And yet there is one thing certain: that of
all these misfortunes none had super-human origin; not one was
supernaturally, or too mysteriously, inevitable. They came not from
another world; they were launched by no monstrous god, capricious
and incomprehensible. They were born of an idea of justice that men
failed to grasp; an idea of justice that suddenly had wakened in
life, but never had lain asleep in the reason of man. And is there a
thing in this world can be more reassuring, or nearer to us, more
profoundly human, than an idea of justice? Louis XVI. may well have
regretted that this idea, that shattered his peace, should have
awakened during his reign; but this was the only reproach he could
level at fate; and when we murmur at fate ourselves our complaints
have much the same value. For the rest, it is legitimate enough to
suppose that there needed but one single act of energy, absolute
loyalty, disinterested, clear-sighted wisdom, to change the whole
course of events. If the flight to Varennes--in itself an act of
duplicity and culpable weakness--had only been arranged a little
less childishly, foolishly (as any man would have arranged it who
was accustomed to the habits of life), there can be not a doubt that
Louis XVI.
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