The charm of tragic literature is that we feel that its heroes could have escaped their fate but they do not succeed because of their weakness, their pride, or their blindness. Besides, Hugo tells us, ‘Such a vertigo, such an error, such a ruin, such a fall that astonished the whole of history, is it something without a cause? No … the disappearance of that great man was necessary for the coming of the new century. Someone, to whom none can object, took care of the event … God passed over there. Dieu a passé.’
