560 Les Miserables
and supreme equity to alter its plan. Probably the principles
and the elements, on which the regular gravitations of the
moral, as of the material, world depend, had complained.
Smoking blood, over-filled cemeteries, mothers in tears,—
these are formidable pleaders. When the earth is suffering
from too heavy a burden, there are mysterious groanings of
the shades, to which the abyss lends an ear.
Napoleon had been denounced in the infinite and his fall
had been decided on.
He embarrassed God.
Waterloo is not a battle; it is a change of front on the part
of the Universe.