CHAPTER X.
THE COMMUNISTS.
At this moment the private door opened, and three men entered theeditorial sanctum.
Marrast quickly turned, and his friend was silent.
"Ha! Albert, Flocon, Rollin!" he cried. "Welcome, welcome! Our friend,Louis Blanc, was just about wasting on me a sermon upon patience, butnow he'll have an audience worthy of the subject. Be seated and listen!"
"Patience!" exclaimed Flocon. "Well, I'm sure we need it."
"That we do, in our present low estate," echoed Rollin.
Albert said nothing, but smiled with sarcastic significance.
When the salutations were over and the party, all but Marrast, whorestlessly paced the room, were seated, Louis Blanc looked around on hisfriends with a sad smile, and continued:
"Marrast is right, Messieurs. I was, indeed, preaching patience. I wasendeavoring to soothe his irritation and chide his depression with asermon; since we are all old friends and fellow-sufferers in the goodcause and have a common interest in knowing the reasons of failure andthe means of triumph, I will by your leave proceed."
"Aye, dear Louis, go on!" cried Marrast, kindly. "But you are the mostyouthful sage I ever listened to."
"Yes, Louis, proceed; you look like a cure," said Rollin, laughing.
"I subscribe to Louis Blanc's creed, be it what it may," added Flocon,briskly.
"And so do I," said Albert, gravely, in a deep tone.
Of the new visitors, Ledru Rollin was a man of medium stature, aboutthirty-five years of age and dressed in the extreme of the mode. Hiscomplexion and hair were light, his eyes large, blue and protruding, hismouth prominent, and his full cheeks covered with whiskers, which likethose of Marrast, were closely trimmed and met beneath his chin. Hishead and shoulders were thrown back, and his air was bold andindependent. He was a lawyer of talent, who had gained celebrity asadvocate of the accused on many occasions of State prosecutions.
Flocon was an older man than Rollin, and his countenance bore the wary,vigilant and suspicious look which experience alone gives. He was low instature, thick-set and close-knit in figure; his eyes seemed always halfclosed; his brow was broad and massive; his face was long; a moustachewas on his lip, and his hair was closely cut. The outline of his headand the expression of his face seemed those rather of one born on thebanks of the Rhine than on the banks of the Seine, so calm andpassionless did they appear. His dress was plain but neat. Flocon wasthe chief editor of "La Reforme," the name of which indicates itscharacter. It was this man who, in February, 1833, repressed theviolence of his partisans and saved the office of the "Gazette deFrance," yet the very next day published his celebrated letter to theLegitimists, which, for audacity, force and pungency was only equaled bythe paralyzing effect it produced. The fines, imprisonments and civilincapacities to which this man had been subjected for assaults upon agovernment he deemed corrupt, for the ten years preceding, had beenliterally numberless.
Albert was a man of fifty or more, with a large head, square German faceand forehead, a large hazel eye, fixed and unexcitable, hair closelycut, and beard upon his chin and lip. His dress was a long iron-grayfrock coat, buttoned closely to his chin. His face was rather thin, andhis complexion bronzed. His name had for years been identified withreform; and though a manufacturer himself, of the class of workmen,being proprietor and chief engineer of a large machine factory at Lyons,he had established and sustained in that city a paper to advocate hisprinciples, named "La Glaneuse," the prosecution of which by theGovernment for libel and the fining and imprisonment of its editorformed an originating cause of the revolt in Lyons of April, 1834. Forthe part played by this man in the revolt thus arising, he was sentencedto transportation, a penalty afterwards commuted to fine andimprisonment. He was a man of few words, remarkably few, but of deepthought and prompt action, and, in moments of crisis and emergency, aman of unshaken and inflexible nerve. To the casual observer, he seemedonly a silent man, or a sullen one, astute or stolid; in times of perilhe was a man of iron, but a man of action and passion, too, moving withresistless might. To rouse his powers, mental or physical, demanded,indeed, circumstances of unusual import, but once roused they wereirresistible.
Such were the personages now assembled in the office of "Le National;"and, of those five men, all were connected with the press, directly, aseditor or proprietor, save only Ledru Rollin, and he was a writer for"La Reforme," as well as an advocate.
The name of Louis Blanc's paper was, as has been said, "Le Bon Sens."
But to return to the narrative.
"And you really wish a sermon from me, old comrades, with patience asthe text?"
"Aye--aye--aye!" exclaimed all.
"Suppose I add to it this line I find on the paper before me on thetable, that our good Marrast had just written as the text for aparagraph which would probably have cost him another fine andimprisonment, had the paragraph been completed and published?"
"Read! read!" cried Rollin.
"With your permission, Armand?"
"Certainly," replied the editor, still continuing his promenade.
"'Again the House of Orleans triumphs!'" read Louis Blanc, aloud.
"And is it not true--the accursed tyrants?" vociferated Rollin.
"Aye, true!" was the mild answer; "alas, too true! That perfidious Housedoes triumph, and for that very reason the fact should never beacknowledged by its opponents."
Rollin shook his head, and, throwing himself back in his capaciouschair, folded his arms, sunk his chin upon his breast and closed hiseyes.
Marrast continued his walk.
Flocon remained silent and thoughtful.
Albert gave a significant smile.
"Oppose ceaselessly, but quietly, every act of despotism this BourgeoisGovernment may attempt; but, be the result what it may, never admityourselves discouraged, depressed, dismayed, defeated. From every fallrise like Antaeus, with renewed vigor. Nor is it wise or prudent inthose engaged in a great and glorious cause to provoke danger, to bravepenalty, when nothing of good to that cause can reasonably be expected.Prudence, policy, patience and perseverance accomplish more thanrashness, yet are not inconsistent with intrepidity, boldness,patriotism and philanthropy the most exalted. Comrades, what says thepast, the past ten years, in whose events we have all so intimatelymingled? Shall I tell you?"
"Aye! 'L'Histoire de Dix Ans,'" said Flocon.
"We are all sure of being immortal there, in that same book of yours!Eh! Louis?" cried Rollin, opening his large blue eyes.
Louis Blanc smiled and continued:
"Shall I convince you, comrades, by the history of the past ten years,the scenes we have all witnessed, the events we have all deplored, thedefeats we have all sustained, the insulting ovations we have all beenforced to behold and the unceasing triumphs and tyranny of the House ofOrleans that, had patience and prudence been our motto, these defeatsand triumphs would never have been witnessed, because these prematurerevolts would never have been made?"
Albert bowed and gave his peculiar smile.
"Our friend Albert smiles, and well he may. He has had a sad experiencein this error of premature outbreaks. In April, 1834, he exerted everyenergy to restrain the revolt in Lyons, as chief of the Societe desDroits de l'Homme, and as the undoubted friend of the operatives. Buthis efforts were futile. Exasperated, urged on by less experiencedleaders, they were in full tide of revolution, and could no more berestrained in their unwise rising than could the mountain cataract inmad career be dammed. The result was, of course, defeat--most disastrousdefeat. Hundreds of the people perished, and our friend was imprisonedand fined for taking part in a movement, which he had in vain attemptedto quell, and then, with the certainty of defeat, had joined, ratherthan desert the people who trusted and relied on him."
"A noble act!" cried Marrast, as he paced the room.
Albert quietly smiled, but otherwise his countenance remained unmoved.
"And was it not a most noble and a most wise act," cont
inued the authorof "The Ten Years," "when our friend Flocon, by an energetic andeloquent harangue, restrained the indignant people from razing to theground the office of the 'Gazette de France,' the organ of the Duchessof Berri, and his bitter foe? Terribly would that rash act have recoiledon us, and yet, at the same time, with this most patriotic and prudentdeed before us, a wilder measure than even that was adopted, and it wasquelled only by force. You all remember the events. In February, '33,Eugene Brifault, in his 'Corsair,' alluded jestingly to the mysteriouspregnancy of the mother of Henry V., Duke of Bordeaux, as did every one,she then being imprisoned at Baye because of her prior conspiracy toplace her son on the throne, and her secret marriage in Italy beingunrevealed. The Legitimists of 'Le Revenant' challenged; the allusionwas repeated, and a second trial and a death ensued. 'Le National' and'La Tribune,' regarding these repeated challenges as a menace to theRepublicans, hurled defiance at the Legitimists, and demanded twelvedistinct rencontres in behalf of as many names of our friends posted attheir offices, among which those of Armand Carrel, Godefroi Cavaignacand Armand Marrast were conspicuous. The challenge is accepted--thenames of twelve Legitimists are furnished--Armand Carrel selects RouxLaborie--they fight, and Carrel is dangerously wounded--the police theninterfere--the affair ends with Flocon's terrific and audacious defianceflung down at the whole Legitimist and Orleans parties in the columns of'La Reforme.' Now, what to Republicans were the quarrels of Legitimistsand Orleanists? If we were to be ruled by a king, what cared we whetherthat king were Henry V. or Louis Philippe? How would the sacrifice ofCarrel, Marrast, Cavaignac, or of any of those twelve brave men havebeen repaid, or made up? And afterwards, alas! in July of '36, whenArmand Carrel, causelessly assuming a quarrel not his own, because of afancied attempt to degrade the press, by rendering its issuesaccessible, by cheapness, to the masses, was slain in the Bois deVincennes by the vulgar bullet of Emile de Girardin, of 'La Presse.'What reparation to our cause was it that our champion had died like ahero, and Chateaubriand, Arago, Cormenin and Beranger wept around hisgrave? Alas! that inestimable life belonged to his country and his race,and not to himself, to fling away in an obscure quarrel."
"But we are not all of us Armand Carrels," said Rollin.
"And yet, to the great cause of human liberty, and the amelioration ofman's condition, to which each of us stands sworn, are pledged ourlives. To hazard that cause, by the sacrifice of those lives, or byrashly and unwisely attempting its advancement, makes us violators ofour vows, quite as much in reality as if we had become traitors."
"But the instances you cite are those only of individual rashness,Louis, and not of the people, or of their leaders acting in concert,"remarked Marrast.
"True, concert of action has been chiefly needed, but I have only torecall the dates and places of our repeated attempts and defeats, forthe past ten years, to convince you all that those attempts werepremature, and had they not been so, they might have beensuccessful--that they have frittered away energies which, properlyconcentrated and directed, might have achieved a revolution; and thatwhile they have betrayed our designs and depressed our friends, haveenabled our foes insultingly to triumph and caused them to be on theconstant qui vive to anticipate our movements. What but premature andundigested uprisings were the conspiracy of the bell-tower of NotreDame, in January of '32, when 'Le National' was seized--or thedisturbances in La Vendee--or those in Grenoble--or those inMarseilles--or those in the Rue des Prouvaires--or those in April,during the cholera, when Casimir Perier died--or those of the 5th and6th of June, on the occasion of General Lamarque's funeral, on pretenceof avenging upon the Government the affront offered during theobsequies of Casimir Perier, the victim-Premier of the cholera? For thepart taken by 'La Tribune,' then conducted by Marrast, in this revolt,its press was seized and sealed. The same was the fate of 'LaQuotidienne,' and the same would have been the fate of 'Le National,'but for its barricades. Well do I remember the meeting of our friends inthis very apartment on the night after General Lamarque's funeral. Thegreat shade of the venerable warrior seemed among us, repeating for ourcounsel and imitation his last impressive words, 'I die but the causelives!' But, alas! we observed it not. Doubt, dissension, dismay anddespair were in our midst. All was dark--all was defiance anddenunciation, crimination and recrimination--brother's hand raisedagainst brother. Armand Carrel that night sat in this chair, but he wasnot the man to command his own will or opinions; how could he then bringto obedience and concert the conflicting impulses of others? ArmandCarrel was a wonderful man. His motto, like that of Danton, was this:'Audacity, audacity, always audacity!' Yet with all the audacity ofDanton, he had little of his firmness. An officer under the Restoration,a conspirator at Bifort, in arms in Spain against the white flag, threetimes a prisoner before a council of war--in 1830 he was with Thiers,the founder of this journal; but everywhere he carried the exactitude ofthe camp; even in dress, manner and bearing he was a soldier--lofty,haughty, seemingly overbearing, yet, at heart, noble and generous, andto his friends accessible in the extreme. To his military notions,nothing could be accomplished without soldiers, and for the people tocarry a revolution against soldiers seemed to him absurd."
"Armand Carrel would have been, nevertheless, a good revolutionist,Louis," said Marrast; "but he was a bad conspirator. He had no faith inthe people, no confidence in the efforts of undisciplined and unarmedmasses."
"And therein," said Rollin, "he greatly erred."
"Although we can as yet boast of having accomplished but very little bythem, Ledru," added Flocon, with a meaning smile. "The masses are easilyroused, but they don't stay roused, and then they often getunmanageable, even by those by whose summons they were stirred up. Theyfight well, but, somehow or other, they always get beaten; they succumbat last, and bow their necks to the yoke lower than ever."
"It is not the people," said Louis Blanc, "it is we the leaders, who areto be blamed. We rouse them before we are ready for them--before we haveprepared them or anything else for a result; and then it is not strangethat they only rush bravely on to death and defeat. We seize on theoccasion of a funeral for an outbreak without organization, and thecuirassiers of the military escort trample our ranks beneath theirhorses' hoofs. But for unusual efforts, such would have been the case atthe funeral of Dulong, the Deputy who fell in a duel with GeneralBugeaud, in January of '34."
"What were the circumstances?" asked Rollin.
"Armand recollects them better than I," replied Louis Blanc.
"The circumstances were these, as I remember them," said Marrast."General Bugeaud remarked in the course of a speech in the Chamber that'obedience is always a soldier's duty.' 'What if the order be to becomea turnkey?' asked Dulong, in allusion to the General's position inrelation to the Duchess of Berri, during her pregnancy and confinementat Baye. Armand Carrel endeavored to pacificate, but the effort failed.They met in the Bois de Boulogne at ten o' clock in the morning; theweapons were pistols; the distance forty paces. Bugeaud fired almost assoon as he turned, advancing only a few steps; his ball entered aboveDulong's right eye, and at six o'clock that evening he was dead."
"There was a splendid ball at the Tuileries that night, was there not?"asked Flocon.
"There was, and this, with other things, excited in the masses the ideathat their champion was the victim of a Royalist conspiracy, which allthe influence of Armand Carrel and Dulong's uncle, Dupont de l'Eure washardly sufficient to suppress. But Dupont immediately resigned his seatin the Chamber. He would sit no longer in a body one man of which hedeemed the murderer of a beloved nephew. The obsequies were grand.Armand Carrel pronounced the eulogy, and two hundred and thirty-fourdeputies wet the grave with their tears. The people were greatlyexcited, and, as has been said, were with great difficulty restrainedby Carrel and Dupont. Had they been suffered to revolt, the only resultwhich could have followed would have been a terrific outpouring of theirblood, furnishing another instance, I suppose, of the evil ofimpatience; is it not so, Louis?"
"Undoubtedly," w
as the reply; "and only two months after that otherinstance actually occurred, for our warning, in the revolt at Lyons,with which we are all familiar, and in which we were all actors, most ofus to our sorrow. This was in April. Albert's journal, 'La Glaneuse,'had been seized for libel on the Government, and the editor fined andimprisoned. Next a reform banquet of the operatives was forbidden,although but a year before Garnier Pages had been suffered to banquetthe Lyonnese to the number of two thousand, and although at no periodhad so many gorgeous festivities and public balls been given by the richRoyalists, as if in premeditated scorn of the banquet prohibited to thepoor Republicans. The result was so prompt as to seem inevitable; therewas a strike of the operatives, an insurrection of the people. Albertwas sent to Paris as an envoy, to find a man to lead the revolt. MM.Cabet and Pages were deemed too moderate. Cavaignac would go only withCabet. Lafayette was too feeble, but gave his name and letters. Carreland Marrast were not members of the Societe des Droits de l'Homme, andAlbert had been cautioned that Carrel was too moderate. Thiers haddenounced 'La Tribune,' and Marrast's friends were hiding him from thepolice. In despair concerning his mission, the envoy was about returninghome, when he was sent for to Armand Carrel's house, and Carrel offeredto go to Lyons and lead the revolt, provided Godefroi Cavaignac wouldaccompany him. Now these friends had long been at feud, but all privategrievances were forgotten in this crisis of the cause, and Albert isjust about preceding them in the post-chaise, to announce their coming,when, lo! the telegraph says, 'Order reigns in Lyons!' Here, then, aftera terrific slaughter, was recorded another fruitless revolt, because apremature one. Nay, it was infinitely worse than fruitless. Not only didthe Republicans utterly fail in their attempts, not only were theycruelly crushed by the Royal mercenaries, but they were openly deridedin their defeat, and the cause was gloomier than ever. The slaughter ofwomen and children in the streets of Lyons, and on their ownhearthstones, in the course of this insurrection, was hideous, and isgraphically portrayed in the memorial of our friend Ledru Rollin, asadvocate in the matter. But, as if all this were not enough for ourpersecuted cause, the decease of the great and good Lafayette, the idolof freemen all the world over, took place in the following May. Alas!his sun went down in clouds. His end was dark. Bitter maledictionsquivered on his dying lips. He had lived to mourn that July day, onlythree years before, when, on the steps of the Hotel de Ville, he had,with his own hands, been called to invest a cold-blooded, perfidious,selfish, and most ungrateful tyrant with Royal robes. Alas! there wasorder in Lyons--Lafayette was in his grave--peace reigned in Paris--theHouse of Orleans triumphed!"
"Those were dark days," said Marrast, sadly.
"They were, dear Armand, dark, indeed, for you and your friends, foryour journal had been suppressed, and you were an inmate, withCavaignac, of Sainte-Pelagie."
"Whence you both, bravely and boldly effected your escape more than ayear afterwards and fled to England, to the most glorious discomfitureof the knaves who put you there!" cried Rollin. "Vive la Republique!yet, Messieurs! We've all seen dark days, and the present is none of thebrightest; and we've all come together at these old headquarters ofliberty just to be unhappy together, just to help each other bemiserable, which, in fact, is vastly happier unhappiness than beingmiserable alone. At all events, that's what I want. But it can't alwaysbe right. I predict a revolution before another ten years shall haverolled round, which shall make immortals of us all--that revolution forwhich we have been waiting, watching, toiling and writing, lo! now thesethirteen years and upward, for the which waiting, watching, toiling andwriting we have some of us been fined, who had money enough to pay afine, and others imprisoned and hunted about and persecuted. Why,there's Albert and Flocon haven't been able to get a franc cleverly warmin their pockets these ten years, before forth it was drawn in the formof a fine; while as for Marrast, he has the perfect air and bearing of abandit, so often has he seen the inside of a dungeon; and our friendAlbert isn't much better looking. As for Louis and myself, why, we neverknew what it was to have a franc get warm in our pockets, so we escapedhaving any drawn forth by Ministers, and they have never thought usworth prosecuting or imprisoning. But they may change their minds whenLouis' book, that is to make us all immortal, comes out. Eh, Louis?"
Louis Blanc smiled, but made no answer.
"Well, it is only meet, I suppose, that I should receive my share of theblows," said Marrast. "I'm sure I'm not very delicate or veryceremonious in bestowing them. Besides, every one of my predecessors hasendured the same--Carrel, Thomas, Bastide; while poor Rouen, theproprietor, would have been ruined, indeed, a dozen times with fines,but for his enormous profits. Why, this old office has been a perfectbutt for Ministers to fire at--it has received a dozen fusillades, atleast; but it stands yet, and, strange as may have been the scenes ithas witnessed, it will witness yet other and stranger ones, and we shallall be witnesses thereof, and actors in them, too, or greatly do I err."
"So be it, with all our hearts!" was the general shout.
"Apropos of State prosecutions against 'Le National,'" said Louis Blanc,"that was a most exciting time when Rouen was brought by Thiers beforethe Court of Peers, for a libel on that most august and erudite body."
"Aye! and a most, liberal, honest and honorable conclave--thethrice-sodden and most solemn knaves and mules!" cried Rollin.
"Rouen at the bar demanded Armand Carrel for his defence," continuedLouis Blanc. "To refuse was impossible, but a bitter pill must it havebeen to Thiers and Mignet to consent. They must have foreseen what came.Both, now in the Ministry, only four years before both had been in 'LeNational'--Thiers as the colleague of Carrel, and Mignet as acollaborateur. The files of the journal were produced, and, lo! therestood paragraphs proven to have emanated from the pens of theprosecutors far more libelous and venomous on the august peers thananything Rouen had published. You all remember the scene that ensued andwon't forget it soon."
"No; nor shall we soon forget that noble passage in Armand Carrel'sdefence," said Flocon, "in which he evoked the shade of Marshal Ney, andfrom the wild excitement that followed, one would suppose that it hadreally risen in the hall, bleeding and ghastly, and pointing to itswounds, like the ghost of Banquo, to blast his hoary, jeweled and nobleassassin, who, seated on those very seats, had sentenced him to aninfamous doom. Carrel was instantly stopped, but General Excelmens rosein his seat and pronounced the charge true. It was then reiterated withtremendous applause from the galleries. How Carrel escaped punishmentfor contempt is not known. Rouen was convicted of libel on the peers, ofcourse; his sentence was a fine of ten thousand francs and imprisonmentfor two years."
"But of what words did this famous libel actually consist?" asked LedruRollin.
"Louis can tell you better than I," said Flocon.
"Why, the words were severe enough, no doubt," replied Louis Blanc, "butThiers and Mignet had themselves expressed the same ideas a hundredtimes, though in less powerful and pointed language. The passage whichseems particularly to have given offence was this, that in the eyes ofeternal justice and those of posterity, as well as in the testimony oftheir own consciences, these renegades from the Revolution, thesereturned emigrants, these men of Ghent, these military and civilparvenus, these old Senators and spoiled Marshals of Bonaparte, theseProcureur Generals, these new-made nobles of the Restoration, thesethree or four generations of Ministers sunk in public hatred andcontempt, and stained with blood--all these, seasoned with a fewnotabilities, thrown in by the Royalty of the 7th of August, oncondition they should never open their lips save to approve theirmaster's commands--all this farrago of servilities was not competent topronounce on the culpability of men seeking to enforce the results ofthe Revolution of July!"
"It was not until the commencement of 1835, I think," said Marrast,"that Ministers opened a general onslaught upon the Parisian press. 'LeRepublicain' was interdicted that year. It was then, too, that the lawsagainst public criers and newspaper hawkers were instituted. As far backas '33, however, Rodde had braved
all such prohibitions by selling andwith impunity, too, his own paper in the streets. In May of '35 came onthe general prosecution of the press. Rollin was advocate in thedefence. There were warm words between Armand Carrel and his friendDupont, the lawyer, and there was at one time apprehension of a duel."
"The position of Armand Carrel with Thiers, his former colleague, was,at that time, a singular one," remarked Rollin. "Each seemed to be onthe constant search for opportunities to exasperate the other. Theeditor assailed the Minister in his columns, and the Minister retaliatedby an arrest. Carrel censured and ridiculed Thiers, though he respectedhis abilities, and Thiers feared and hated Carrel, though he admired histalents."
"It was about this time that Fieschi exploded his infernal machine atthe King, was it not?" asked Flocon. "Thiers arrested Carrel then, Iknow."
"It was on the 28th of July of '35, at ten in the morning, on theBoulevard du Temple. This was the second attempt on the King's life, thefirst having been that of Bergeron, in November of '33. Carrel wasarrested as an accomplice, it was pretended, for every one of theseattempts has been attributed to the whole body of the Republicans,while they were utterly ignorant of them until they took place, and thenbitterly denounced them. But the Government has made capital out of allthese insane attempts, and against the opposition, too."
"I've heard it asserted," said Rollin, "that the Government got up someof those little exhibitions of fireworks for that very purpose. They arequite harmless, so far as the old man is concerned--wonderfully so--andFieschi was made a perfect fool of, so ridiculously lionized was he byKing, Court and Ministers. Our friend Marie was advocate for thatwretched old man, Pepin, Fieschi's accomplice, more a ghost than aliving creature."
"You are entirely right, friend Rollin," said Louis Blanc, "in the ideathat every one of these attempts strengthens the Government and recoilson the opposition. No one should so vigilantly and vigorously watch forand suppress such attempts as we. Heaven defend the old despot from theassassin's weapon, as it seems well inclined to do, or the deed willsurely be attributed to us. Every unsuccessful attempt at assassinationis viewed like an unsuccessful attempt at revolt on the part of theopposition, and injures our cause accordingly. Better never to attemptthan never to succeed."
"Do you think it true, Louis, as was reported," asked Marrast, "that assoon as the smoke of Fieschi's explosion swept off, and the old manfound himself standing unharmed amid a heap of slain and mangled,Marshal Mortier and Colonel Rieussec being among the killed, his firstexclamation was this, with, ill-concealed gratification, 'Now I shallget my appanages and the dotations for the boys.'"
"Nothing is more probable," said Louis Blanc. "That old man has but oneimpulse--selfishness, and but one attachment--to his family--his family,because it is his. His purse and family have for years been his soleobjects of love. To aggrandize his own has been for years his sole endand aim. He parcels out the thrones and kingdoms of Europe among hischildren as if it were but a family estate."
"What thoughtful selfishness!" exclaimed Flocon; "and at a moment, too,when he had but just escaped an awful death, and all around him flowedthe blood and lay scattered the lacerated limbs of his faithfulservants, either dead or dying with groans and shrieks of most agonizingtorture, and all because of himself; how disgraceful that, at such aterrible moment, his first thought should have been of the few morefrancs his trembling hand was striving to tear from a people by whom hehad already been made the richest man in Europe, and which theoccurrence of this dreadful event might serve to win for him."
"Well," said Rollin, "whether this event aided to win the appanages anddotations, and was so designed, or not, it is very sure the aforesaidappanages and dotations were secured. No wonder that such attemptssucceed each other so rapidly--one every year, at the least! When wasthe next, Louis--that of Alibaud, I think?"
"That took place about sunset on the 25th of June, '36," was the reply."Alibaud discharged a walking-stick-gun at the King, as he left theTuileries, on his way to Neuilly, at the corner of the Porte Royale.That Alibaud was a mere boy, and a very interesting and intelligent boy,too; but for some mysterious cause he did not find favor with the court,as did Fieschi. He evidently attempted the assassination fromconviction, from a feeling of manifest destiny. After his failure, heonly wished to die, and to die at once. All who have succeeded Alibaudhave been but vulgar cut-throats."
"In what year was the insurrection of Armand Barbes and Martin Bernard?"asked Flocon. "That proved most disastrous to our cause."
"That was in '39, May, I think," answered Rollin. "Barbes, Blanqui andBernard were arraigned as leaders. Marie and myself were advocates forBarbes. Blanqui was sentenced to death and Barbes to the galleys forlife. But we obtained commutation of penalty for both."
"And where is to be the end of all these things?" asked Marrast,gloomily, as he continued pacing the chamber with folded arms, his headresting on his bosom. "Are the ten years on which we have now entered tobe characterized by the fruitless efforts of the past? Are the people ofFrance again, and again, and again to strike for freedom, only to bestricken into the dust and trampled beneath the armed heel of a despot'smyrmidons? Are the streets of Lyons, Paris and Marseilles again to bedrenched with the life-blood of their dwellers, poured out as freely aswater and as fruitlessly? Are we all again, for full ten years, to toil,strive, struggle and suffer; to be hunted down like the vilestcriminals, and, like criminals, plunged into the most pestilentialdungeons; to be stripped like slaves of our hard-won earnings, and to bedeprived of the most humble franchises of men claiming at all to befree; to be treated with scorn and contumely, and to be debarred theexercise of those common rights, which, like air and water, belong toall; I say, brothers, are all these scenes to be repeated during the tenyears on which we have now entered, as they have been witnessed duringthe ten years now past?"
"You speak sadly, Armand," observed Rollin.
"Not so sadly as I feel. I have listened with attention to therecapitulation of the political events of the past ten years in France;and most plainly, and as sadly as plainly, does the result prove thatevery movement in our cause has been as premature as it has beenunsuccessful."
"May we not gather wisdom, which shall conduct us to success in thefuture, from the very errors and disasters of the past?" remarkedFlocon.
"Alas!" despondingly replied Marrast, "what is there in our present topromise a bright future more than was in our past to promise us a brightpresent? Our great leaders of another generation have all left us, oneafter another--all have dropped into their graves. The cold marble hasclosed over their venerable brows, and they rest well. Yet they diedand made no sign of hope. On us, young, inexperienced and rash, hasdevolved their task; but the mantle of their power and virtue has not,alas! descended with that task to aid in its momentous accomplishment.General Lamarque's sun went down in clouds. Midnight, deeper thanEgyptian darkness, brooded over the delirious deathbed of Lafayette.Armand Carrel fell without hope; and are we wiser than they? How often,oh! how often have I listened to the words of wisdom that fell fromthose eloquent lips, even as a boy reverently listens to a parent--forsuch was Armand Carrel to me. Upon this very spot have I stood, in thatvery chair has he sat, that chair, which, with mingled shame and pride,I reflect is now filled by me--shame, that it is filled in a manner sounworthy of him--pride, that I should have been deemed fit, after him tofill it at all--in that very chair, I say, has his noble form reclined,when he for hours, even from night till the next day's dawn, dwelt withsorrowful eloquence upon his country's present, and looked forward withgloomy foreboding and prediction for the future. It almost seems to methat this mighty shade is with us now!"
"And why was all this despondency, my dear Armand?" remarked LouisBlanc, mildly. "Was it not because our noble and gifted friend wasessentially a soldier, not a civilian, not a statesman, not arevolutionist? Had Armand Carrel gone to Algeria, he would have died--ifdied he had not in an unknown duel, with an unknown bravo--he wouldhave died a Marshal of Fr
ance--a Bugeaud, a Chaugarnier, a Bedeau, aCavaignac, a Clausel, a Lamoriciere. Carrel had no faith in the massesto achieve a revolution. He never believed that they could evenwithstand a single charge of regular troops, much less repel andovercome it."
"Not even with barricades?" asked Rollin.
"Not even in defence of barricades," continued Louis Blanc.
"Regular troops have much to learn," added Rollin, with a significantsmile. "They will see the day--aye! and we all shall see it and rejoiceat its coming, despite all melancholy prognostications, when the peopleof Paris will dictate abdication to the king of the barricades, from thetop of the barricades, the people's throne! Nor will that event tarrylong!"
"I doubt it not, I doubt it not, Ledru!" exclaimed Louis Blanc, rejoicedthat one of the youngest and least stable of their number appeared freefrom the apprehensions of one of the most influential and seemingly mostreliable. "I accept the omen indicated by your enthusiasm. But Iaccounted for the vacillation and distrust of our lamented friend,Armand Carrel, by reverting to the fact that he relied entirely onregular troops, military skill, scientific tactics and severesubordination. Now, all of these belonged to our oppressors and none ofthem to us; and, inasmuch as he could not perceive that enthusiasm,passion for freedom, love of country and family, and the very wrath andrage of desperation itself sometimes not only supply the place ofdiscipline, arms and the knowledge requisite to use them, but evenenable vast masses to break down and crush beneath their heel theserried ranks of veteran troops, he could only despair at the prospectsapparently before him. Besides, Armand Carrel, like all military men,was a man of action, not reflection--of execution, not contrivance--asoldier, not a conspirator. At the head of ten thousand veteran troops,he would have charged on thrice their number without discipline, withthe confident assurance of sweeping them from his path as the chaff ofthe threshing floor is swept before the blast; but, with anundisciplined mob, as he contemptuously called the masses, he would havemoved not a step. The larger the multitude, the less effective and themore impossible to manage he would have deemed it. A revolutionaccomplished by means of the three arms of the militaryservice--artillery, cavalry and infantry--horse, foot and dragoons, hecould readily conceive; but a revolution conducted to a successful issueonly by means of pikes, axes, muskets and barricades, never, to the hourof his death, despite the victory of the Three Days, could Carrelcomprehend."
"Besides," said Flocon, "it must not be forgotten that Armand Carrel,though a most devoted friend to Republicanism, was never a member of theSociete des Droits de l'Homme--was never, as we all now are--aCommunist, a Socialist, a Fourierist, a friend to the laborer. Nowonder he hoped so little for the people, and trusted to accomplish solittle through them."
"There can be no doubt that the social principle which Republicanism isnow unconsciously assuming all over France," mildly remarked LouisBlanc, "is lending to the cause incalculable strength. How terriblyimpressed with a conviction of the justice of the cause in which theyperished must have been the unhappy insurgents of Lyons, when, with thismotto on their banner: 'To live toiling or die fighting,' they marchedfirmly up to the cannon's mouth and fought, and, thus fighting, fell.Yet this conviction is not peculiar to the workmen of Lyons. It pervadesall Paris, all France, and needs only to be roused to act with an energywhich no human power can resist. Social Republican will be the type ofthe next revolution in France--it must be. The French people have beendazzled by the mirage of liberty ever since '89,--but it has been only amirage. On the last three days of July, '30, the people of Paris droveout one Bourbon to enthrone another. True, 'The State is myself,' wasnot the despotic motto he assumed, as did one of his successors, but itwas 'Me and my family,' which has proved equally selfish, if not soabsolute, and far more dangerous to freedom. With Lafayette and BenjaminConstant, the Citizen King they had made, quarreled as soon as on histhrone, and Lafitte and Dupont de l'Eure, his supporters, were banishedfrom the Court. Casimir Perier was called to crush the Liberals. ArmandCarrel assailed the act, and urged a republic. 'Le National' wasprosecuted, and insurrections followed. Thus was the Revolution of theThree Days won by the people to be seized and enjoyed by theBourgeoisie. The next revolution will be won by the people, too, but thepeople will enjoy it!"
"And how progresses our principles, Louis, among the people?" askedMarrast, who had listened attentively to every word that had beenuttered.
"Never so gloriously as now, Armand, never! Never has there been such adiffusion of information upon the subject of the rights of labor as now.Pagnerre tells me every day that volumes, tracts and pamphlets on thistopic disappear like magic from his shelves."
"Has not the Minister a hand in this mysterious disappearance ofCommunist literature?" asked Rollin. "We all know he is quite frantic onthe topic of popular education."
"Oh! yes, we all understand Guizot's love for the people! His system ofeducation promulgated in 1833 was so very beautiful that it was almost apity it was utterly impracticable. But Guizot has very little to do withPagnerre's book-shelves, or with Pagnerre in any way, except toprosecute him from time to time for publishing Cormenin's witheringtracts designed for the Minister himself, and yet it would almost seemthere was a design to exhaust the market of the publications of ourfriends; only the great mass of them go to the provinces and largequantities abroad. My own little brochure, 'The Organization of Work,'after having fallen stillborn from the press, died a natural death andbeen laid out in state for a year or two on Pagnerre's shelves, all atonce is resurrected, runs through half a dozen large editions, and istranslated into half a dozen languages. The same is true of Lamartine's'Vision of the Future,' and the same of Cormenin's tracts, and of theten thousand brochures on this same subject of Communism in all itsdifferent shades and phrases, and in every variety of size, form andstyle of writing and appearance. These publications are adapted to everytaste and comprehension. The workman is suited as well as the savant.All this savors of magic. Even my most sanguine anticipations aresurpassed by reality. There will never long lack a supply for a demand,be that demand what it may. A demand for Fourier literature has turnedall the pens in Paris hard at work upon it--novelists, essayists,pamphleteers--while the Porte St. Antoine, the Porte St. Martin and allthe minor theatres, where are found the masses, swarm with melodramas,farces and vaudevilles on the same subject, and none of you haveforgotten the powerful play, entitled 'The Laborer of Lyons,' attributedto M. Dantes, recently produced with such success on the boards of theFrancais itself."
"And who is this M. Dantes," asked Ledru Rollin, "if you will suffer meto interrupt?"
"Decidedly the most remarkable man in the French Chamber of Deputies,"replied Marrast. "In powers of natural eloquence I never saw his rival."
"Nor is that all," added Louis Blanc. "Unlike most men noted as mereorators, he is a sound logician, as well as a polished rhetorician. As apolitical economist he has few equals. To that subject he seems to havedevoted much study, while his familiarity with the political history ofFrance and of the times generally all over Christendom seems boundless.In debate, you observe he is never at a loss for fact or argument, letthe discussion take what direction it may."
"And he has celebrity also as a writer, has he not?" asked Ledru Rollin.
"The author of 'The Laborer of Lyons' must be a man of distinguishedliterary genius," was the reply.
"Better than all," said Flocon, "he is devoted heart and soul to thegood cause."
"Such devotedness to a cause I never witnessed," said Marrast. "He putsus all to the blush. With him it appears a matter of direct individualinterest. He is perfectly untiring. He is like one impelled by his fate.Love or vengeance could not force onward a man to the attainment of anobject more irresistibly than he seems forced, and that, too, withoutthe slightest apparent stain of personal interest or ambition. That manappears to me a miracle--a pure philanthropist. He strives, struggles,suffers, sacrifices, and all with the sole object of ameliorating thecondition of his race."
"I
t is, indeed, wonderful," said Rollin, thoughtfully. "Do you know,Marrast, anything of his past history?"
"Little, if anything. Of himself he never speaks, and I can gathernothing from others. Even his constituents had known nothing of him buta few months before he became their representative in the Chamber. Hispopularity with them he owes to his efforts to ameliorate theircondition. At his own expense he established among them a Phalanstrie,which is now in most successful operation."
"He is rich, then?" asked Flocon.
"Seemingly not, to judge from his habits of life," replied Marrast. "Nota man in the Chamber is more Republican in garb, manner, equipage orresidence than he, and yet he may be rich."
"Is he married?" asked Rollin.
"He has been, I am told," said Marrast. "But we interrupt you, Louis.You were alluding to the unusual influences now at work for our cause."
"I was about speaking of the newspaper press," said Louis Blanc. "Neverhas there been known such a revolution in favor of Reform and Communistjournals, and to none is this better known than to some of ourselves.There's Flocon's new journal, 'La Reforme,' that has leaped at once intoa circulation never before achieved but by long years of toil andenterprise. The old 'National,' we need but to look around us to besure, was never more prosperous than now, while I am free to confessthat my journal, 'Le Bon Sens,' which has been a sickly child ever sinceits birth, has, within three months, tripled its number of readers, or,at least, its payers. The same is in the main true of 'Le Monde,' by LaCroix, 'Le Journal du Peuple,' by Dubose, 'Le Courier Francais,' byChatelain, 'La Commerce,' by Bert, 'La Minerve,' by Lemaine, 'LaPresse,' by Girardin, and all the journals in Paris which diffuse trueideas upon labor and the rights of the people, be they in other respectswhat they may. Even the 'Charivari,' which views the old King and hisMinisters as fair butts of ridicule, perceives a marked increase in itspatronage since it commenced that course, which sudden popularitynaturally excites it to increase of zeal in the same path. Besides allthis, an army of new papers, aiming to aid the great cause, have notonly sprung up of late, like mushrooms, in Paris, but all over France,and even all over Europe; and so far appear they from interfering witheach other's prospects that the more there are the better they seemsustained and the more ably conducted. A swarm of new and unknownwriters for the press on this great subject seems all at once to haveappeared from unseen hiding-places."
"This is very strange, Louis," said Marrast, "and yet it is, doubtless,very true. I had observed what you remark myself, although I have viewedthe movement less hopefully for the cause of the Republic than you."
"Depend upon it, Armand," said Louis Blanc, smiling, "thatRepublicanism and Socialism are identical terms, as much so as Communismand despotism are antagonistic terms."
"But how do you account for this wonderful change, this unprecedentedfever for Fourierism?" asked Flocon.
"I don't pretend to account for it at all. The merits of the cause have,perhaps, begun to be properly appreciated. Unusual efforts have beenmade by our friends of late. Whole nations and epochs are sometimesseized with a contagious mania for peculiar species of literature, asfor everything else. But I will hint to you a suspicion which I haverecently entertained, namely, that, after all, the rapid sale and readymarket for every species of Fourier literature is not an unerringindication of the amount of reading of such literature, or the demandthat actually exists of buyers as well as readers--individual ones atleast. As for the journalistic literature, that I have learned is,without doubt, gratuitously distributed, to a great extent, among themasses."
"But can the masses read the papers?" asked Marrast.
"Each family, house, neighborhood, cafe or cabaret, at any rate, has, atleast one reader," said Rollin; "and all the men, women and childrenhave ears to hear, if not power to comprehend. But some of these papers,which I have seen, come down in style to the very humblestcomprehension."
"Can it be," asked Flocon, "that there is such a club as a society forthe diffusion of social knowledge in Paris, after the form of that inLondon, instituted by Lord Henry Brougham and his Whig coadjutors, forthe diffusion of general information, and so opposed by the Tories."
"If there be such an association," said Louis Blanc, "it has managed toelude all my vigilance thus far, and that of the Government, too, forGuizot can perceive, if no one else can, the inevitable effect of allthis, and he has no idea that the dear people of France shall beeducated by any one save himself. But, actually, there seems to me toexist too much unity of purpose and action in this enterprise for it tobe the work of an association. I should rather suppose one powerful andphilanthropic mind at the head of the movement, were there not twothings so plainly opposed to it as to forbid the idea--the first beingthat there is no one man in Europe who is rich enough to expend suchimmense sums upon such an enterprise, if he would, and the second thatthere is no man who has the subject sufficiently at heart to do it, ifhe could."