2004 Les Miserables
same opportunity; politically, it is all votes possessed of the
same weight; religiously, it is all consciences possessed of
the same right. Equality has an organ: gratuitous and oblig-
atory instruction. The right to the alphabet, that is where
the beginning must be made. The primary school imposed
on all, the secondary school offered to all, that is the law.
From an identical school, an identical society will spring.
Yes, instruction! light! light! everything comes from light,
and to it everything returns. Citizens, the nineteenth cen-
tury is great, but the twentieth century will be happy. Then,
there will be nothing more like the history of old, we shall
no longer, as to-day, have to fear a conquest, an invasion, a
usurpation, a rivalry of nations, arms in hand, an interrup-
tion of civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on
a birth in hereditary tyrannies, a partition of peoples by a
congress, a dismemberment because of the failure of a dy-
nasty, a combat of two religions meeting face to face, like
two bucks in the dark, on the bridge of the infinite; we shall
no longer have to fear famine, farming out, prostitution
arising from distress, misery from the failure of work and
the scaffold and the sword, and battles and the ruffianism of
chance in the forest of events. One might almost say: There
will be no more events. We shall be happy. The human race
will accomplish its law, as the terrestrial globe accomplish-
es its law; harmony will be re-established between the soul
and the star; the soul will gravitate around the truth, as the
planet around the light. Friends, the present hour in which
I am addressing you, is a gloomy hour; but these are terrible
purchases of the future. A revolution is a toll. Oh! the hu-