Spirits which were a prey of the wind (he continued). But this was a miracle-working wind. To be a member of the Convention was to be a wave of the ocean. This was true even of the greatest there. The force of impulsion came from on high. There was a Will in the Convention which was that of all and yet not that of any one person. This Will was an Idea, indomitable and immeasurable, which swept from the summit of Heaven into darkness below. We call this Revolution. When that idea passed it beat down one, and raised up another; it scattered this man into foam and dashed that one upon the reefs. This Idea knew whither it was going, and drove the whirlpool before it. To ascribe the Revolution to men is to ascribe the tide to the waves.... The Revolution is a form of the eternal phenomenon which presses upon us from every quarter, and which we call Necessity. This, then, is the idea that gives a synthesis to all the mass of details, this is the wind which reveals itself in the multitude of spirits which it moves. In this kind of thinking Hugo is trying to interpret man’s experience upon earth. His story is more than a narration. He has seen the epic in history. Above all this, however, the French Revolution comes to us as the hero of the novel because of the remarkable way in which it is personified in the man Cimourdain, who seems to have caught something of its life into himself. “He saw the Revolution loom into life,” says Hugo; “He was not a man to be afraid of that giant; far from it. This sudden growth in everything had revivified himself.... From year to year he saw events gain in grandeur and he increased with them.” The year 1793 represents above all things the time when the “something” inexorable in the very idea of the Revolution became most marked, most pressing, and Hugo has made this the prominent feature in his characterisation of the year. The book is full of cruel alternatives, and of Councils and men torn between unreserved devotion to the Ideal, the Revolution, and generous impulses towards men, humanitarian feelings. Cimourdain is the personification of this struggle between utter selfness service to a cause and a heart’s loyalty to a friend. Hugo’s whole characterisation of him hangs upon this feature of his character, this cleavage in his soul. The theme of the whole novel is the life and conduct of men like Lantenac and Gauvain as they are brought face to face with the inexorable demands of their Cause. Lantenac, however, is a Vendean; and Gauvain at the supreme trial sacrifices the Cause to his feelings of generosity. Cimourdain alone is immovable, and is devoted to his Ideal to the point of being inhuman. He personifies the Revolution, therefore. He is more than a man, he is greater than a hero of a novel, he is the central figure of an epic. III