“This twofoldness (*duplicité*),” he says, “is so visible, that some have conceived that man must have two souls—a simple subject appearing to them incapable of such and so sudden variations; an immeasurable presumption on the one hand, a horrible abasement on the other. In spite of all the miseries which cleave to us, and hold us, as it were, by the throat (*nous tiennent à la gorge*), there is within us an irrepressible instinct which exalts us. The greatness of man is so visible that it may be deduced from his very misery. His very miseries prove his greatness. They are the miseries of a great lord, of a dethroned sovereign. The greatness of man consists in his knowledge of his misery. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. . . . He is miserable—the fact is beyond question; but he is great in knowing it.” 10
Again, reverting to the very same line of thought, as in the conversation with De Saci—