When the spectacle of the world is freely indulged in without any application to it of the measure of the conscience, what first strikes the view is success.  It is necessary therefore to begin with rendering glory to success by declaring victory good.  Now, mark well here the conflict of the old notions with the so-called modern mind.  From the old point of view, victory in the issue belongs to good, because while man is tossed in strife and tumult, God is leading him on; but the success of good is realized by conflict, and the victory is often reached only after a long series of defeats.  There are bad triumphs and impious successes.  What is proposed to us is, to put aside the rule of our own judgments, and to declare that victory is good in itself.  The old point of view, that of the conscience, does not surrender without an energetic resistance; and that resistance shows itself in the very words of M. Cousin.  His thesis is, that all victory is just.  His intention is therefore to approve victory.  Why does he say absolve? it is the term which he employs.  Since the matter in question is to absolve victory, it is placed on trial.  It is accused of being, like fortune and fame, at one time on the side of good and justice, at another on the side of injustice and evil.  Which then is the party accused?  Victory.  Who is the advocate?  An eloquent professor.  Who finally is the accuser?  Do you not see?  It is the human conscience; the conscience which protests in the soul of the orator against the theory of which he is enamoured, and which forces him to say absolve when he should say glorify.  And in fact the choice must be made:  either to glorify victory, by treading under foot that narrow conscience which sometimes ranks itself with Cato on the side of the vanquished; or to glorify conscience by impeaching the victories which outrage it.

It is not sufficient, however, to sacrifice the conscience in order to rescue from embarrassment the philosophy of success.  It strikes on other rocks also.  The same causes are by turns victorious and vanquished, and it is hard to make men understand that, in conflicts in which their dearest affections are engaged, they must beforehand, and in all cases, take part with the strongest.  It will be in vain for the philosopher to say that the Swiss of Morgarten were right, for that they beat the Austrians; but that the heroes of Rotenthurm were greatly in the wrong, because, crushed without being vanquished, they were obliged to yield to numbers, and leave at last their country’s soil to be trodden by the stranger;—­the children of old Switzerland will find it hard to admit this doctrine.  Even in France, in that nation so accustomed to encircle its soldiers’ brows with laurel, this difficulty has risen up in the way of M. Cousin.  Beranger, when asked for a souvenir of Waterloo,

     Replied, with drooping eyelid, tear-bedewed: 
     Never that name shall sadden verse of mine.[149]