I.

Opening Address to the Peace Congress (Paris, August 21, 1849)

A DAY WILL COME when your arms will fall even from your hands! A day will
come when war will seem as absurd and impossible between Paris and London, between
Petersburg and Berlin, between Vienna and Turin, as it would be impossible and would
seem absurd today between Rouen and Amiens, between Boston and Philadelphia. A day
will come when you France, you Russia, you Italy, you England, you Germany, you all,
nations of the continent, without losing your distinct qualities and your glorious
individuality, will be merged closely within a superior unit and you will form the
European brotherhood, just as Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace, all our
provinces are merged together in France. A day will come when the only fields of battle
will be markets opening up to trade and minds opening up to ideas. A day will come
when the bullets and the bombs will be replaced by votes, by the universal suffrage of the
peoples, by the venerable arbitration of a great sovereign senate which will be to Europe
what this parliament is to England, what this diet is to Germany, what this legislative
assembly is to France. A day will come when we will display cannon in museums just as
we display instruments of torture today, and are amazed that such things could ever have
been possible. (…)
1. pacea mondiala – urmarit si de UE prin PESC, NATO
2. razboi dintre State
3. farapierderea calitatilro distincte, individualitate vor forma o unitate suprema
4. idea unitatii, fratiei europene
5. in locul campurilor de lupta – piete de bunuri, schimburi culturale
6. idea votului universal
7. un organ superior de conducere
It is after all a prodigious and admirable epoch, and the nineteenth century will be - let us
say it openly - the greatest page in history. As I reminded you just now, all our advances
are revealing and manifesting themselves together, in rapid succession: the decline in
international animosity, the disappearance of frontiers from maps and of prejudices from
hearts, a movement towards unity, a softening of manners, an increase in the level of
education and a drop in the level of penalties, the dominance of the most literary, that is
to say the most humane, languages; everything is moving at once, political economy,
science, industry, philosophy, legislation, and is converging upon the same end, the
creation of well-being and benevolence, and that for me is the end to which I shall always
strive, the extinction of misery inside and of war outside.
8. secolul 19 – o epoca glorioasa
9. dezvoltri imcredibile – industriale, tehnice, stiintifice
10. cresterea niv de oameni educati

II. Peace Congress in Lausanne: message, September 4 1869

Fellow citizens of the United States of Europe,

1
 ALLOW ME to give you this name, for the European Federal Republic is established
in right and is waiting to be established in fact. You exist, therefore it exists. You confirm
it by the union from which unity is taking shape. You are the beginning of a great future.
11. Republica Federala Europeana – supranationala
12. Razboi pentru cucerirea libertatii
Alas, I am indeed not among those who would deny that a second war is necessary. What
will this war be? A war of conquest. And what is the conquest to be made? The conquest
of liberty.

III. Peace Congress in Lausanne: Closing Address, September 18, 1869

SOCIALISM is vast, it is not narrow. It addresses the whole human problem. It

embraces the entire social concept. While it poses important questions of labour and
reward, it also proclaims the inviolability of human life, the abolition of murder in all its
forms, the reduction of deprivation through education, a marvellous problem solved. It
proclaims free and compulsory education. It proclaims the rights of women, the
responsibilities of man. Finally it proclaims the sovereignty of the individual which is
synonymous with liberty.
13. socialismul – fenomen complet – problema muncii si rasplatii, drepturile omului,
suveranitatea individului.
What is all of this? It is socialism. Yes. And it is the Republic!

IV. For war in the present and for peace in the future, March 1, 1871

LET GERMANY feel happy and proud, with two provinces more and her liberty less.
But we, we pity her; we pity her this enlargement which contains such abasement, we
pity her for having been a people and for being now nothing more than an empire.
I have just said that Germany will have two more provinces. But it is not done yet, and I
add, it will never be done. Never, never! To take is not to possess. Possession
presupposes consent. Did Turkey possess Athens? Did Austria possess Venice? And did
Russia possess Warsaw? Does Spain possess Cuba? Does England possess Gibraltar? In
fact, yes, but in right, no!

(…) We shall see France arise again, we shall see her retrieve Lorraine, take back Alsace.
But will that be all? No... Seize Trier, Mainz, Cologne, Koblenz, the whole of the left
bank of the Rhine. And we shall hear France cry out: It's my turn, Germany, here I am!
Am I your enemy? No! I am your sister. I have taken back everything and I give you
everything, on one condition, that we shall act as one people, as one family, as one
Republic. I shall demolish my fortresses, you will demolish yours. My revenge is
fraternity! No more frontiers! The Rhine for everyone! Let us be the same Republic, let
us be the United States of Europe, let us be the continental federation, let us be European
liberty, let us be universal peace! And now let us shake hands, for we have done one
another a service: you have delivered me from my emperor and I have delivered you
from yours.
14. razbo ide cucerire a celor doua teritorii plus totul pe stanga Rinului
15.inainteaza ideea uniuniica o republica, eliminarea frontierelor SUE

2
Margin : The Enlargement of Civilization (Les Miserables, Ch. 83, 318 & 365)
This vertigo, this terror, this downfall into ruin of the loftiest bravery which ever
astounded history,--is that causeless? No. The shadow of an enormous right is projected
athwart Waterloo. It is the day of destiny. The force which is mightier than man produced
that day. Hence the terrified wrinkle of those brows; hence all those great souls
surrendering their swords. Those who had conquered Europe have fallen prone on the
earth, with nothing left to say nor to do, feeling the present shadow of a terrible presence.
Hoc erat in fatis. That day the perspective of the human race underwent a change.
Waterloo is the hinge of the nineteenth century. The disappearance of the great man was
necessary to the advent of the great century. Some one, a person to whom one replies not,
took the responsibility on himself. The panic of heroes can be explained. In the battle of
Waterloo there is something more than a cloud, there is something of the meteor. God has
passed by.
***
The ideal is nothing but the culminating point of logic, the same as the beautiful is
nothing but the summit of the true. Artistic peoples are also consistent peoples. To love
beauty is to see the light. That is why the torch of Europe, that is to say of civilization,
was first borne by Greece, who passed it on to Italy, who handed it on to France. Divine,
illuminating nations of scouts! Vitae lampada tradunt.

It is an admirable thing that the poetry of a people is the element of its progress. The
amount of civilization is measured by the quantity of imagination. Only, a civilizing
people should remain a manly people. Corinth, yes; Sybaris, no. Whoever becomes
effeminate makes himself a bastard. He must be neither a dilettante nor a virtuoso: but he
must be artistic. In the matter of civilization, he must not refine, but he must sublime. On
this condition, one gives to the human race the pattern of the ideal.
***
As for myself, I have written for all, with a profound love for my own country, but
without being engrossed by France more than by any other nation. In proportion as I
advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.

This is, moreover, the tendency of our age, and the law of radiance of the French
Revolution; books must cease to be exclusively French, Italian, German, Spanish, or
English, and become European, I say more, human, if they are to correspond to the
enlargement of civilization.

Hence a new logic of art, and of certain requirements of composition which modify
everything, even the conditions, formerly narrow, of taste and language, which must
grow broader like all the rest.

In France, certain critics have reproached me, to my great delight, with having
transgressed the bounds of what they call "French taste"; I should be glad if this eulogium
were merited.

3
In short, I am doing what I can, I suffer with the same universal suffering, and I try to
assuage it, I possess only the puny forces of a man, and I cry to all: "Help me!"