Part 21 (2/2)
”Whether the Dynastics designed or wished to be compromised in this affair,” remarked Marrast, ”they certainly are committed now, and it is too late for them to get out of the movement. Indeed, I view it as nothing less than a union of all the oppositions against the Crown--aye, against the Crown, and for a republic! We comprehend this--they don't.
They have not, like us, waited seventeen years for a signal for revolution;--and now, before G.o.d, I believe the hour is at hand! This is no accidental insurrection of the 5th and 6th of June, '32--no outbreak at a funeral--no riot of operatives--no unmeaning revolt, as in '39. It is a reform, with the first names in France as its advocates and supporters, which we will make a revolution if we can secure the National Guard.”
”The National Guard is secured already,” said Louis Blanc. ”Are they not of the people? At least twenty thousand of the National Guard are Republicans. Of the remaining forty thousand, nearly all are well disposed or neutral in feeling. Have I studied the National Guard for twenty years in vain, and have all the measures of the Communists to secure them, when the crisis came on, proved utterly ineffectual? On the National Guard we may rely. The Munic.i.p.al Guard are picked men, and well paid to support the Throne--they will fight even better than the Line.
With the Line and the National Guard the people must seek to fraternize from the beginning--with the other troops they have solely to fight--but, after all, general facts and principles only can be laid down. Circ.u.mstances utterly beyond human control must direct and govern, and vary and determine results when the period of action arrives; and arrive it may at any hour of the day or night. At this moment Paris sleeps on a volcano, the fires of which have long been gathering through many a fair and sunny day! G.o.d only knows when the volcano will burst; but, when the hour comes, let the people be prepared!”
As these enthusiastic words were uttered, the dark eye of the speaker flashed and his lip quivered. The silver clock on the mantel, beside which the conspirators stood, struck the first quarter after two. The night was waning, but the festivity seemed rather to increase than diminish within the salons of the magnificent mansion, while the storm howled even more drearily without, and the rain, at intervals, in heavy blasts, beat even more fiercely against the northern cas.e.m.e.nts.
As Louis Blanc ceased speaking, M. Flocon entered the salon, and, as if by some preconcerted arrangement, at once sought his political friends.
”What of the night, watchman?” cried Ledru Rollin, as the editor of ”La Reforme” approached. ”The latest news! for 'That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker,' as the English Shakespeare says. The news! good or bad!”
”As I entered,” said Flocon, ”the house trembled with the jar of a train of heavy ordnance, attended by tumbrels and artillery caissons, and escorted by a regiment of horse, which rolled along the pavement of the Champs Elysees.”
”Good!” answered Marrast, with enthusiasm.
”All night,” continued Flocon, eagerly, ”through darkness and storm, whole regiments of infantry have thronged the line of boulevards which stretch from the Tuileries to Vincennes, and each soldier bears upon his knapsack, in addition to all his arms, an axe to demolish barricades.
The garrisons of the arrondiss.e.m.e.nts of Paris are already seventy thousand strong; and the troops of the Line are concentrating around the Palais Bourbon and the Chamber of Deputies.”
”Excellent--most excellent!” joyfully exclaimed Louis Blanc. ”The affront will not be wanting! But where is M. Dantes?”
”He is still with the chiefs of the faubourgs and the committees of the Free-masons and workmen, in the Rue Lepelletier, issuing his last instructions for the morrow. Messieurs, that man is a magician! His zeal in the good cause puts the boldest of us all to the blush. By most indefatigable energy and indomitable perseverance, he has brought about a systematic, almost scientific organization and fraternity, through various modes of rapid intercommunication between the innumerable cla.s.ses of operatives of every description throughout the whole capital and its faubourgs, so that, within six hours, he can have in military array an armed ma.s.s of one hundred thousand blouses upon the boulevards.
The workshops alone, he tells me, can furnish fifty thousand. The rapidity with which he conveys intelligence through this immense army and their utter subservience to his will and subordination to his orders are all so wonderful that it is impossible to determine which is most so. To control a Parisian populace has. .h.i.therto been deemed a chimera.
With M. Dantes it is an existing reality. Not an army in Europe is so obedient or so prompt as his army of workmen. The secret is this--they know him to be their friend. All over Paris are to be seen his workshops, savings banks, hospitals and houses of industry and reform, and, in the suburbs, his phalansteries and his model farms. That he has the command of boundless wealth is certain; but whose it is, or whence it comes, no one can divine; and never did man make use of boundless wealth to attain his ends more wisely than he does! Why, I am told that the pens of half the litterateurs and feuilletonists of Paris have for years past been guided by his will and compensated from his purse to accomplish his purposes. 'The Mysteries of Paris' and 'The Wandering Jew' are but two of the triumphs of his policy. And his system of philanthropy seems not bounded by France, but to embrace all Europe. The Swiss Protestant and the Italian patriot have each felt his effective sympathy as well as the French workman; and in the same manner as with the operatives so has he obtained influence and weight with the National Guard, and to such an extent that of the sixty thousand one-half would obey his orders with greater alacrity than those of Jacqueminot himself.
I tell you, Messieurs, he is a magician!”
”Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+” cried Marrast; ”he is entering now!”
”He pauses and looks around him!” said Louis Blanc.
”He looks for us; I will go to him!” remarked Flocon.
”He looks for his wife,” replied Louis Blanc. ”There, he catches her eye. See how eagerly she flies to him!”
”That is the finest pair in Paris,” remarked the journalist.
”And the most devoted,” added Ledru Rollin. ”They have been man and wife for some time, it is said, and any one would take them for lovers at this moment.”
”Have they children?” asked Flocon.
”No; but M. Dantes has by a former wife a son and daughter, who rival in good looks the celebrated children of our friend Victor Hugo,”
returned Louis Blanc.
”I met Arago, Lamartine, Sue, Chateaubriand and some other celebrities at his mansion in the Rue du Helder one night, recently,” continued Marrast, ”and I thought I never saw a house arranged with such perfect taste. The salons, library, picture-gallery, cabinet of natural history, conservatory, and laboratory were superb--everything, in short, was exquisite.”
”And then one is always sure to meet at Madame Dantes' soirees,” added Louis Blanc, ”exactly the persons who, of all others, he wishes to see, and whom he would meet nowhere else, poets, painters, authors, orators, statesmen and artists of every description--in fine, every man or woman, whether native or foreigner, distinguished for anything, is certain to be met with at M. Dantes' house.”
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