He was handsome; he, that orphan, that foundling, that outcast, he felt himself august and strong, he gazed in the face of that society from which he was banished, and in which he had so powerfully intervened, of that human justice from which he had wrenched its prey, of all those tigers whose jaws were forced to remain empty, of those policemen, those judges, those executioners, of all that force of the king which he, the meanest of creatures, had just broken, with the force of God.
Il était beau, lui, cet orphelin, cet enfant trouvé, ce rebut, il se sentait auguste et fort, il regardait en face cette société dont il était banni, et dans laquelle il intervenait si puissamment, cette justice humaine à laquelle il avait arraché sa proie, tous ces tigres forcés de mâcher à vide, ces sbires, ces juges, ces bourreaux, toute cette force du roi qu’il venait de briser, lui infime, avec la force de Dieu.