e myrtle, the symbol of love, the laurel,
the symbol of air, the olive, that ninny, the symbol of peace, the
apple-tree which came nearest rangling Adam with its pips, and the
fig-tree, the grandfather of petticoats. As for right, do you know what
right is? The Gauls covet Clusium, Rome protects Clusium, and demands
what wrong Clusium has done to them. Brennus answers: 'The wrong that
Alba did to you, the wrong that Fidenae did to you, the wrong that the
Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done to you. They were your
neighbors. The Clusians are ours. We understand neighborliness just as
you do. You have stolen Alba, we shall take Clusium.' Rome said: 'You
shall not take Clusium.' Brennus took Rome. Then he cried: 'Vae 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 caetera,
et caetera. 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 c