Was it possible that such abomination, such absolute destitution, such black misery leading straight to death should exist in the heart of that great city of Paris, brimful of wealth, intoxicated with enjoyment, flinging millions out of the windows for mere pleasure?
What! there should on one side be such colossal fortunes, so many foolish fancies gratified, with lives endowed with every happiness, whilst on the other was found inveterate poverty, lack even of bread, absence of every hope, and mothers killing themselves with their babes, to whom they had nought to offer but the blood of their milkless breast! And a feeling of revolt stirred Pierre; he was for a moment conscious of the derisive futility of charity.

What indeed was the use of doing that which he did--picking up the little ones, succouring the parents, prolonging the sufferings of the aged?
The very foundations of the social edifice were rotten; all would soon collapse amid mire and blood.

A great act of justice alone could sweep the old world away in order that the new world might be built.

And at that moment he realised so keenly how irreparable was the breach, how irremediable the evil, how deathly the cancer of misery, that he understood the actions of the violent, and was himself ready to accept the devastating and purifying whirlwind, the regeneration of the world by flame and steel, even as when in the dim ages Jehovah in His wrath sent fire from heaven to cleanse the accursed cities of the plains.
However, on hearing him sob that evening, Abbe Rose came up to remonstrate in fatherly fashion.

The old priest was a saint, endowed with infinite gentleness and infinite hope.