Les Miserables

is the
theory. Prosperity supposes capacity. Win in the lottery, and you
are an able man. The victor is venerated. To be born with a caul is
everything. Have but luck, and you will have the rest; be fortunate,
and you will be thought great. Beyond the five or six great
exceptions, which are the wonder of their age, contemporary admiration
is nothing but shortsightedness. Gilt is gold. To be a chance comer is
no drawback, provided you have improved your chances. The common
herd is an old Narcissus, who adores himself, and who applauds the
common. That mighty genius, by which one becomes a Moses, an
Aeschylus, a Dante, a Michael Angelo, or a Napoleon, the multitude
assigns at once and by acclamation to whoever succeeds in his
object, whatever it may be. Let a notary rise to be a deputy; let a
sham Corneille write Tiridate; let a eunuch come into the possession
of a harem; let a military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive
battle of an epoch; let an apothecary invent pasteboard soles for army
shoes, and lay up, by selling this pasteboard instead of leather for
the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse; four hundred thousand livres in the
funds; let a pack-pedlar espouse usury and bring her to bed of seven
or eight millions, of which he is the father and she the mother; let a
preacher become a bishop by talking through his nose; let the
steward of a good house become so rich on leaving service that he is
made Minister of Finance;- men call that Genius, just as they call the
face of Mousqueton, Beauty, and the bearing of Claude, Majesty. They
confound the radiance of the stars of heaven with the radiations which
a duck's foot leaves in the mud.

{FANTINE|BOOK_1ST|XIII
XIII
WHAT HE BELIEVED
-
WE need not examine the Bishop of D__ from an orthodox point of
view. Before such a soul, we feel only in the humour of respect. The
conscience of an upright man should be taken for granted. Moreover,
given certain natures, and we admit the possible development of all
the beauties of human virtues in a faith different from our own.
What he thought of this dogma or that mystery, are secrets of the
interior faith known only in the tomb where souls enter stripped of
all externals. But we are sure that religious difficulties never
resulted with him in hypocrisy. No corruption is possible with the
diamond. He believed as much as he could. Credo in Patrem, he
often exclaimed; and, besides, he derived from his good deeds that
measure of satisfaction which meets the demands of conscience, and
which says in a low voice, "thou art with God."
We think it our duty to notice that, outside of and, so to say,
beyond his faith, the bishop had an excess of love. It is on that
account, quia multum amavit, that he was deemed vulnerable by
"serious men," "sober persons," and "reasonable people;" favourite