nge their star--that induced
him again and again, at each change of horses, to put his head out of
the carriage window, and thus be recognised three or four times? And at
the moment that decided all, in that throbbing and sinister night of
Varennes--a night indeed when fatality should have been an immovable
mountain governing all the horizon--do we not see this fatality
stumbling at every step, like a child that is learning to walk and
wonders, is it this white pebble or that tuft of grass that will cause
it to fall to right or to left of the path? And then, at the tragic
halt of the carriage, in that black night: at the terrible cry sent
forth by young Drouet, "In the name of the Nation!" there had needed
but one order from the king, one lash of the whip, one pull at the
collar--and you and I would probably not have been born, for the
history of the world had been different. And again, in presence of the
mayor, who stood there, respectful, disconcerted, hesitating, ready to
fling every gate open had but one imperious word been spoken; and at
the shop of M. Sauce, the worthy village grocer; and, last of all, when
Goguelat and de Choiseul had arrived with their hussars, bringing
rescue, salvation--did not all depend, a hundred times over, on a mere
yes or no, a step, a gesture, a look? Take any ten men with whom you
are intimate, let them have been King of France, you can foretell the
issue of their ten nights. Ah, it was that night truly that heaped
shame on fatality, that laid bare her weakness! For that night revealed
to all men the dependence, the wretched and shivering poverty of the
great mysterious force that, in moments of undue resignation, seems to
weigh so heavily on life! Never before has she been beheld so
completely despoiled of her vestments, of her imposing, deceptive
robes, as she incessantly came and went that night, from death to life,
from life to death; throwing herself at last, like a woman distraught,
into the arms of an unhappy king, whom she besought til dawn for a
decision, an existence, that she herself never can find save only in
the depths of the will and the intellect of man.

22. And yet this is not the entire truth. It is helpful to regard
events in this fashion, thus seeking to minimise the importance of
fatality, looking upon it as some vague and wandering creature that we
have to shelter and guide. We gain the more courage thereby, the more
confidence, initiative; and these are qualitie