ng just enough of his road to
place his foot before him, and then nothing but darkness; who trembles
if he looks forward, is sad if he looks back; man, enveloped in those
immensities and those obscurities, time, space, and being, and lost in
them; having an abyss within him, his soul; and an abyss without,
heaven; man, who at certain hours bows his head with a sacred horror,
under every force of nature, under the roar of the sea, under the
rustling of the trees, under the shadow of the mountain, under the
twinkling of the stars; man, who can not lift his head by day, without
being blinded by the light, nor by night, without being crushed by the
infinite; man, who knows nothing, who sees nothing, who hears nothing,
who may be swept away to-morrow, to-day, now, by the waves that pass,
by the breeze that blows, by the pebble that falls, by the hour that
strikes; on a certain day, man, that trembling, stumbling being, the
plaything of chance and of the passing moment, rises suddenly before
the riddle that is called human life, feels that there is within him
something greater than this abyss,--honour! something stronger than
fatality,--virtue! something more mysterious than the unknown,--faith!
and alone, feeble and naked, he says to all this formidable mystery
that envelopes him: "Do with me what you will, but I will do this, and
I will not do that;" and proud, tranquil, serene, creating by a word a
fixed point in the sombre instability that fills the horizon, as the
mariner casts his anchor in the sea, he casts his oath into the future.

O plighted oath! admirable confidence of the just man in himself!
Sublime permission given by God to man, to affirm! It is all over.
There are no more of them. Another of the soul's splendours that has
vanished!

BOOK VIII

PROGRESS CONTAINED IN THE COUP D'ETAT

I

THE QUANTUM OF GOOD CONTAINED IN EVIL

Among us democrats, many well-meaning minds were stupefied by the event
of the 2nd of December. It disconcerted some, discouraged others, and
terrified many. I have seen some who cried: _Finis Poloniae_. As for
myself, since at certain times I am obliged to say, I, and to speak in
the face of history as a witness, I proclaim that I saw that event
without perturbation. I say more than this, that at times, in the face
of the 2nd of December, I declare myself satisfied.

When I can abstract myself from the present, when for a moment I can
turn my eyes away from all the c