[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 youthful figures of giants, such as Danton, Saint-Just, and Robespierre, has young ideal figures, like Hoche and Marceau. Gauvain was one of these figures" (ii. 34). Cimourdain has himself named delegate from the Committee of Public Safety to the expeditionary column of which Gauvain is in command. The warmth of affection between them was undiminished, but difference in temperament bred difference in their principles. They represented, as the author says, with the candour of the poet, the two poles of the truth; the two sides of the inarticulate, subterranean, fatal contention of the year of the Terror. Their arguments with one another make the situation more intelligible to the historic student, as they make the characters of the speakers more transparent for the purposes of the romance.
This is Cimourdain:—
"Beware, there are terrible duties in life. Do not accuse what is not responsible. Since when has the disorder been the fault of the physician? Yes, what marks this tremendous year is being without pity. Why? Because it is the great revolutionary year. This year incarnates the revolution. The revolution has an enemy, the old world, and to that it is pitiless, just as the surgeon has an enemy, gangrene, and is pitiless to that. The revolution extirpates kingship in the king, aristocracy in the noble, despotism in the soldier, superstition in the priest, barbarity in the judge, in a word whatever is tyranny in whatever is tyrant. The operation is frightful, the revolution performs it with a sure hand. As to the quantity of sound flesh that it requires, ask Boerhave what he thinks of it. What tumour that has to be cut out does not involve loss of blood?… The revolution devotes itself to its fated task. It mutilates but it saves…. It has the past in its grasp, it will not spare. It makes in civilisation a deep incision whence shall come the safety of the human race. You suffer? No doubt. How long will it last? The time needed for the operation. Then you will live," etc. (ii. 65-66).
"One day," he adds, "the Revolution will justify the Terror." To which
Gauvain retorts thus:—
"Fear lest the Terror be the calumny of the Revolution. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, are dogmas of peace and harmony. Why give them an aspect of alarm? What do we seek? To win nations to the universal public. Then why inspire fright? Of what avail is intimidation? It is wrong to do ill in order to do good. You do not pull down the throne to leave the scaffold standing. Let us hurl away crowns, let us spare heads. The revolution is concord, not affright. Mild ideas are ill-served by men who do not know pity. Amnesty is for me the noblest word in human speech. I will shed no blood save at hazard of my own…. In the fight let us be the enemies of our foes, and after the victory their brothers" (ii. 67).
These two together, Cimourdain and Gauvain, make an ideal pair of the revolutionists of '93. Strip each of them of the beauty of character with which the poet's imagination has endowed them, add instead passion, violence, envy, egoism, malice; then you understand how in the very face of the foreign enemy Girondins sharpened the knife for the men of the Mountain, Hébertists screamed for the lives of Robespierrists, Robespierre struck off the head of Danton, Thermidorians crushed Robespierre.
Victor Hugo has given to this typic historical struggle of '93 the qualities of nobleness and beauty which art requires in dealing with real themes. Lantenac falls into the hands of the Blues, headed by Cimourdain and Gauvain, but he does so in consequence of yielding to a heroic and self-devoting impulse of humanity. Cimourdain, true to his temperament, insists on his instant execution. Gauvain, true also to his temperament, is seized with a thousand misgivings, and there is no more ample, original, and masterly presentation of a case of conscience, that in civil war is always common enough, than the struggle through which Gauvain passes before he can resolve to deliver Lantenac. This pathetic debate—"the stone of Sisyphus, which is only the quarrel of man with himself"—turns on the loftiest, broadest, most generous motives, touching the very bases of character, and reaching far beyond the issue of '93. The political question is seen to be no more than a superficial aspect of the deeper moral question. Lantenac, the representative of the old order, had performed an exploit of signal devotion. Was it not well that one who had faith in the new order should show himself equally willing to cast away his life to save one whom self-sacrifice had transformed from the infernal Satan into the heavenly Lucifer?
"Gauvain saw in the shade the sinister smile of the sphinx. The situation was a sort of dread crossway where the conflicting truths issued and confronted one another, and where the three supreme ideas of man stood face to face—humanity, the family, the fatherland. Each of the voices spoke in turn, and each in turn declared the truth. How choose? Each in turn seemed to hit the mark of reason and justice, and said, Do that. Was that the thing to be done? Yes. No. Reasoning counselled one thing; sentiment another; the two counsels were contradictory. Reasoning is only reason; sentiment is often conscience; the one comes from man, the other from a loftier source. That is why sentiment has less distinctness, and more might. Yet what strength in the severity of reason! Gauvain hesitated. His perplexity was so fierce. Two abysses opened before him: to destroy the marquis, or to save him. Which of these two gulfs was duty?"