“Look at the scene before you,” said Monsieur Bergeret to his disciple
Monsieur Goubin, who was polishing his eyeglass, as they stood on the
steps of the Trocadero. “Look at the domes, minarets, spires, belfries,
towers and pediments; the roofs of thatch, slate, glass, tile, wood,
hide and coloured earthenware; the Italian and Moorish terraces,
the palaces, temples, pagodas, kiosks, huts, hovels, and tents; the
fountains and fire-works; the harmony and contrast of all these human
habitations, the marvels of workmanship, the wonderful playthings of
industry, the prodigious diversions of modern genius, which has brought
together in this spot the arts and crafts of the whole world.”
“Do you think,” queried Monsieur Goubin, “that France will derive any
profit from this huge Exhibition?”
“She may reap great advantages from it,” replied Monsieur Bergeret,
“provided it does not fill her with a barren and hostile pride. All
this is only the decoration and envelope, it is the study of what
it contains that will give us the opportunity of considering more
minutely the exchange and circulation of products, their consumption
at fair prices, the increase of work and wages and the emancipation of
the worker. And do you not admire, Monsieur Goubin, one of the first
kind offices of the Universal Exhibition, in scaring away Jean Coq
and Jean Mouton? Where are they now? You neither see nor hear them
nowadays, and formerly one saw nothing else. Jean Coq led the way,
with his head high, his calves prominent. Jean Mouton followed him,
fat and curly-headed. The whole city re-echoed to the sound of their
cock-a-doodle-doo and baa-baa-baa, for they were eloquent. One day this
winter I overheard Jean Coq say, ‘We must have a war. This Government
has made it inevitable by its cowardice!’ And Jean Mouton replied: ‘I’d
rather have a naval war.’ ‘Of course,’ said Jean Coq, ‘a sea-fight
would be consistent with the enthusiasm of the Nationalists. But why
not have war on land as well as on sea? Who’s to stop us?’ ‘No one,’
replied Jean Coq. ‘I should like to see anyone try to stop us! But we
must first exterminate all traitors and spies, all Jews and Freemasons.
That is essential.’ ‘That’s just what I think,’ replied Jean Mouton.
‘And I will not go to war until our land has been cleared of all her
enemies.’
“Jean Coq is hot-headed, Jean Mouton mild and peaceful, but they both
know only too well how to whet the national energies not to attempt by
every means in their power to assure to their country the benefits of
war at home and abroad.
“Jean Coq and Jean Mouton are Republicans. Jean Coq votes at every
election for the Imperialist candidate, and Jean Mouton for the
Royalist, but they are both of them Republican Plebiscitarians, and can
imagine nothing better for the consolidation of their chosen Government
than to deliver it over to the hazards of an obscure and disorderly
suffrage; in which they show themselves to be clever fellows. For it
is, of course, a profitable thing, if you have a house, to stake it at
dice against a truss of hay, because by so doing you run the chance of
winning your own house, which of course would be a great advantage.
“Jean Coq is not pious, neither is Jean Mouton a clerical, although he
is no Freethinker, but they venerate and cherish the monks who grow
rich by the sale of miracles and who publish seditious, insulting and
slanderous newspapers. And you know as well as I do how such people
abound in this country of ours and how they prey upon it.
“Jean Coq and Jean Mouton are patriots. You think you, too, are a
patriot, and I know that you are attached to your country by the
tender and invincible ties of sentiment and reason. You are mistaken,
however, and if it be your wish to live at peace with the world you are
in league with the enemy. Jean Coq and Jean Mouton will prove that by
falling upon you with their cudgels to the war-cry of ‘France for the
French!’ ‘France for the French!’ is the slogan of Jean Coq and Jean
Mouton, and as it is evident that these words exactly describe the
position of a great nation in the midst of other nations, and express
the necessary conditions of life, the universal law of exchange,
the commerce of ideas and of products, just as they contain a great
economical doctrine and a profound philosophy, Jean Coq and Jean Mouton
have made up their minds to shut out all foreigners in order to keep
France for the French, thus, by a stroke of genius, extending to human
beings the system which Monsieur Méline applied only to the products of
agriculture and industry, for the greater profit of a small number of
landed proprietors. And this idea of Jean Coq’s, of closing the country
to men of other nations, enforces, by its modest beauty, the admiration
of quite a host of small middle-class people and coffee-house keepers.
“Jean Coq and Jean Mouton are not evil; they are only the innocent
enemies of the human species. Jean Coq is the more ardent, Jean Mouton
the more melancholy, but they are simple fellows both, and believe
what their newspapers tell them. This throws a dazzling light upon
their innocence, for it is not easy to believe what their newspapers
tell them. I take you all to witness, all you famous impostors, you
forgers of all time; you egregious liars, distinguished tricksters,
notorious creators of fictitious errors and illusions; you whose
time-honoured frauds have enriched literature, sacred and profane, by
so many dubious volumes; authors of apocryphal Greek, Latin, Hebrew,
Syrian and Chaldean writings which have so long deceived learned and
ignorant alike; you, false Pythagoras, false Hermes-Trismegistus, false
Sanchoniathon, fallacious editors of the Orphic poems and the Sibylline
books; false Enoch, false Esdras, pseudo-Clement and pseudo-Timothy;
and you lord abbots who, to assure yourselves of the possession of your
lands and privileges, forged in the reign of Louis IX the charters of
Clotaire and Dagobert; and you, doctors of canon law, who based the
pretensions of the Holy See on a heap of sacred decretals composed by
yourselves; and you, wholesale manufacturers of historical memoirs:
Soulavie, Courchamps, Touchard-Lafosse, lying Weber, lying Bourrienne;
you, sham executioners and sham police-agents, who wrote the sordid
memoirs of Samson and Monsieur Claude; and you, Vrain-Lucas, who with
your own hand traced a letter said to be written by Mary Magdalene,
and a note from the hand of Vercingetorix, I call you all to witness;
and you whose whole life was a work of simulation; lying Smerdis,
lying Neros, lying Maids of Orleans, who would have deceived the very
brothers of Joan of Arc; lying Martin Guerre, lying Demetrius and
fictitious Dukes of Normandy; I call you to witness, workers of spells,
makers of miracles that seduced the mob: Simon the Magician, Apollonius
of Tyana, Cagliostro, Comte de Saint-Germain; I call you to witness,
travellers returning from far-off countries, who had every facility for
lying and took full advantage of it; you who beheld the Cyclopes and
the Læstrygones, the Magnetic Mountain, the Roc and the Fish-Bishop;
and you, Sir John Maundeville, who saw in Asia devils vomiting fire;
and you, makers of stories and fables and tales—Mother Goose, Tyl
Eulenspiegel, Baron Munchausen!—and you, chivalrous and picturesque
Spaniards, most notable babblers, I call you to witness! Bear witness,
all of you! You have not accumulated, in the long course of the
centuries, so many lies as Jean Coq and Jean Mouton read in their
newspapers in a single day! And after that, how can we be surprised
that they have so many bogies in their heads!”