imposed on Europe; he
beheld the grand figure of the people emerge from the Revolution, 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 comprehended 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 goodness, 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!" How he would have
embraced that white head, bathed his hair in tears, gazed upon his scar,
pressed his hands, adored his garment, kissed his feet! Oh! Why had his
father died so early, before his time, before the justice, the love of
his son had come to him? Marius had a continual sob in his heart, which
said to him every moment: "Alas!" At the same time, he became more truly
serious, more truly grave, more sure of his thought and his faith. At
each instant, gleams of the true came to complete his reason. An inward
growth seemed to be in progress within him. He was conscious of a sort
of natural enlargement, which gave him two things that were new to
him--his father and his country.

As everything opens when one has a key, so he explained to himself that
which he had hated, he penetrated that which he had abhorred; henceforth
he plainly perceived the providential, divine and human sense of the
great things which he had been taught to detest, and of the great men
whom he had been instructed to curse. When he reflected on his former
opinions, which were but those of yesterday, and which, nevertheless,
seemed to him al