CHAPTER XIV.
SACROVIR'S BIRTHDAY.
The family of Marik Lebrenn were assembled in their little parlor on theday after the merchant's arrival. It was the birthday of his son, who onthat day completed his twenty-first year.
"My son," Lebrenn said to Sacrovir, "to-day you are twenty-one years ofage. The time has come to introduce you to the chamber with the closedwindow that has so often excited your curiosity. You are about to becomeacquainted with its contents. I wish first to explain to you the reasonfor and the cause of this mystery. The moment you are initiated, my son,I know your curiosity will turn to pious respect. Accident has so willedit that the day of your initiation into this family mystery should beprovidentially chosen. Since my arrival yesterday, we have givenourselves over to tokens of love, and have had little time to considerpublic matters. Nevertheless, a few words that escaped you--as well asyou, my dear George," added the merchant addressing his daughter'shusband, "cause me to apprehend that you feel discouraged--that you mayeven despair."
"It is but too true, father," answered Sacrovir.
"When one witnesses the things that are happening every day," addedGeorge, "one may well feel alarmed for the future of the Republic, andof mankind."
"Well, tell me, children," asked Lebrenn with his usual smile, "what ishappening that is so very terrible? Tell me all about it."
"Everywhere at this hour the people's liberty is being kicked andcuffed, and even strangled by the henchmen of absolute Kings. Italy,Prussia, Germany, Hungary, are all again forced under the bloody yokethat, electrified by our example in 1848, they that year broke, relyingupon our support as their brothers! To the northeast the despot of theCossacks planted one foot upon Poland, another upon Hungary, smotheredboth countries in their own blood, and now threatens the independence ofEurope with his knout, and is even ready to hurl upon us his savagehordes!"
"Similar hordes, my children, our wooden-shoed fathers rolled in thedust in the days of the Convention--we shall do as much. As to theKings, they massacre, they threaten, they foam at the mouth withrage--and, above all, with terror! Already they see myriads of avengersarise out of the blood of the martyrs whom they assassinated. Thesecrown-carriers have the vertigo. And there is good reason therefor. If aEuropean war breaks out, immediately the Revolution will raise its headin their own camp and devour them; if peace prevails, the pacific tideof civilization will rise higher and higher, and engulf their thrones.Proceed, children."
"But at home!" cried George. "At home!"
"Well, my friend, what is happening at home?"
"Alas, father! Mistrust, fear, misery sowed everywhere by the hereditaryenemies of the people and the bourgeoisie. Credit is destroyed. Turnaround, the population, misled, betrayed and deceived, mutinies againstthe Republic."
"Poor dear blind boys!" replied Lebrenn with his placid and sarcasticsmile. "Does not the prodigious industrial movement that is going onamong the working class and the bourgeoisie strike your eyes? Onlyconsider the innumerable workingmen's associations that are founded onall sides; consider the admirable attempts made at establishing banks ofexchange, commercial bureaus, land credits, co-operative associations,etc. Of these attempts, some are already crowned with success, othersare still doubtful, but they are all undertaken with intelligence,boldness, probity, perseverance and faith in the democratic future ofsociety. Do not they prove that the people and the bourgeoisie, nolonger leaning upon government for support, seek their strength andresources in themselves, with the end in view of freeing themselves fromcapitalist and usurious exploitation? Believe me, my children, when themass of a people like ours goes about seeking the solution of theproblem as to the source of their true liberty, of their labor, of theirwellbeing and the wellbeing of their families, the problem can notremain unsolved, and, with Socialism giving its help, the problem willbe solved."
"But where are our forces, father? Our party is shattered! Therepublicans are hounded down, calumniated, imprisoned, proscribed!"
"And what is the conclusion you draw from your discouragement, my boys?"
"Alas," answered Sacrovir sadly, "what we fear is the ruin of theRepublic and the return of the days of old; retrogression instead ofprogress; the desolate conviction that, instead of steadily marchingforward, mankind is fatedly condemned to turn in a circle, unable everto step out of that iron grip. If the Republic goes down we run the riskof retrogressing, who knows how far back, perchance back to the pointfrom which our fathers started in 1789!"
"That, indeed, is exactly what the royalists say and hope, my children.That the royalists should be blind enough to incur that error in logicis easily understood. Nothing blinds so completely as passion,interests, or caste prejudices. But that we, my children, that we shouldshut our eyes to the obvious evidences of progress, evidences moreglaring than the sun, and plunge ourselves in the dismal vapors ofdoubt;--that we, my children, should do the sanctity of our cause theinjustice of questioning its power and its ultimate, supreme triumph,when on all sides it manifests--"
"But, father--"
"As I was saying, when it manifests its power on all sides! I repeatit--under such circumstances to allow oneself to be disheartened anddiscouraged, that would be to endanger our cause. But humanity pursuesits steady march onward, despite the incredulity, the blindness, theweakness, and also the treasons and the crimes of man!"
"But, father--does humanity, indeed, march steadily on the path ofprogress?"
"Steadily, my sons."
"But yet, centuries ago, our forefathers the Gauls lived free and happy!Nevertheless, were they not forced backward on the path of progress?They were despoiled and enslaved by the Roman conquest, and later by theFrankish Kings."
"I did not say, my friends, that our forefathers did not suffer; what Isaid was that mankind marched onward. The latest descendants of an oldworld that was crumbling down on all sides to make room for theChristian world--an immense progress!--our fathers were bruised andmutilated under the falling ruins of ancient society. Nevertheless adeep-reaching and far-spreading social transformation was taking place.Mankind marches evermore--slowly, at times--never, however, does it takea step backward."
"Father, I believe you--yet--"
"Despite yourself, still you doubt, Sacrovir? I can understand it.Fortunately, the _lessons_, the _proofs_, the _data_, the _facts_, the_names_, that you are about to be made acquainted with in the mysteriouschamber, will go further to convince you than any words of mine. Whenyou will see, my friends, that in the gloomiest days of ourhistory--such days as the Kings, the seigneurs and the clergy havealmost always afflicted man with; when you will see that we, theconquered, started with slavery and arrived step by step to popularsovereignty; you will then ask yourselves whether, at this hour, when wefind ourselves invested with that so painfully earned sovereignty, itwould not be criminal on our part to mistrust the future. To mistrustit! Great God! Oh! Our fathers, despite all their martyrdom never didmistrust the future! There was hardly a century when they failed to takea step towards deliverance! Alas, almost always that step was markedwith blood! If our masters, the conquerors, showed themselvesimplacable, there hardly was a century when, as you will see, there werenot frightful reprisals levied upon them to satisfy divine justice. Yes,you will see, there hardly was a century when the woolen cap did notrise against the casque of gold, when the peasant's scythe did notstrike fire with the lance of the knight, when the horny hand of thevassal did not smite the delicately pampered hand of some episcopalpetty tyrant! You will see it, my children--hardly a century when theinfamous debauches and acts of rapine and ferocity indulged in by theKings and most of the seigneurs and upper clergy failed to rouse thepeople, or when they failed to protest, arms in hand, against thetyranny of the throne, the nobility and the Popes! You will seeit--hardly a century, when the famishing masses, rising as inexorable ashunger, failed to throw their lordlings into terror--hardly a centurywithout its Belshazzar's feast, buried along with its golden drinkingcups, its flowers, it
s songs and its displayful magnificence, under theavenging wave of some popular torrent. Undoubtedly, alas! the terrible,though legitimate, reprisals of the oppressed were succeeded byferocious acts of revenge. Nevertheless, formidable examples had beenmade. At each recurring epoch the Revolution wrung from the hereditaryoppressors of our fathers some lasting concession, registered in the lawand necessarily observed."
"I believe you," said Sacrovir. "Judging the past by the present, in1789 the Revolution conquered our freedom; in 1830 the Revolutionreturned to us a part of our rights; finally, last year, in 1848, theRevolution proclaimed the sovereignty of the people and universalsuffrage, which is calculated to put an end to bloody fratricidalconflicts."
"And so it ever has been, my boy. You will see it--_there is not asingle social, political, civil or religious reform that our fatherswere not forced to conquer from century to century at the price of theirblood_. Alas! This is a cruel fact--it is deplorable. There was nochoice but to resort to arms so long as the only answer made by thestiff-necked and inexorable enjoyers of privilege to the tears, thesorrows, the prayers of the oppressed was--No! No! No! Then frightfuloutbursts of rage flared up--then torrents of blood flowed on bothsides. It was by dint of unterrified valor, persistent efforts, battlesand martyrdom that our fathers first broke the old shackles of slaveryin which the Franks kept them since the conquest. Thence they arrivedat serfdom, a somewhat less horrible condition. Next, from serfs, theybecame vassals, thereupon subject to mortmain--each of these a stepupwards. And evermore thus, from step to step, cutting themselves bydint of abnegation a path across the centuries and all obstacles, theyfinally came so far as to conquer the sovereignty of the people. And youdespair of the future when now, thanks to universal suffrage, thedisinherited are able to impose their sovereign will upon the privilegedminority! What, you despair, now that power is revokable by the voice ofour representatives, whom we select as the supreme judges of theexecutive power! What, you despair because we have had eighteen monthsof constant struggle and of occasional suffering! Oh, it was not for soshort a period as eighteen months that our forefathers struggled andsuffered; it was for the long-drawn period of more than eighteencenturies! If every generation had its martyrs, it also registered itsconquests! It is of those martyrs and those conquests that you are aboutto see the pious relics, the glorious trophies! Come, my children."
With this solemn invocation Marik Lebrenn proceeded, followed by hisfamily, to the room with the closed windows, which the son, the daughterand the son-in-law of the merchant now entered for the first time.