1871.
Socialism, or the Red Republic, is all one; for it would tear down the
tricolour and set up the red flag. It would make penny pieces out of
the Column Vendôme. It would knock down the statue of Napoleon and
raise up that of Marat in its stead. It would suppress the Académie,
the École Polytechnique, and the Legion of Honour. To the grand device
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, it would add “Ou la mort.” It would
bring about a general bankruptcy. It would ruin the rich without
enriching the poor. It would destroy labour, which gives to each one
his bread. It would abolish property and family. It would march about
with the heads of the proscribed on pikes, fill the prisons with the
suspected, and empty them by massacres. It would convert France into
the country of gloom. It would strangle liberty, stifle the arts,
silence thought, and deny God. It would bring into action these two
fatal machines, one of which never works without the other—the assignat
press and the guillotine. In a word, it would do in cold blood what the
men of 1793 did in fever, and after the grand horrors which our fathers
saw, we should have the horrible in all that was low and small.
(VICTOR HUGO, 1848.)
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