Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the eighty-eighth chapter of Les Miserables.

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>> Speaker A: Take a look, in the book and let's see

what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter. One

fight M at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

to give word for word, line by

line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome to bite at a time books where we read you your

favorite classics one byte at a time. my name is

Bre Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les Miserable by Victor Hugo

chapter 18 a recrudescence

of divine right

end of the dictatorship a

whole european system crumbled away.

The empire sank into a gloom which

resembled that of the roman world as it expired

again we behold the abyss

as in the days of the barbarians.

Only the barbarism of 1815, which must

be called by its pet name of the counter revolution,

was not long breathed, soon fell to

panting, and halted short.

The empire was bewept. Let us

acknowledge the fact and bewept by heroic

eyes. If glory lies in the

sword converted into a scepter, the

empire had been glory in person. It had

diffused over the earth all the light which tyranny can

give a somber light.

We will say more an obscure

light compared to the true daylight, it is

night. This disappearance of night

produces the effect of an eclipse. Louis

XVIII re entered Paris. The

circling dances of the 8 July face the

enthusiasms of the 20 march. The

Corsican became the antithesis of the

Bernese. The flag on the dome of the Tuileries

was white. The exile reigned.

Hartwell's pine table took its place in front of

the fleur de lystron. Throne of Louis XIV.

Bovines and Fontenoy were mentioned

as though they had taken place on the preceding day,

Austerlitz having become antiquated,

the altar and the throne fraternized

majestically. One of the most

undisputed forms of the health of society in the 19th century

was established over France and over the

continent. Europe adopted the white

cockade. Trestilian was

celebrated. The device non pleurbus

impar reappeared on the stone rays representing a sun.

Upon the front of the barracks on the quai aux se,

where there had been an imperial guard, there was

now a red house, the arc du

Carrousel, all laden with badly borne

victories. Thrown out of its element among these

novelties, a little ashamed it may

be, of Marengo and Arcola

extricated itself from its predicament with a

statue of the duc d'Anglimain. The

cemetery of the Madeleine, a terrible

pauper's grave in 1793, was

covered with Jasper and marble. Since the

bones of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lay

in that dust in the moat of

Vincennes, a sepulchre shaft

sprang from the earth, recalling the fact that the duke

d'Enghien had perished in the very month when

Napoleon was crowned. Pope Pius

VII, who had performed the coronation very near

this death, tranquilly bestowed his blessing

on the fall, as he had bestowed it on the elevation

at Schonbrunn. There was a little

shadow, aged four, whom it

was seditious to call the king of Rome. And these

things took place, and the kings resumed their

thrones, and the master of Europe was put in a

cage. And the old regime became the new

regime. And all the shadows and all the light

of the earth changed place, because on the

afternoon of a certain summer's day, a

shepherd said to a Prussian in the forest, go

this way. And not that

this, 1815, was a sort of

lugubrious April. Ancient,

unhealthy and poisonous realities were covered with new

appearances. A lie wedded.

1789. The right divine was

masked under a charter. Fictions became

constitutional prejudices.

superstitions and mental reservations with

article 14 in the heart were varnished over with

liberalism. It was the serpents change of

skin. Man had been rendered both

greater and smaller by Napoleon. Under

this reign of splendid matter, the ideal had received the

strange name of ideology. It is a

grave imprudence in a great man to turn the future into

derision. The populace, however, that

food for cannon, which is so fond of the cannoneer,

sought him with its glance. Where

is he? What is he doing? Napoleon is

dead, said a passerby to a veteran of Marengo and

Waterloo. He dead? Cried the

soldier. You dont know him.

Imagination distrusted this man. Even when

overthrown. The depths of Europe were full of

darkness. After Waterloo, something

enormous remained long empty. Through Napoleons

disappearance, the kings placed

themselves in this void. Ancient Europe

profited by it to undertake reforms.

There was a holy alliance. Bell

alliance, beautiful alliance.

The fatal field of Waterloo had set in advance.

In presence and in face of that antique Europe

reconstructed, the features of a new France were sketched

out. The future which the emperor

had rallied, made its entry on its

brow it bore the star liberty.

The glowing eyes of all young generations were turned on

it. Singular people

were at one and the same time in love with the future

liberty and the past. Napoleon

defeat had rendered the vanquished greater.

Bonaparte fallen seemed more lofty than Napoleon

erect. Those who had triumphed were

alarmed. England had him guarded by Hudson

Lowe, and France had him watched by Montchenau.

His folded arms became a source of uneasiness to

thrones. Alexander called him my

sleeplessness. This terror

was the result of the quality of revolution which was contained in

him. This is what explains

and excuses bonapartist liberalism.

This phantom caused the old world to tremble.

The kings reigned, but ill at their ease, with the rock

of St. Helena on the horizon. While

Napoleon was passing through the death struggle at Longwood,

the 60,000 men who had fallen on the field of

Waterloo were quietly rotting. And something

of their peace was shed abroad, over the world.

The congress of Vienna made the treaties in

1815, and Europe called this the

restoration. This is what

Waterloo was. But what

matters it to the infinite, all that

tempest, all that cloud, that

war, then that peace, all that

darkness, did not trouble for a moment

the light of that immense eye before which a grub skipping

from one blade of grass to another equals the

eagle soaring from Belfry to Belfry on the towers of

Notre Dame.

Thank you for joining Byte at a time books today while

we read a.

>> Brie Carlisle: Bite of one of your favorite classics.

>> Brie Carlisle: Again, my name is Bree Carlisle, and.

>> Brie Carlisle: I hope you come back tomorrow for.

>> Brie Carlisle: The next bite of Le

Miserable.

>> Brie Carlisle: Don't forget to sign up for our

newsletter@byteoutitimebooks.com comma and check

out the shop. You can check out the show notes or

our website bite at a timebooks.com for

the rest of the links for our show. wed love to hear from you on

social media as well.

>> Speaker D: take a look and look and let's

see what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter one

line at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

word line by.

>> Speaker A: Line one bite at a time.