Part 14 (1/2)
”Seemingly not, to judge from his habits of life,” replied Marrast. ”Not a man in the Chamber is more Republican in garb, manner, equipage or residence 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. ”Never has there been known such a revolution in favor of Reform and Communist journals, 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 into a circulation never before achieved but by long years of toil and enterprise. The old 'National,' we need but to look around us to be sure, was never more prosperous than now, while I am free to confess that my journal, 'Le Bon Sens,' which has been a sickly child ever since its 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 La Croix, 'Le Journal du Peuple,' by Dubose, 'Le Courier Francais,' by Chatelain, 'La Commerce,' by Bert, 'La Minerve,' by Lemaine, 'La Presse,' by Girardin, and all the journals in Paris which diffuse true ideas upon labor and the rights of the people, be they in other respects what they may. Even the 'Charivari,' which views the old King and his Ministers as fair b.u.t.ts of ridicule, perceives a marked increase in its patronage since it commenced that course, which sudden popularity naturally excites it to increase of zeal in the same path. Besides all this, an army of new papers, aiming to aid the great cause, have not only sprung up of late, like mushrooms, in Paris, but all over France, and even all over Europe; and so far appear they from interfering with each other's prospects that the more there are the better they seem sustained and the more ably conducted. A swarm of new and unknown writers for the press on this great subject seems all at once to have appeared 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 viewed the movement less hopefully for the cause of the Republic than you.”
”Depend upon it, Armand,” said Louis Blanc, smiling, ”that Republicanism and Socialism are identical terms, as much so as Communism and despotism are antagonistic terms.”
”But how do you account for this wonderful change, this unprecedented fever 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 been made by our friends of late. Whole nations and epochs are sometimes seized with a contagious mania for peculiar species of literature, as for everything else. But I will hint to you a suspicion which I have recently entertained, namely, that, after all, the rapid sale and ready market for every species of Fourier literature is not an unerring indication of the amount of reading of such literature, or the demand that actually exists of buyers as well as readers--individual ones at least. As for the journalistic literature, that I have learned is, without doubt, gratuitously distributed, to a great extent, among the ma.s.ses.”
”But can the ma.s.ses read the papers?” asked Marrast.
”Each family, house, neighborhood, cafe or cabaret, at any rate, has, at least one reader,” said Rollin; ”and all the men, women and children have ears to hear, if not power to comprehend. But some of these papers, which I have seen, come down in style to the very humblest comprehension.”
”Can it be,” asked Flocon, ”that there is such a club as a society for the diffusion of social knowledge in Paris, after the form of that in London, inst.i.tuted by Lord Henry Brougham and his Whig coadjutors, for the diffusion of general information, and so opposed by the Tories.”
”If there be such an a.s.sociation,” said Louis Blanc, ”it has managed to elude all my vigilance thus far, and that of the Government, too, for Guizot can perceive, if no one else can, the inevitable effect of all this, and he has no idea that the dear people of France shall be educated by any one save himself. But, actually, there seems to me to exist too much unity of purpose and action in this enterprise for it to be the work of an a.s.sociation. I should rather suppose one powerful and philanthropic mind at the head of the movement, were there not two things so plainly opposed to it as to forbid the idea--the first being that there is no one man in Europe who is rich enough to expend such immense sums upon such an enterprise, if he would, and the second that there is no man who has the subject sufficiently at heart to do it, if he could.”
CHAPTER XI.
”WAIT AND HOPE.”
Just then a light rap was heard at the private door, which Marrast immediately hastened to open, as if in antic.i.p.ation of the arrival of a friend.
A brief and rapid colloquy ensued; then M. Dantes, the Deputy from Ma.r.s.eilles, was introduced. He seemed acquainted with, and to be held in high regard by all present. His dress, as usual, was black, with a white cravat, and his manner and bearing had all that magnetism and dignity which so deeply impressed those he met.
”I find you in private conference, do I not, Messieurs?” asked he, glancing around with a smile. ”I pray you let me not interrupt. I have called but for a moment to speak with M. Marrast respecting a measure in the Chamber, and have consented to enter only at his solicitation.”
”You are right, M. Dantes,” replied Marrast, ”in supposing us engaged in a private conference, and upon matters of deep import, though conferences in this office can never be so private or so important as not to derive benefit from the presence and counsel of the Deputy from Ma.r.s.eilles.”
”Most true,” observed Louis Blanc; ”and so far from intrusion do we view your arrival that we can but consider it most opportune that we have the privilege of referring to you a question on which, between us, especially between our friend Marrast and myself, there seems some little diversity of sentiment.”
”It would, I fear,” said M. Dantes, ”be unpardonable arrogance in one so young as I am in the great cause of human liberty to offer counsel to you, who are all veterans, and most of you little less than martyrs to your enthusiasm. But no good citizen will shrink from the responsibility of declaring the results of his reflections on all topics which have reference to the general weal.”
”We differ mainly in this,” said Marrast: ”Louis Blanc attributes the Republican failures of the past ten years to prematurity and want of preparation in our attempts, and contends that all those reverses may be retrieved by patience and prudence in future, while, to my mind, there is nothing to indicate for the future, from the same causes, different results than those experienced in the past.”
”Concert of action,” said M. Dantes, mildly, ”is always an indispensable requisite in the accomplishment of every enterprise which relies for its success on a.s.sociation, or the combined efforts of individuals laboring for a common end; yet, with all the concert of action which can possibly be attained, the best arranged and best digested scheme in the world may be ruined by premature movement. Of this we surely have sad proof in the history of the past ten years alluded to. There is something of truth in the declaration so frequently made that the French people are not yet prepared for freedom. If this be so, then it is the duty of their friends to prepare them. It is folly to suppose that the ma.s.ses should, at first, intuitively know all their rights and the best mode of vindicating them. This they must be taught; and, to this end, the press should be unceasingly at work, not only all over France, but all over Europe, in diffusing correct views upon life and labor, and political rights and powers. There should be, also, concert of action among the friends of freedom, and clubs should at once be inst.i.tuted in every city, town and village in France, which should be in private and intimate correspondence with similar clubs at Paris and in all the capitals of Christendom. There should, likewise, be unity of action introduced among the ma.s.ses themselves. In a city like Paris, and among a people like the French, secret signals can easily be arranged, by which, at any hour of the night, or of the day, fifty thousand laborers in their blouses might be concentrated at any point where their presence is required, and that, too, with arms in their hands furnished from secret a.r.s.enals; and thus would those pitiable slaughters of helpless insurgents, like those of sheep in the shambles, we have so often witnessed, be avoided, if nothing besides were gained. The people are ever but too ready to pour out their blood, and the most difficult and delicate task in our enterprise is, after all, to restrain them--to impress upon them the all important maxim, without which nothing great, good or enduring is achieved, those three words in which all human wisdom is contained, 'Wait and hope.'”
”And for what are we to wait and hope, for which we have not already in vain waited and hoped the past ten years?” asked Marrast.