We were unable to pass by this extraordinary, unknown, and obscure house without entering it, and taking with us those who are reading--we trust with some advantage to themselves--the melancholy story of Jean Valjean. We have penetrated into this community so full of those old practices which seem so novel at the present day. It is a closed garden. _Hortus conclusus._ We have spoken of this singular spot in detail, but with respect, so far, at least, as respect and detail are compatible. We do not understand everything, but we insult nothing. We keep at an equal distance from the hosanna of Joseph de Maistre, who ended by consecrating the hangman, and the sneers of Voltaire, who even jeered at the crucifix. There is a lack of logic in Voltaire's attitude, be it said in passing; for Voltaire ought to have defended Jesus as he defended Calas; and even for those who deny the Divine incarnation, what does the crucifix stand for? The good man murdered. In the nineteenth century the religious idea is undergoing a crisis. We unlearn some things, and we do well, provided that in unlearning one thing, we learn another. There must be no vacuum in the heart of man. Some demolitions are made, and it is well that they should be made, but only on condition that they shall be followed by reconstructions. In the meanwhile let us study the things which are past. It is necessary to know them were it only to avoid them. The counterfeits of the past take on false names, and try to pass themselves off for the future. This ghost, the past, may falsify his passport. We must learn to unmask the trick. We must be on our guard against it. The past has a face, superstition; and a mask, hypocrisy. We must identify the face, and tear off the mask. As for the convents, they offer a complex question,--a question of civilization which condemns them, a question of liberty which protects them. BOOK VII A PARENTHESIS. CHAPTER I. THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA. This book is a drama in which the hero is the Infinite. The second character is Man. Under these circumstances, as a convent happens to lie on our road, we ought to enter it. Why? Because the convent, which belongs as much to the East as to the West, to antiquity as to modern times, to Paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as to Christianity, is one of the lenses which man brings to bear on the Infinite. This is no place to develop unrestrictedly certain ideas; still, while we maintain absolutely our reservations, our restrictions, and even our indignation, we ought to acknowledge, that whenever we find in man the sense of the Infinite, well or ill conceived, we are seized with a feeling of respect. In the synagogue, in the mosque, in the pagoda, in the wigwam, there is a repulsive side which we detest, and a sublime side which we reverence. What a subject for meditation for the spirit, and what a boundless revery is the reverberation of God on the human wall! CHAPTER II.