, of which no one, not even himself, had taken any notice:—
“Brennus, who takes Rome, is an eagle; the banker who takes the grisette is an eagle.
There is no more modesty in the one case than in the other.
So we believe in nothing.
There is but one reality: drink.
Whatever your opinion may be in favor of the lean cock, like the Canton of Uri, or in favor of the fat cock, like the Canton of Glaris, it matters little, drink.
You talk to me of the boulevard, of that procession, et c?tera, et c?tera.
Come now, is there going to be another revolution?
This poverty of means on the part of the good God astounds me.
He has to keep greasing the groove of events every moment.
There is a hitch, it won’t work.
Quick, a revolution!
The good God has his hands perpetually black with that cart-grease.
If I were in his place, I’d be perfectly simple about it, I would not wind up my mechanism every minute, I’d lead the human race in a straightforward way, I’d weave matters mesh by mesh, without breaking the thread, I would have no provisional arrangements, I would have no extraordinary repertory.
What the rest of you call progress advances by means of two motors, men and events.
But, sad to say, from time to time, the exceptional becomes necessary.
The ordinary troupe suffices neither for event nor for men: among men geniuses are required, among events revolutions.
Great accidents are the law; the order of things cannot do without them; and, judging from the apparition of comets, one would be tempted to think that Heaven itself finds actors needed for its performance.
At the moment when one expects it the least, God placards a meteor on the wall of the firmament.
Some queer star turns up, underlined by an enormous tail.
And that causes the death of C?sar.
Brutus deals him a blow with a knife, and God a blow with a comet.
Crac, and behold an aurora borealis, behold a revolution, behold a great man; ‘93 in big letters, Napoleon on guard, the comet of 1811 at the head of the poster.
Ah! what a beautiful blue theatre all studded with unexpected flashes!
Boum! Boum! extraordinary show!
Raise your eyes, boobies.
Everything is in disorder, the star as well as the drama.
Good God, it is too much and not enough.
These resources, gathered from exception, seem magnificence and poverty.
My friends, Providence has come down to expedients.
What does a revolution prove?
That God is in a quandry.
He effects a coup d‘etat because he, God, has not been able to make both ends meet.
In fact, this confirms me in my conjectures as to Jehovah’s fortune; and when I see so much distress in heaven and on earth, from the bird who has not a grain of millet to myself without a hundred thousand livres of income, when I see human destiny, which is very badly worn, and even royal destiny, which is threadbare, witness the Prince de Conde hung, when I see winter, which is nothing but a rent in the zenith through which the wind blows, when I see so many rags even in the perfectly new purple of the morning on the crests of hills, when I see the drops of dew, those mock pearls, when I see the frost, that paste, when I see humanity ripped apart and events patched up, and so many spots on the sun and so many holes in the moon, when I see so much misery everywhere, I suspect that God is not rich.
The appearance exists, it is true, but I feel that he is hard up.
He gives a revolution as a tradesman whose money-box is empty gives a ball.
God must not be judged from appearances.
Beneath the gilding of heaven I perceive a poverty-stricken universe.
Creation is bankrupt.
That is why I am discontented.
Here it is the 4th of June, it is almost night; ever since this morning I have been waiting for daylight to come; it has not come, and I bet that it won’t come all day.
This is the inexactness of an ill-paid clerk.
Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits anything else, this old world is all warped, I take my stand on the opposition, everything goes awry; the universe is a tease.
It’s like children, those who want them have none, and those who don’t want them have them.
Total: I’m vexed.