Tyrants; of Marcus Aurelius, sustaining the empire whose decline was at hand. Let us think of those who watched the ruin of the old world; of the bishop of Hippo dying when his city was about to fall before the onslaught of the Vandals; of the monks who, in a Europe peopled with wolves, worked as illuminators, builders, musicians. Let us think of Dante, Copernicus, and Savonarola; of exiles, persecutions, burnings at the stake; of Spinoza, frail in health, writing his immortal Ethics by the light of the burning villages of his invaded country. Let us think of our own Michel de Montaigne, in his defenceless castle, softly pillowed, waking from his light sleep to hear the bells pealing from the church towers of the countryside, or asking himself in his dreams if he was to be murdered that very night… Man is not fond of reviving the memory of disagreeable occurrences; he dislikes to think of things which disturb his tranquility. But in the history of the world, tranquillity has been rare; nor is it in a tranquil environment that the greatest souls have been fashioned. Let us without a shudder contemplate the raging flood as it passes. For those whose ears are attuned to the rhythm of history, all contributes to the same work, evil no less than good. Those of impulsive temperament, carried away by the flood, move along blood-stained roads, and are none the less moving, willy-nilly, whither fraternal reason beckons. Were we compelled to depend upon men's common sense, upon their goodwill, upon their moral courage, upon their kindliness, there would be ample reason for despairing of the future. But those who will not or cannot march, pushed onward by blind forces, a bleating flock, move towards the goal: Unity.
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The unity of our own France was forged by age-long struggles between the separate provinces. At one time every province, even every village, was a fatherland. For more than a hundred years the Armagnacs and the Burgundians (my ancestors) went on breaking one another's
