ofiles, one turned towards the past, the
other towards the future, but as tragic the one as the other. Lantenac
was the first of these profiles, Cimourdain was the second; only the
bitter rictus of Lantenac was covered with shadow and night, and on
the fatal brow of Cimourdain was a gleaming of the dawn" (ii. 91).

[Footnote 1: In corroboration of this view of the Vendean rising as
democratic, see Mortimer-Ternaux, _Hist. de la Terreur_, vol. vi. bk.
30.]

And let us mark Victor Hugo's signal distinction in his analysis
of character. It is not mere vigour of drawing, nor acuteness of
perception, nor fire of imagination, though he has all these gifts in
a singular degree, and truest of their kind. But then Scott had
them too, and yet we feel in Victor Hugo's work a seriousness, a
significance, a depth of tone, which never touches us in the work of
his famous predecessor in romance, delightful as the best of that work
is. Balfour of Burley is one of Scott's most commanding figures, and
the stern Covenanter is nearly in the same plane of character as the
stern heroic Jacobin. Yet Cimourdain impresses us more profoundly. He
is as natural, as human, as readily conceivable, and yet he produces
something of the subtle depth of effect which belongs to the actor in
a play of Aeschylus. Why is this? Because Hugo makes us conscious of
that tragedy of temperament, that sterner Necessity of character,
that resistless compulsion of circumstance, which is the modern and
positive expression for the old Destiny of the Greeks, and which in
some expression or other is now an essential element in the highest
presentation of human life. Here is not the Unknown. On the contrary,
we are in the very heart of science; tragedy to the modern is
not [Greek: tuchae], but a thing of cause and effect, invariable
antecedent and invariable consequent. It is the presence of this
tragic force underlying action that gives to all Hugo's work its lofty
quality, its breadth, and generality, and fills both it, and us who
read, with pity and gravity and an understanding awe.

The action is this. Cimourdain had the young Gauvain to train from his
earliest childhood, and the pupil grew up with the same rigid sense
of duty as the master, though temperament modified its form. When the
Revolution came, Gauvain, though a noble, took sides with the people,
but he was not of the same spirit as his teacher. "The Revolution,"
says Victor Hugo, "by the side of youthfu