ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS	120
The Day Will Come
A
 bay will come when you France, you Russia, you Italy, you
England, you Germany, all you nations of the Continent, shall,
without losing your distinctive qualities and your glorious individual-
ity, blend in a higher unity, and form a European fraternity, even as
Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, all the French provinces, blended
into France.
A day will come when bullets and bombs shall be replaced by
ballots, by the universal suffrage of the people, by the sacred arbitra-
ments of a great sovereign Senate, which shall be to Europe what the
Parliament is to England, what the Diet is to Germany, what the
Legislative Assembly is to France.
A day will come when a cannon shall be exhibited in our museums
as an instrument of torture is now, and men shall marvel that such
things could be.
A day will come when we shall see those two immense groups the
United States of America and the United States of Europe extending
hand to hand over the ocean, exchanging their products, their com-
merce, their industry, their art, their genius, clearing the earth,
colonising deserts, ameliorating Creation under the eye of the Creator,
Victor Hugo

The Thing That is Greater Than All
M
akius,  almost  without  drawing  breath, went  on in  a  burst
of enthusiasm:
Let us be just, my friends ! To be the Empire of such an Emperor,
what a destiny for a nation, when that nation was France, and her
genius was added to his ! To rise and rule, to march in triumph,
with the capitals of the world for halting-places and kings for gren-
adiers, to dethrone dynasties, to change the map of Europe by a
charge, to feel that your hand was on the sword-hilt of God, to follow
a leader who was Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne, in one, a man who
could dazzle you every morning with fresh victories, wake you by the
guns of the Invalides, fling great names into gulfs of light, names that
will shine for ever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram S To
set constellations of glory blazing in the skies of history, to make the
French Empire the peer of the Roman, to be the greatest nation and
give birth to the greatest army, to send out the legions over the earth
as a mountain sends forth its eagles, to triumph, to dominate, to
threaten, to be the one nation in Europe crowned and haloed with
glory, to sound a flourish across the centuries, to conquer the
world twice over, by conquest and by charm—it was stupendous,
sublime ! What could be greater ?
To be free, said Combfirere.	Victor Hugo in Les Miserable*
f.t.—9