"WAIT AND HOPE."
Just then a light rap was heard at the private door, which Marrast
immediately hastened to open, as if in anticipation of the arrival of a
friend.
A brief and rapid colloquy ensued; then M. Dantes, the Deputy from
Marseilles, 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
Marseilles."
"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 association, 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 masses 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 instituted 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 masses 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 arsenals; 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.
"The true hour to strike!" was the firm answer.
"And that hour, when will it come?"
"It may come quickly, as it will come surely, soon or late! It cannot be
that the Revolution of July should continue much longer to result in the
solemn mockery it has. It cannot be that its friends should much longer
be withheld from those by whom it was achieved, only to aggrandize one
old man and his sons. It cannot be that the unmitigated and disgusting
selfism of Louis Philippe, and his efforts to ally himself with every
crowned head in Europe--not for the glory of France, but for his
own--will much longer be overlooked or their perils masked. The
appanages grasped by himself--the dotation and bridal outfit of the Duke
of Orleans--the dotation sought for the Duke of Nemours, and his
appointment as Regent during the minority of the Count of Paris--the
Governorship of Algeria bestowed on the youthful and inexperienced
Aumale, to the insult of so many brave and victorious generals--the
naval supremacy, to which has been exalted the ambitious Joinville, and
his union to the opulent Brazilian Princess--the effort to unite the
young Montpensier with the Infanta of Spain--the environment of Paris
with Bastilles, with the avowed purpose of fortifying order by turning
the ordnance which should protect into enginery of destruction--an
immense standing army--the notorious corruption of officials, and the
audacious dabbling of Ministers in the stocks, if not the King himself,
by means of information obtained by the Government telegraph, and
withheld from the people, or of information manufactured by the
telegraph designed to affect the Bourse--the unprecedented number of
placemen occupying seats in the Chamber of Deputies, yet receiving
exorbitant salaries as incumbents of civil offices, one man being often
in receipt of the salaries of several offices, though performing the
duties of none--the fact that Ministers have maintained majorities by
unblushing bribery in elections--that hardly one man in two hundred is
an elector--the profligate arts of corruption by which every able man is
bought by the Court--the disgraceful censorship of the press and the
drama--the enormous appropriations for the civil list, wrung out by
grinding taxes from the toil and sweat of millions--the absurd
assumption, yet the monstrous power, over the press and its conductors,
of that conclave of hoary dotards called the Chamber of Peers--the utter
and most impious disregard of the deprivation and misery of the
operative and laborer, although arrayed side by side with the insolence
and wealth pampered by the taxes torn from themselves--the total
forgetfulness of the self-evident truth of the right of all men to
labor, unrestricted by the baleful influences of the competition of
capitalists--these facts, properly urged and set forth by the press,
from the tribune and in the clubs, in connection with due enlightenment
of the masses upon their rights as to labor and its reward and the duty
of government thereupon could not fail to prepare the popular mind, all
over France, and all over Europe, for reform--for revolution."
"Unquestionably," cried Louis Blanc, "such would be the effect; and it
would not only prepare the people for reform, and stimulate them to
obtain it, but it would make them Republicans--true
Republicans--American Republicans! The Americans do not plume themselves
on the title citizen, but they work; they dispute little about words,
but clear their lands; they do not talk of exterminating anybody, but
they cover the sea with their ships, they construct immense canals,
roads and steamers without jabbering at every stroke of the spade about
the rights of man. With them, labor, merit, talent and honest opulence
are honored and rewarded aristocracies. Such Republicans would furnish
France more Washingtons, Jeffersons and Madisons, and fewer
Robespierres, Dantons and Marats!"
"There can be no doubt," remarked Flocon, "that the paramount interest
in a republic is that of those who work, that the labor question is of
supreme importance, that the profound problem now submitted to the
industrial nations of Christendom demands satisfactory solution, and
that the long-enduring and most iniquitous miseries of those who toil
must cease. Reform, revolution and government which achieve not these,
achieve nothing! They would be worse than useless. The measures
suggested by our distinguished friend seem to me eminently calculated to
attain the consummation we desire."
"A good government must and always will systematically uphold the poor,
and ever interpose to protect the weak against the strong," said Louis
Blanc. "The state should be tutelary for the ignorant, the poor and the
suffering of every description. We must have a guardian government--a
government that will accord the aid of that mighty engine, credit, not
to the rich only, but also to the poor. It must interpose likewise in
the matter of industry, and exclude that antagonistical principle of
competition--the poisoned fount of so much virulence, violence and ruin.
Our maxim is, brothers, and in this do we all concur, 'Human
Solidarity,' and our motto, 'Unity, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.'
All men are of one family, and once thoroughly sensible of this kindred,
discord, hate and selfism will no longer be possible."
"The views advanced," said Ledru Rollin, "so far as they tend to the
elevation of the masses and to popular preparation for reform,
Republicanism or revolution, have my most cordial approval; but I would
beg to ask how long are the people to 'wait and hope?' When is to come
the hour to strike?"
"Who can tell," said M. Dantes, in his low, clear and musical tones,
"at what moment the breath will come which may hurl on its errand of
devastation the avalanche which the snows and suns of centuries,
perchance, have been preparing for its awful mission? In the stillness
of the night-time, beneath the clear blue sky of summer, or amid the
ravings of the midnight tempest, its dread march is ordered, and in
resistless, crushing sublimity it begins to move on to accomplish its
terrible errand. Who may predict the precise moment when the earthquake
shall rock, the tornado sweep, the red lightning scathe, or the lava
flood desolate? And who shall tell the day or the hour when the people,
in their majesty and might, shall rise to avenge their wrongs? The
snow-flake falls fleecily on the mountain's top through many a long and
silent night; a land green as Eden smiles over the volcano; through many
a calm and sunny day the electric flame gathers in the firmament! At
length, when least expected, the avalanche sweeps, the volcano bursts,
the red bolt strikes. France is the victim of many wrongs. Which one of
them shall prove the last drop in her cup of bitterness we know not.
France is divided into many political sects, and all but one aim at
revolution. Which one of all shall it be to set the ball of revolution
in motion? The Legitimists, who consider the Duke of Bordeaux the
rightful heir, and Louis Philippe a usurper; the Bonapartists, who think
they evoke the great shade of Napoleon in the person of his unworthy
descendant; or the old Republicans? As for the Conservatives, let them
with Guizot at their head, uphold themselves if they can, and let the
dynasties under Barrot and Thiers overthrow and succeed their factional
foes. Their petty quarrels we care not for. Nor shall we, the
Communists, ever suffer ourselves to be deemed the revolutionary party;
but the revolution once commenced, let us throw ourselves into its
torrent, and with our thorough, perfect and secret organization, we
cannot fail to shape it most successfully to our own, our righteous
ends. The hour when revolution may commence we cannot predict, as it is
not our policy to start or precipitate it; but that hour may come
quickly. It must come on the demise of Louis Philippe, which event
cannot be long delayed, and it may be precipitated before. Nor will
France alone be convulsed. As the news of that old man's death, on the
lightning's wing, spreads over Europe, the electric wire will prove but
a train passing through repeated mines, which, one after the other, will
explode with awful devastation. Berlin, Vienna and St. Petersburg, the
strongholds of despotism in Europe, each will totter--all but the last
will fall. The press is powerless on the Russian serf. Russia will be
the tyrant's last citadel. Italy will throw off the Austrian yoke and be
free. Gregory XVIII. will shortly die. A wise, far-seeing and benevolent
priest, named Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, born at Sinigaglia, and
now a cardinal, with the title of SS. Peter and Marcellinus, will
succeed to the Papal See, and Italy will be a republic; Genoa, Venice,
Naples, Lombardy, Piedmont and Sardinia will be sister yet sovereign
states, forming one union--the constellation of freedom, the favorite
scheme of Napoleon's better days at last achieving reality. Switzerland,
with her green hills and her field Morgarten, her priestly despots
expelled, shall also be free. But I weary you, Messieurs."
"By no means," cried Marrast, cordially clasping M. Dantes by the hand.
"I have listened in silence to your earnest exposition of the policy you
suggest, and so truly do I subscribe to it that, henceforth, I am your
disciple and adopt your motto, 'Wait and hope' for my own. But it is
nearly two o'clock. In an hour the Chamber sits."
"And, meanwhile, Messieurs," interrupted M. Dantes, "I know not that we
can better employ ourselves, after so protracted a seance, than to
repair to Vefour's. This talking is hungry work, and listening and
thinking, which are by far more tedious, are still more so. So to
Vefour's."
"The seance 'National' is closed!" cried Ledru Rollin, laughing, as the
whole company descended the gloomy stairs.