them, that Byron perished at
Missolonghi, and that Mazet died at Barcelona; it is the tribune under
the feet of Mirabeau, and a crater under the feet of Robespierre;
its books, its theatre, its art, its science, its literature, its
philosophy, are the manuals of the human race; it has Pascal, Regnier,
Corneille, Descartes, Jean-Jacques: Voltaire for all moments, Moliere
for all centuries; it makes its language to be talked by the universal
mouth, and that language becomes the word; it constructs in all minds
the idea of progress, the liberating dogmas which it forges are for the
generations trusty friends, and it is with the soul of its thinkers and
its poets that all heroes of all nations have been made since 1789; this
does not prevent vagabondism, and that enormous genius which is called
Paris, while transfiguring the world by its light, sketches in charcoal
Bouginier's nose on the wall of the temple of Theseus and writes
Credeville the thief on the Pyramids.

Paris is always showing its teeth; when it is not scolding it is
laughing.

Such is Paris. The smoke of its roofs forms the ideas of the universe. A
heap of mud and stone, if you will, but, above all, a moral being. It is
more than great, it is immense. Why? Because it is daring.

To dare; that is the price of progress.

All sublime conquests are, more or less, the prizes of daring. In
order that the Revolution should take place, it does not suffice that
Montesquieu should foresee it, that Diderot should preach it, that
Beaumarchais should announce it, that Condorcet should calculate it,
that Arouet should prepare it, that Rousseau should premeditate it; it
is necessary that Danton should dare it.

The cry: Audacity! is a Fiat lux. It is necessary, for the sake of the
forward march of the human race, that there should be proud lessons of
courage permanently on the heights. Daring deeds dazzle history and are
one of man's great sources of light. The dawn dares when it rises. To
attempt, to brave, to persist, to persevere, to be faithful to one's
self, to grasp fate bodily, to astound catastrophe by the small amount
of fear that it occasions us, now to affront unjust power, again to
insult drunken victory, to hold one's position, to stand one's ground;
that is the example which nations need, that is the light which
electrifies them. The same formidable lightning proceeds from the torch
of Prometheus to Cambronne's short pipe.

CHAPTER XII--THE FUTURE