Part 8 (1/2)
A tall figure in black, with a white cravat, rose and advanced to the tribune slowly, amid a stillness as hushed and breathless as the prior excitement had been noisy. In age, M. Dantes seemed about fifty or fifty-five. His form was slight and his movements were graceful and dignified. His face was livid and as calm as marble; but for the large and eloquent eye, dark as night, one might have thought that broad white brow, that ma.s.sive chin, those firmly compressed lips and that colorless mouth were those of a statue. Yet in the furrows of that forehead and the deep lines of that face could be read the record of thought and suffering. The busy plowshare had turned up the deep graves of departed pa.s.sions. No one could gaze or even glance at that face and not perceive at once that it was the visage of a man of many sorrows--yet of a man proud, calm, self-possessed, self-poised and indomitable. His hair, which had been raven black, now rested in thin waves around his expansive forehead and was sprinkled with gray, while his intellectual countenance wore that expression of weariness and melancholy which illness, deep study and grief invariably trace.
Mounting the steps of the tribune with slow and deliberate tread, he drew up his tall figure, and resting his left hand, which grasped a roll of papers, upon the marble slab, glanced around on the turbulent billows of upturned and excited faces, as if at a loss how to address them.
Having read the bill, after the usual prefatory remarks, he began by laying down the platform which he proposed occupying in its advocacy and support, consisting, of course, of abstract, self-evident propositions, which none could have the hardihood to gainsay, yet, when once admitted, the deductions inevitably flowing therefrom none could resist. The propositions seemed safe and indisputable, but the deductions evolved from those propositions were as frightful to the legitimist as they were delightful to the liberal. That each man is born the heir to the same natural rights--that each man, alike and equally with all others, has a birthright of which he cannot be divested and of which he cannot divest himself, to act, to think and to pursue happiness wherever he can find it without infringement on the rights of his fellow beings--none were disposed to deny. That each human animal, as each animal of inferior grade, has, also, the right of subsistence, drained from the bosom of the earth, the great mother of us all, which without his foreknowledge or wish gave him being, seemed, also, indisputable. But when from these propositions were deduced that crime is rather the result of misery than depravity, and that the office of government is more to prevent crime by creating happiness than to punish it by creating misery, and that for the natural rights resigned by the individual in entering into and upholding the social system human government is bound to afford employment and subsistence to each of its members, that labor and its produce should be in partners.h.i.+p, that compet.i.tion should be abolished, and work and wages so distributed by the State as to equalize the condition of each individual in the community, and, finally, that the claims of labor are not satisfied by wages, but the workman is ent.i.tled to a proprietary share in the capital which employs him, inasmuch as all the woes and miseries of the laborer arise exclusively from the compet.i.tion for work--when these deductions were advanced the opulent and the conservative started back in terror and dismay. Distribution of property, universal plunder, havoc, bloodshed, sans culottism, a red republic and the ghastly shapes of another Reign of Terror rose in frightful vividness before the fancy. As the speaker proceeded to ill.u.s.trate and sustain his positions, which were those of the Communist, Socialist, Fourierist, call them which we may, and poured forth a fiery flood of persuasion, invective, denunciation and shouts of applause, mingled with cries of rage and dismay, rose from all quarters of the hall. Unmoved and undaunted, that marble man, livid as a spectre, his dark eyes blazing, his thin and writhing lip flecked with foam, his tall form swaying to and fro, rising, bending--now thrown back, then leaning over the marble bar of the tribune--continued to pour forth his scathing sarcasm, his crus.h.i.+ng invective, his eloquent persuasion and his unanswerable argument in tones, now soft and tuneful as a silvery bell, then sad and pitiful as an evening zephyr, then clear, high and sonorous as a clarion, then hoa.r.s.e and deep as the thunder, for a period of four hours, unbroken and continuous, without stop or stay.
The effect of this speech, as the orator, pale, exhausted, shattered, unstrung, with nerves like the torn cordage of a s.h.i.+p that has outridden the tempest, descended from the tribune, baffles all description.
Fearful of its influence, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at once arose, and in order to divert the attention of the Chamber asked leave to lay before it the late dispatches from the seat of war, setting forth the glorious triumphs of the French arms in Algeria. This intelligence, which, at any other time, would have been received with rapturous enthusiasm, was listened to under the influence of a counterirritant already at work, with comparative calmness, and its only effect was to cause a postponement of the vote on the laborers' bill upon the plea of the lateness of the hour, although not without strenuous opposition from the extreme right. The rejoicing of the galleries at the triumph of their champion and their fierce applause knew no bounds at the close of the sitting, and their idol escaped being borne in his chair to his lodgings only by gliding through a private exit from the hall to the first carriage he could find.
”What think you?” cried Beauchamp, triumphantly, to the Ministerial Secretary, as they were pressed together for an instant by the excited throng on the steps as they left the hall.
”Think, Monsieur!” was the bitter rejoinder of the Secretary, whose agitation completely overcame his habitual and const.i.tutional self-possession, ”I think Paris is on the eve of another Reign of Terror!”
Beauchamp laughed, and the friends were drawn apart by the conflicting billows of the crowd.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MYSTERY THICKENS.
M. Dantes' wonderful speech was the princ.i.p.al topic of conversation in every quarter of Paris, exciting comment of the most animated description. Of course, the workmen and their friends were delighted with it, and could not find words strong enough to adequately express their enthusiastic admiration for the gifted orator. Those belonging to the Government party, on the other hand, denounced the speaker as a demagogue and the speech as in the highest degree incendiary and dangerous. Strange to relate, whoever spoke of the oration always mentioned the new play, ”The Laborer of Lyons,” attributing its authors.h.i.+p to the mysterious Deputy from Ma.r.s.eilles, and the drama received cordial endors.e.m.e.nt or scathing censure, according to the political opinions of those who alluded to it.
For these reasons curiosity in regard to M. Dantes ran higher than ever, but instead of decreasing as he became more prominent, the mystery surrounding him seemed only to thicken. Nevertheless, the Deputy was the lion of the hour, or rather would have been, had he permitted himself to be lionized, but this he persistently declined to do, holding aloof from society and mingling with none save his political a.s.sociates, though even to them he was a problem they could not solve; they, however, recognized in him a powerful coadjutor, and with that were forced to be content.
”THE HALL OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES was last evening thronged to overflowing. It had been understood that M. Dantes was to advocate the People's Bill, and, as usual, it had but to be known that this distinguished orator was to occupy the tribune to draw out all cla.s.ses of citizens. Nor was the vast mult.i.tude disappointed. A more powerful speech has never been heard within those walls. More than four hours was the audience enchained by the matchless eloquence of this remarkable man, which was received with thunders of applause. A report of this speech will be found under the appropriate head.”
”THE NEW PLAY ent.i.tled, 'The Laborer of Lyons,' recently produced at the Theatre Francais with triumphant success, and which has caused such a deep and universal sensation, is repeated to-night.
There is reason to antic.i.p.ate that the author, who is supposed to be a celebrated orator of the opposition, may be induced to comply with the call, which will be again renewed, to avow himself.”
Such were two paragraphs which the following morning appeared in Beauchamp's journal, and similar notices of both speech and drama were published in every other opposition sheet in Paris. In the Ministerial organ, on the contrary, and in all the papers of like political bias, appeared the following and similar paragraphs:
”THE SPEECH OF M. DANTeS, last evening, in the Chamber of Deputies, was one of the most dangerous diatribes to which we ever listened--dangerous for the insidious and sophistical principles it advanced, and the almost fiend-like eloquence with which they were urged. Where are these things to stop? At what terrible catastrophe do these men aim? What crisis do they contemplate?”
”THE NEW DRAMA at the Theatre Francais, called 'The Laborer of Lyons,' which is to-night to be repeated, is calculated and seems to have been designed by its reckless author to produce the very worst effects among the laboring cla.s.ses. We deeply regret that it has been suffered by the censors to be brought out.”
The mult.i.tude called forth by paragraphs like these to witness the new play was, of course, immense. Long before the time for the curtain to rise, the vast edifice was crowded to its utmost capacity with an eager and enthusiastic a.s.semblage. Not only were the galleries, parquette and lobbies filled with blouses, but the boxes were glittering with a perfect galaxy of fas.h.i.+on, loveliness and rank. Conspicuous in the orchestra stalls were the three friends--the Secretary, the journalist and the Deputy. In a small and private loge in the second tier, concealed from all eyes by its light curtain of green silk, and its position, but himself viewing everything upon the stage or in the house, sat the author of the play, calmly awaiting the rising of the curtain.
The performance at length began, and the piece proceeded to its termination amid thunders of applause, which, as the curtain finally descended on the last scene of the last act, became perfectly deafening, accompanied by cries for the author. But no author appeared behind the footlights or in the proscenium box; and, at last, the uproar becoming redoubled, the manager came forward, and, in the author's behalf, tendered grateful acknowledgments for the unprecedented favor, even by a Parisian audience, with which the production had been received, but, at the same time, entreated the additional favor that they would grant the author's request, and permit his name, for the present, to remain unknown. He would, however, venture to reveal this much, that the author was a distinguished friend of the people. The earthquake of applause which succeeded this announcement was almost frightful, and while the scene was at its height, the three friends with great difficulty managed to extricate themselves from the mult.i.tude which wedged up the lobbies, and to make their escape.
”A friend of the people!” cried Debray, bitterly, as his coupe, containing himself and companions, drove off to Very's. ”From such friends let the people be saved, and they may save themselves from their foes.”
”And the play, what think you of that?” cried Beauchamp.
”That it is a most able and abominable production, eminently calculated to cause exactly the evils which we have this night perceived--to excite and rouse the worst pa.s.sions of the mob, and render the ma.s.ses dissatisfied with their inevitable and irredeemable lot, and as dangerous as wild beasts to all whose lot is more favored.”
”Man has rights as man, and men in ma.s.ses have rights, and one of those rights is to know actually what those rights are,” said Beauchamp. ”The most melancholy feature in the oppression of man is his ignorance that he is oppressed. Enlighten him as to those rights, elevate his mind to appreciate and value them, and then counsel him firmly and resolutely to demand those rights, and quietly and wisely to obtain them.”