it, they had no faith in it; the
future, they loved it, but how? As Pygmalion before Galatea, it was for
them a lover in marble, and they waited for the breath of life to animate
that breast, for blood to color those veins.

There remained then the present, the spirit of the time, angel of the
dawn which is neither night nor day; they found him seated on a lime-sack
filled with bones, clad in the mantle of egoism, and shivering in
terrible cold. The anguish of death entered into the soul at the sight of
that spectre, half mummy and half foetus; they approached it as does the
traveller who is shown at Strasburg the daughter of an old count of
Sarvenden, embalmed in her bride's dress: that childish skeleton makes
one shudder, for her slender and livid hand wears the wedding-ring and
her head decays enwreathed in orange-blossoms.

As on the approach of a tempest there passes through the forests a
terrible gust of wind which makes the trees shudder, to which profound
silence succeeds, so had Napoleon, in passing, shaken the world; kings
felt their crowns oscillate in the storm, and, raising hands to steady
them, found only their hair, bristling with terror. The Pope had
travelled three hundred leagues to bless him in the name of God and to
crown him with the diadem; but Napoleon had taken it from his hands. Thus
everything trembled in that dismal forest of old Europe; then silence
succeeded.

It is said that when you meet a mad dog, if you keep quietly on your way
without turning, the dog will merely follow you a short distance growling
and showing his teeth; but if you allow yourself to be frightened into a
movement of terror, if you but make a sudden step, he will leap at your
throat and devour you; that when the first bite has been taken there is
no escaping him.

In European history it has often happened that a sovereign has made such
a movement of terror and his people have devoured him; but if one had
done it, all had not done it at the same time--that is to say, one king
had disappeared, but not all royal majesty. Before the sword of Napoleon
majesty made this movement, this gesture which ruins everything, not only
majesty but religion, nobility, all power both human and divine.

Napoleon dead, human and divine power were reestablished, but belief in
them no longer existed. A terrible danger lurks in the knowledge of what
is possible, for the mind always goes farther. It is one thing to say:
"That may be" and an