No! no! Monsieur Félix Pyat, you must remain, if you please. You have
been of it, you are of it, and you shall be of it. It is well that you
should go through all the tenses of the verb, I am not astonished that
a man as clever as you, finding that things were taking a bad turn,
should have thought fit to give in your resignation. When the house is
burning, one jumps out of window. But your cleverness has been so much
pure loss, for your amiable confederates are waiting in the street to
thrust you back into the midst of the flames again. It is in vain that
you have written the following letter, a chef-d’oeuvre in its way, to
the president of
“CITIZEN PRESIDENT,—If I had not been detained at the Ministry of
War on the day when the election took place, I should have voted
with the minority of the Commune. I think that the majority, for
this once, is in the wrong.”
“For this once” is polite.
“I doubt if she will ever retrieve her error.”
If the Commune were to retrace its steps at each error it made, it
would advance slowly.
“I think that the elected have not the right of replacing the
electors. I think that the representatives have not the right of
taking the place of the sovereign power. I think that the Commune
cannot create a single one of its own members, neither make them
nor unmake them; and, therefore, that it cannot of itself furnish
that which is wanted to legalise their nominations’.”
Oh! Monsieur Félix Pyat, legality is strangely out of fashion, and it
is well for Versailles that it is so.
“I think also, seeing that the war has changed the population....”
Yes; the war has changed the population, if not in the way you
understand it, at least in this sense, that a great many reasonable
people have gone mad, and that many—ah! how many?—are now dead.
“I think that it was more just to change the law than to violate it.
The ballot gave birth to the Commune, and in completing itself without
it, the Commune commits suicide. I will not be an accomplice in the
fault.”
We understand that; it is quite enough to be an accomplice in the
crime.
“I am so convinced of this truth, that if the Commune persist in
what I call an usurpation of the elective power, I could not
reconcile the respect due to the rote of the majority with the
respect due to my own conscience; I shall therefore be obliged,
much to my regret, to give in my resignation to the Commune before
the victory.
“_Salut et Fraternité_.
“FÉLIX PYAT.”
“Before the victory” is exquisitely comic! But, carried away by the
desire of exhibiting the wit of which he is master, Monsieur Félix Pyat
fails to perceive that his irony is a little too transparent, that
“before the victory” evidently meant “before the defeat,” and that
consequently, without taking into account the excellent reasons given
in his letter to the president of the Commune, we shall only recollect
that rats run away when the vessel is about to sink. But this time the
rats must remain at the bottom of the hold. Tour colleagues, Monsieur
Pyat, will not permit you to be the only one to withdraw from the
honours, since you have been with them in the strife. Not daring to fly
themselves, they will make you stay. Vermorel will seize you by the
collar at the moment you are about to open the door and make your
escape; and Monsieur Pierre Denis,[68] who used to be a poet as well as
a cobbler, will murmur in your ear these verses of Victor Hugo[69],
which, with a few slight modifications, will suit your case exactly:—
“Maintenant il se dit: ‘L’empire est chancelant;
La victoire est peu sûre.’
Il cherche à s’en aller, furtif et reculant.
Reste dans la masure!”
“Tu dis: ‘Le plafond croule; ils vont, si l’on me voit,
Empêcher que je sorte.’
N’osant rester ni fuir, tu regardes le toit,
Tu regardes la porte.
“Tu mets timidement la main sur le verrou;
Reste en leurs rangs funèbres!
Reste! La loi qu’ils ont enfouie en un trou
Est là dans les ténèbres.
“Reste! Elle est là, le flanc percé de leurs couteaux,
Gisante, et sur sa bière
Ils ont mis une dalle. Un pan de ton manteau
Est pris sous cette pierre.
“Tu ne t’en iras pas! Quoi! quitter leur maison!
Et fuir leur destinée!
Quoi! tu voudrais trahir jusqu’à la trahison
Elle-même indignée!
“Quoi! n’as-tu pas tenu l’échelle à ces fripons
En pleine connivence?
Le sac de ces voleurs ne fut-il pas, réponds,
Cousu par toi d’avance?
“Les mensonges, la haine au dard froid et visqueux,
Habitent ce repaire;
Tu t’en vas! De quel droit, étant plus renard qu’eux
Et plus qu’elle vipère?”
And Monsieur Félix Pyat will remain, in spite of the thousand and one
good reasons he would find to make a short tour in Belgium. His
colleagues will try persuasion, if necessary—“You are good, you are
great, you are pure; what would become of us without you?” and they
will hold on to him to the end, like cowards who in the midst of danger
cling to their companions, shrieking out, “We will die together!” and
embrace them convulsively to prevent their escape.