1422 Les Miserables
real. It is because it must be that it is.
None the less did the old legitimist parties assail the Rev-
olution of 1830 with all the vehemence which arises from
false reasoning. Errors make excellent projectiles. They
strike it cleverly in its vulnerable spot, in default of a cui-
rass, in its lack of logic; they attacked this revolution in its
royalty. They shouted to it: ‘Revolution, why this king?’ Fac-
tions are blind men who aim correctly.
This cry was uttered equally by the republicans. But com-
ing from them, this cry was logical. What was blindness in
the legitimists was clearness of vision in the democrats.
1830 had bankrupted the people. The enraged democracy
reproached it with this.
Between the attack of the past and the attack of the fu-
ture, the establishment of July struggled. It represented the
minute at loggerheads on the one hand with the monarchi-
cal centuries, on the other hand with eternal right.
In addition, and beside all this, as it was no longer revolu-
tion and had become a monarchy, 1830 was obliged to take
precedence of all Europe. To keep the peace, was an increase
of complication. A harmony established contrary to sense is
often more onerous than a war. From this secret conflict, al-
ways muzzled, but always growling, was born armed peace,
that ruinous expedient of civilization which in the harness
of the European cabinets is suspicious in itself. The Roy-
alty of July reared up, in spite of the fact that it caught it in
the harness of European cabinets. Metternich would gladly
have put it in kicking-straps. Pushed on in France by prog-
ress, it pushed on the monarchies, those loiterers in Europe.