Part 13 (2/2)
”And why was all this despondency, my dear Armand?” remarked Louis Blanc, mildly. ”Was it not because our n.o.ble and gifted friend was essentially a soldier, not a civilian, not a statesman, not a revolutionist? Had Armand Carrel gone to Algeria, he would have died--if died he had not in an unknown duel, with an unknown bravo--he would have died a Marshal of France--a Bugeaud, a Chaugarnier, a Bedeau, a Cavaignac, a Clausel, a Lamoriciere. Carrel had no faith in the ma.s.ses to achieve a revolution. He never believed that they could even withstand a single charge of regular troops, much less repel and overcome 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 significant smile. ”They will see the day--aye! and we all shall see it and rejoice at its coming, despite all melancholy prognostications, when the people of Paris will dictate abdication to the king of the barricades, from the top of the barricades, the people's throne! Nor will that event tarry long!”
”I doubt it not, I doubt it not, Ledru!” exclaimed Louis Blanc, rejoiced that one of the youngest and least stable of their number appeared free from the apprehensions of one of the most influential and seemingly most reliable. ”I accept the omen indicated by your enthusiasm. But I accounted for the vacillation and distrust of our lamented friend, Armand Carrel, by reverting to the fact that he relied entirely on regular troops, military skill, scientific tactics and severe subordination. Now, all of these belonged to our oppressors and none of them to us; and, inasmuch as he could not perceive that enthusiasm, pa.s.sion for freedom, love of country and family, and the very wrath and rage of desperation itself sometimes not only supply the place of discipline, arms and the knowledge requisite to use them, but even enable vast ma.s.ses to break down and crush beneath their heel the serried ranks of veteran troops, he could only despair at the prospects apparently before him. Besides, Armand Carrel, like all military men, was a man of action, not reflection--of execution, not contrivance--a soldier, not a conspirator. At the head of ten thousand veteran troops, he would have charged on thrice their number without discipline, with the confident a.s.surance of sweeping them from his path as the chaff of the thres.h.i.+ng floor is swept before the blast; but, with an undisciplined mob, as he contemptuously called the ma.s.ses, he would have moved not a step. The larger the mult.i.tude, the less effective and the more impossible to manage he would have deemed it. A revolution accomplished by means of the three arms of the military service--artillery, cavalry and infantry--horse, foot and dragoons, he could readily conceive; but a revolution conducted to a successful issue only by means of pikes, axes, muskets and barricades, never, to the hour of his death, despite the victory of the Three Days, could Carrel comprehend.”
”Besides,” said Flocon, ”it must not be forgotten that Armand Carrel, though a most devoted friend to Republicanism, was never a member of the Societe des Droits de l'Homme--was never, as we all now are--a Communist, a Socialist, a Fourierist, a friend to the laborer. No wonder he hoped so little for the people, and trusted to accomplish so little through them.”
”There can be no doubt that the social principle which Republicanism is now unconsciously a.s.suming all over France,” mildly remarked Louis Blanc, ”is lending to the cause incalculable strength. How terribly impressed with a conviction of the justice of the cause in which they perished must have been the unhappy insurgents of Lyons, when, with this motto on their banner: 'To live toiling or die fighting,' they marched firmly up to the cannon's mouth and fought, and, thus fighting, fell.
Yet this conviction is not peculiar to the workmen of Lyons. It pervades all Paris, all France, and needs only to be roused to act with an energy which no human power can resist. Social Republican will be the type of the next revolution in France--it must be. The French people have been dazzled by the mirage of liberty ever since '89,--but it has been only a mirage. On the last three days of July, '30, the people of Paris drove out one Bourbon to enthrone another. True, 'The State is myself,' was not the despotic motto he a.s.sumed, as did one of his successors, but it was 'Me and my family,' which has proved equally selfish, if not so absolute, and far more dangerous to freedom. With Lafayette and Benjamin Constant, the Citizen King they had made, quarreled as soon as on his throne, and Lafitte and Dupont de l'Eure, his supporters, were banished from the Court. Casimir Perier was called to crush the Liberals. Armand Carrel a.s.sailed the act, and urged a republic. 'Le National' was prosecuted, and insurrections followed. Thus was the Revolution of the Three Days won by the people to be seized and enjoyed by the Bourgeoisie. The next revolution will be won by the people, too, but the people will enjoy it!”
”And how progresses our principles, Louis, among the people?” asked Marrast, who had listened attentively to every word that had been uttered.
”Never so gloriously as now, Armand, never! Never has there been such a diffusion of information upon the subject of the rights of labor as now.
Pagnerre tells me every day that volumes, tracts and pamphlets on this topic disappear like magic from his shelves.”
”Has not the Minister a hand in this mysterious disappearance of Communist literature?” asked Rollin. ”We all know he is quite frantic on the topic of popular education.”
”Oh! yes, we all understand Guizot's love for the people! His system of education promulgated in 1833 was so very beautiful that it was almost a pity it was utterly impracticable. But Guizot has very little to do with Pagnerre's book-shelves, or with Pagnerre in any way, except to prosecute him from time to time for publis.h.i.+ng Cormenin's withering tracts designed for the Minister himself, and yet it would almost seem there was a design to exhaust the market of the publications of our friends; only the great ma.s.s of them go to the provinces and large quant.i.ties abroad. My own little brochure, 'The Organization of Work,'
after having fallen stillborn from the press, died a natural death and been laid out in state for a year or two on Pagnerre's shelves, all at once is resurrected, runs through half a dozen large editions, and is translated 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 the ten thousand brochures on this same subject of Communism in all its different shades and phrases, and in every variety of size, form and style of writing and appearance. These publications are adapted to every taste and comprehension. The workman is suited as well as the savant.
All this savors of magic. Even my most sanguine antic.i.p.ations are surpa.s.sed by reality. There will never long lack a supply for a demand, be that demand what it may. A demand for Fourier literature has turned all the pens in Paris hard at work upon it--novelists, essayists, pamphleteers--while the Porte St. Antoine, the Porte St. Martin and all the minor theatres, where are found the ma.s.ses, swarm with melodramas, farces and vaudevilles on the same subject, and none of you have forgotten the powerful play, ent.i.tled 'The Laborer of Lyons,' attributed to M. Dantes, recently produced with such success on the boards of the Francais itself.”
”And who is this M. Dantes,” asked Ledru Rollin, ”if you will suffer me to 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 mere orators, he is a sound logician, as well as a polished rhetorician. As a political economist he has few equals. To that subject he seems to have devoted much study, while his familiarity with the political history of France and of the times generally all over Christendom seems boundless.
In debate, you observe he is never at a loss for fact or argument, let the 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 distinguished literary genius,” was the reply.
”Better than all,” said Flocon, ”he is devoted heart and soul to the good cause.”
”Such devotedness to a cause I never witnessed,” said Marrast. ”He puts us all to the blush. With him it appears a matter of direct individual interest. 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 an object more irresistibly than he seems forced, and that, too, without the slightest apparent stain of personal interest or ambition. That man appears to me a miracle--a pure philanthropist. He strives, struggles, suffers, sacrifices, and all with the sole object of ameliorating the condition of his race.”
”It 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 gather nothing from others. Even his const.i.tuents had known nothing of him but a few months before he became their representative in the Chamber. His popularity with them he owes to his efforts to ameliorate their condition. At his own expense he established among them a Phalanstrie, which is now in most successful operation.”
”He is rich, then?” asked Flocon.
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