France and led it to victory. Our learned legions have fallen into a state of discouragement in which the known leaders no longer inspire confidence; it falls to a child, a man of scientific instinct, to place himself at their head. It is my very obscurity that gives me the right to take the reins when everyone else abandons them, when the human mind does nothing but lament its own impotence and cry out with Voltaire: "but what thick night still veils nature."
The search for a beacon.
Lost in the abyss of darkness, in political and moral systems, let us begin by seeking a more reliable beacon than this so-called reason that has led us astray; let us rally to God, let us seek his trace in the labyrinth.Where among our passions can we find some breath of the divine spirit? Is it in the furies of ambition, in administrative and commercial treachery, in the venality of friendships, in family discord? No, cupidity, lies, and envy attest to the absence of the divine spirit. But there is one passion that preserves its primitive nobility and keeps alive in mortals the sacred fire, the very character of Divinity. That passion is love, an entirely divine flame, the true spirit of God who is all love. Is it not in the intoxication of love that man raises himself to the heavens and becomes one with God? Is there a lover, man or woman, who does not deify the beloved and believe themselves to share in the happiness of God? Love is the most powerful agent of passional union, even between antipathetic characters. It is through love that the proud Diana yields to the shepherd Endymion; other passions have almost none of this power granted to love for the bridging of conditions.
Love, an entirely divine passion, is the ideal hearth. What are the other passions compared to love; is there a single one that can compare? Without it, no more flowers on the path of life; humanity, past the season of love, can only vegetate, distract itself, deceive itself about the emptiness of the soul. Women,