Edmond Dantès
returned emigrants, these men of Ghent, these military and civil
parvenus, these old Senators and spoiled Marshals of Bonaparte, these
Procureur Generals, these new-made nobles of the Restoration, these
three or four generations of Ministers sunk in public hatred and
contempt, and stained with blood--all these, seasoned with a few
notabilities, thrown in by the Royalty of the 7th of August, on
condition they should never open their lips save to approve their
master's commands--all this farrago of servilities was not competent to
pronounce on the culpability of men seeking to enforce the results of
the Revolution of July!"
"It was not until the commencement of 1835, I think," said Marrast,
"that Ministers opened a general onslaught upon the Parisian press. 'Le
Republicain' was interdicted that year. It was then, too, that the laws
against public criers and newspaper hawkers were instituted. As far back
as '33, however, Rodde had braved all such prohibitions by selling and
with impunity, too, his own paper in the streets. In May of '35 came on
the general prosecution of the press. Rollin was advocate in the
defence. There were warm words between Armand Carrel and his friend
Dupont, the lawyer, and there was at one time apprehension of a duel."
"The position of Armand Carrel with Thiers, his former colleague, was,
at that time, a singular one," remarked Rollin. "Each seemed to be on
the constant search for opportunities to exasperate the other. The
editor assailed the Minister in his columns, and the Minister retaliated
by an arrest. Carrel censured and ridiculed Thiers, though he respected
his abilities, and Thiers feared and hated Carrel, though he admired his
talents."
"It was about this time that Fieschi exploded his infernal machine at
the King, was it not?" asked Flocon. "Thiers arrested Carrel then, I
know."
"It was on the 28th of July of '35, at ten in the morning, on the
Boulevard du Temple. This was the second attempt on the King's life, the
first having been that of Bergeron, in November of '33. Carrel was
arrested as an accomplice, it was pretended, for every one of these
attempts has been attributed to the whole body of the Republicans,
while they were utterly ignorant of them until they took place, and then
bitterly denounced them. But the Government has made capital out of all
these insane attempts, and against the opposition, too."
"I've heard it asserted," said Rollin, "that the Government got up some
of those little exhibitions of fireworks for that very purpose. They are
quite harmless, so far as the old man is concerned--wonderfully so--and
Fieschi was made a perfect fool of, so ridiculously lionized was he by
King, Court and Ministers. Our friend Marie was advocate for that
wretched old man, Pepin, Fieschi's accomplice, more a ghost than a
living creature."
"You are entirely right, friend Rollin," said Louis Blanc, "in the idea
that every one of these attempts strengthens the Government and recoils
on the opposition. No one should so vigilantly and vigorously watch for
and suppress such attempts as we. Heaven defend the old despot from the
assassin's weapon, as it seems well inclined to do, or the deed will
surely be attributed to us. Every unsuccessful attempt at assassination
is viewed like an unsuccessful attempt at revolt on the part of the
opposition, and injures our cause accordingly. Better never to attempt
than never to succeed."
"Do you think it true, Louis, as was reported," asked Marrast, "that as
soon as the smoke of Fieschi's explosion swept off, and the old man
found himself standing unharmed amid a heap of slain and mangled,
Marshal Mortier and Colonel Rieussec being among the killed, his first
exclamation was this, with, ill-concealed gratification, 'Now I shall
get my appanages and the dotations for the boys.'"
"Nothing is more probable," said Louis Blanc. "That old man has but one
impulse--selfishness, and but one attachment--to his family--his family,
because it is his. His purse and family have for years been his sole
objects of love. To aggrandize his own has been for years his sole end
and aim. He parcels out the thrones and kingdoms of Europe among his
children as if it were but a family estate."
"What thoughtful selfishness!" exclaimed Flocon; "and at a moment, too,
when he had but just escaped an awful death, and all around him flowed
the blood and lay scattered the lacerated limbs of his faithful
servants, either dead or dying with groans and shrieks of most agonizing
torture, and all because of himself; how disgraceful that, at such a
terrible moment, his first thought should have been of the few more
francs his trembling hand was striving to tear from a people by whom he
had already been made the richest man in Europe, and which the
occurrence of this dreadful event might serve to win for him."
"Well," said Rollin, "whether this event aided to win the appanages and
dotations, and was so designed, or not, it is very sure the aforesaid
appanages and dotations were secured. No wonder that such attempts
succeed each other so rapidly--one every year, at the least! When was
the next, Louis--that of Alibaud, I think?"
"That took place about sunset on the 25th of June, '36," was the reply.
"Alibaud discharged a walking-stick-gun at the King, as he left the
Tuileries, on his way to Neuilly, at the corner of the Porte Royale.
That Alibaud was a mere boy, and a very interesting and intelligent boy,
too; but for some mysterious cause he did not find favor with the court,
as did Fieschi. He evidently attempted the assassination from
conviction, from a feeling of manifest destiny. After his failure, he
only wished to die, and to die at once. All who have succeeded Alibaud
have been but vulgar cut-throats."
"In what year was the insurrection of Armand Barbes and Martin Bernard?"
asked Flocon. "That proved most disastrous to our cause."
"That was in '39, May, I think," answered Rollin. "Barbes, Blanqui and
Bernard were arraigned as leaders. Marie and myself were advocates for
Barbes. Blanqui was sentenced to death and Barbes to the galleys for
life. But we obtained commutation of penalty for both."
"And where is to be the end of all these things?" asked Marrast,
gloomily, as he continued pacing the chamber with folded arms, his head
resting on his bosom. "Are the ten years on which we have now entered to
be characterized by the fruitless efforts of the past? Are the people of
France again, and again, and again to strike for freedom, only to be
stricken into the dust and trampled beneath the armed heel of a despot's
myrmidons? Are the streets of Lyons, Paris and Marseilles again to be
drenched with the life-blood of their dwellers, poured out as freely as
water and as fruitlessly? Are we all again, for full ten years, to toil,
strive, struggle and suffer; to be hunted down like the vilest
criminals, and, like criminals, plunged into the most pestilential
dungeons; to be stripped like slaves of our hard-won earnings, and to be
deprived of the most humble franchises of men claiming at all to be
free; to be treated with scorn and contumely, and to be debarred the
exercise of those common rights, which, like air and water, belong to
all; I say, brothers, are all these scenes to be repeated during the ten
years on which we have now entered, as they have been witnessed during
the ten years now past?"
"You speak sadly, Armand," observed Rollin.
"Not so sadly as I feel. I have listened with attention to the
recapitulation of the political events of the past ten years in France;
and most plainly, and as sadly as plainly, does the result prove that
every movement in our cause has been as premature as it has been
unsuccessful."
"May we not gather wisdom, which shall conduct us to success in the
future, from the very errors and disasters of the past?" remarked
Flocon.
"Alas!" despondingly replied Marrast, "what is there in our present to
promise a bright future more than was in our past to promise us a bright
present? Our great leaders of another generation have all left us, one
after another--all have dropped into their graves. The cold marble has
closed over their venerable brows, and they rest well. Yet they died
and made no sign of hope. On us, young, inexperienced and rash, has
devolved their task; but the mantle of their power and virtue has not,
alas! descended with that task to aid in its momentous accomplishment.
General Lamarque's sun went down in clouds. Midnight, deeper than
Egyptian darkness, brooded over the delirious deathbed of Lafayette.
Armand Carrel fell without hope; and are we wiser than they? How often,
oh! how often have I listened to the words of wisdom that fell from
those eloquent lips, even as a boy reverently listens to a parent--for
such was Armand Carrel to me. Upon this very spot have I stood, in that
very chair has he sat, that chair, which, with mingled shame and pride,
I reflect is now filled by me--shame, that it is filled in a manner so
unworthy of him--pride, that I should have been deemed fit, after him to
fill it at all--in that very chair, I say, has his noble form reclined,
when he for hours, even from night till the next day's dawn, dwelt with
sorrowful eloquence upon his country's present, and looked forward with
gloomy foreboding and prediction for the future. It almost seems to me
that this mighty shade is with us now!"
"And why was all this despondency, my dear Armand?" remarked Louis
Blanc, mildly. "Was it not because our noble and gifted friend was
essentially a soldier, not a civilian, not a statesman, not a
revolutionist? Had Armand Carrel gone to Algeria, he would have died--if
died he had not in an unknown duel, with an unknown bravo--he would
have died a Marshal of France--a Bugeaud, a Chaugarnier, a Bedeau, a
Cavaignac, a Clausel, a Lamoriciere. Carrel had no faith in the masses
to achieve a revolution. He never believed that they could even
withstand a single charge of regular troops, much less repel and
overcome it."
"Not even with barricades?" asked Rollin.
"Not even in defence of barricades," continued Louis Blanc.
"Regular troops have much to learn," added Rollin, with a significant
smile. "They will see the day--aye! and we all shall see it and rejoice
at its coming, despite all melancholy prognostications, when the people
of Paris will dictate abdication to the king of the barricades, from the
top of the barricades, the people's throne! Nor will that event tarry
long!"
"I doubt it not, I doubt it not, Ledru!" exclaimed Louis Blanc, rejoiced
that one of the youngest and least stable of their number appeared free
from the apprehensions of one of the most influential and seemingly most
reliable. "I accept the omen indicated by your enthusiasm. But I
accounted for the vacillation and distrust of our lamented friend,
Armand Carrel, by reverting to the fact that he relied entirely on
regular troops, military skill, scientific tactics and severe
subordination. Now, all of these belonged to our oppressors and none of
them to us; and, inasmuch as he could not perceive that enthusiasm,
passion for freedom, love of country and family, and the very wrath and
rage of desperation itself sometimes not only supply the place of
discipline, arms and the knowledge requisite to use them, but even
enable vast masses to break down and crush beneath their heel the
serried ranks of veteran troops, he could only despair at the prospects
apparently before him. Besides, Armand Carrel, like all military men,
was a man of action, not reflection--of execution, not contrivance--a
soldier, not a conspirator. At the head of ten thousand veteran troops,
he would have charged on thrice their number without discipline, with
the confident assurance of sweeping them from his path as the chaff of