2002 Les Miserables
consecrated by intelligence, and finally conquered these
monsters. We have vanquished the hydra, and it is called
the locomotive; we are on the point of vanquishing the grif-
fin, we already grasp it, and it is called the balloon. On the
day when this Promethean task shall be accomplished, and
when man shall have definitely harnessed to his will the tri-
ple Chimaera of antiquity, the hydra, the dragon and the
griffin, he will be the master of water, fire, and of air, and
he will be for the rest of animated creation that which the
ancient gods formerly were to him. Courage, and onward!
Citizens, whither are we going? To science made govern-
ment, to the force of things become the sole public force,
to the natural law, having in itself its sanction and its pen-
alty and promulgating itself by evidence, to a dawn of truth
corresponding to a dawn of day. We are advancing to the
union of peoples; we are advancing to the unity of man.
No more fictions; no more parasites. The real governed by
the true, that is the goal. Civilization will hold its assizes at
the summit of Europe, and, later on, at the centre of conti-
nents, in a grand parliament of the intelligence. Something
similar has already been seen. The amphictyons had two sit-
tings a year, one at Delphos the seat of the gods, the other
at Thermopylae, the place of heroes. Europe will have her
amphictyons; the globe will have its amphictyons. France
bears this sublime future in her breast. This is the gestation
of the nineteenth century. That which Greece sketched out
is worthy of being finished by France. Listen to me, you,
Feuilly, valiant artisan, man of the people. I revere you. Yes,
you clearly behold the future, yes, you are right. You had