Edmond Dantès
present, although his cold countenance, like the surface of a frozen
lake, betrayed neither apprehension nor the reverse. Self-reliant,
self-poised, calm, seemingly insensible to surrounding objects and
events, this man of iron, with a heart of ice and a brain of fire,
glanced quietly and fixedly around him, with his cold, dark eye, which,
from time to time, rested on the Communist benches of the extreme right,
unmoved by the stern glances hurled at him by his many fierce opponents
and the almost tumultuous excitement by which they were agitated.
At length President Sauzet took the chair. The house came to order, and
the sitting opened with the usual preliminary business. A large number
of petitions from the workmen of Paris for employment by the Government
were presented and referred, and one immense roll containing a hundred
thousand names, which came from the manufacturing districts, was brought
in on the shoulders of two men and placed in the area before the
President's chair, escorted by a deputation from the artisans; it was
received with an uproar of applause from the centre of the extreme right
of the benches, and from the throngs of blouses in the galleries. The
tumult having, at length, subsided, the order of the day was announced
to be the discussion of the bill introduced by M. Dantes, having for its
purpose the general amelioration of the condition of the industrial
classes in the Kingdom; and M. Dantes was himself announced to be the
first on the list to occupy the tribune. A deep murmur of anticipation
ran around the vast hall at this announcement. The multitudes in the
galleries leaned forward to gain a better view of this idol, and to
catch every syllable that might fall from his lips; and every eye among
the members was turned to the seat of M. Dantes, on the centre right of
the benches.
A tall figure in black, with a white cravat, rose and advanced to the
tribune slowly, amid a stillness as hushed and breathless as the prior
excitement had been noisy. In age, M. Dantes seemed about fifty or
fifty-five. His form was slight and his movements were graceful and
dignified. His face was livid and as calm as marble; but for the large
and eloquent eye, dark as night, one might have thought that broad white
brow, that massive chin, those firmly compressed lips and that colorless
mouth were those of a statue. Yet in the furrows of that forehead and
the deep lines of that face could be read the record of thought and
suffering. The busy plowshare had turned up the deep graves of departed
passions. No one could gaze or even glance at that face and not perceive
at once that it was the visage of a man of many sorrows--yet of a man
proud, calm, self-possessed, self-poised and indomitable. His hair,
which had been raven black, now rested in thin waves around his
expansive forehead and was sprinkled with gray, while his intellectual
countenance wore that expression of weariness and melancholy which
illness, deep study and grief invariably trace.
Mounting the steps of the tribune with slow and deliberate tread, he
drew up his tall figure, and resting his left hand, which grasped a roll
of papers, upon the marble slab, glanced around on the turbulent billows
of upturned and excited faces, as if at a loss how to address them.
Having read the bill, after the usual prefatory remarks, he began by
laying down the platform which he proposed occupying in its advocacy and
support, consisting, of course, of abstract, self-evident propositions,
which none could have the hardihood to gainsay, yet, when once admitted,
the deductions inevitably flowing therefrom none could resist. The
propositions seemed safe and indisputable, but the deductions evolved
from those propositions were as frightful to the legitimist as they were
delightful to the liberal. That each man is born the heir to the same
natural rights--that each man, alike and equally with all others, has a
birthright of which he cannot be divested and of which he cannot divest
himself, to act, to think and to pursue happiness wherever he can find
it without infringement on the rights of his fellow beings--none were
disposed to deny. That each human animal, as each animal of inferior
grade, has, also, the right of subsistence, drained from the bosom of
the earth, the great mother of us all, which without his foreknowledge
or wish gave him being, seemed, also, indisputable. But when from these
propositions were deduced that crime is rather the result of misery
than depravity, and that the office of government is more to prevent
crime by creating happiness than to punish it by creating misery, and
that for the natural rights resigned by the individual in entering into
and upholding the social system human government is bound to afford
employment and subsistence to each of its members, that labor and its
produce should be in partnership, that competition should be abolished,
and work and wages so distributed by the State as to equalize the
condition of each individual in the community, and, finally, that the
claims of labor are not satisfied by wages, but the workman is entitled
to a proprietary share in the capital which employs him, inasmuch as all
the woes and miseries of the laborer arise exclusively from the
competition for work--when these deductions were advanced the opulent
and the conservative started back in terror and dismay. Distribution of
property, universal plunder, havoc, bloodshed, sans culottism, a red
republic and the ghastly shapes of another Reign of Terror rose in
frightful vividness before the fancy. As the speaker proceeded to
illustrate and sustain his positions, which were those of the Communist,
Socialist, Fourierist, call them which we may, and poured forth a fiery
flood of persuasion, invective, denunciation and shouts of applause,
mingled with cries of rage and dismay, rose from all quarters of the
hall. Unmoved and undaunted, that marble man, livid as a spectre, his
dark eyes blazing, his thin and writhing lip flecked with foam, his
tall form swaying to and fro, rising, bending--now thrown back, then
leaning over the marble bar of the tribune--continued to pour forth his
scathing sarcasm, his crushing invective, his eloquent persuasion and
his unanswerable argument in tones, now soft and tuneful as a silvery
bell, then sad and pitiful as an evening zephyr, then clear, high and
sonorous as a clarion, then hoarse and deep as the thunder, for a period
of four hours, unbroken and continuous, without stop or stay.
The effect of this speech, as the orator, pale, exhausted, shattered,
unstrung, with nerves like the torn cordage of a ship that has outridden
the tempest, descended from the tribune, baffles all description.
Fearful of its influence, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at once arose,
and in order to divert the attention of the Chamber asked leave to lay
before it the late dispatches from the seat of war, setting forth the
glorious triumphs of the French arms in Algeria. This intelligence,
which, at any other time, would have been received with rapturous
enthusiasm, was listened to under the influence of a counterirritant
already at work, with comparative calmness, and its only effect was to
cause a postponement of the vote on the laborers' bill upon the plea of
the lateness of the hour, although not without strenuous opposition from
the extreme right. The rejoicing of the galleries at the triumph of
their champion and their fierce applause knew no bounds at the close of
the sitting, and their idol escaped being borne in his chair to his
lodgings only by gliding through a private exit from the hall to the
first carriage he could find.
"What think you?" cried Beauchamp, triumphantly, to the Ministerial
Secretary, as they were pressed together for an instant by the excited
throng on the steps as they left the hall.
"Think, Monsieur!" was the bitter rejoinder of the Secretary, whose
agitation completely overcame his habitual and constitutional
self-possession, "I think Paris is on the eve of another Reign of
Terror!"
Beauchamp laughed, and the friends were drawn apart by the conflicting
billows of the crowd.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MYSTERY THICKENS.
M. Dantes' wonderful speech was the principal topic of conversation in
every quarter of Paris, exciting comment of the most animated
description. Of course, the workmen and their friends were delighted
with it, and could not find words strong enough to adequately express
their enthusiastic admiration for the gifted orator. Those belonging to
the Government party, on the other hand, denounced the speaker as a
demagogue and the speech as in the highest degree incendiary and
dangerous. Strange to relate, whoever spoke of the oration always
mentioned the new play, "The Laborer of Lyons," attributing its
authorship to the mysterious Deputy from Marseilles, and the drama
received cordial endorsement or scathing censure, according to the
political opinions of those who alluded to it.
For these reasons curiosity in regard to M. Dantes ran higher than ever,
but instead of decreasing as he became more prominent, the mystery
surrounding him seemed only to thicken. Nevertheless, the Deputy was the
lion of the hour, or rather would have been, had he permitted himself to
be lionized, but this he persistently declined to do, holding aloof from
society and mingling with none save his political associates, though
even to them he was a problem they could not solve; they, however,
recognized in him a powerful coadjutor, and with that were forced to be
content.
"THE HALL OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES was last evening thronged to
overflowing. It had been understood that M. Dantes was to advocate
the People's Bill, and, as usual, it had but to be known that this
distinguished orator was to occupy the tribune to draw out all
classes of citizens. Nor was the vast multitude disappointed. A
more powerful speech has never been heard within those walls. More
than four hours was the audience enchained by the matchless
eloquence of this remarkable man, which was received with thunders
of applause. A report of this speech will be found under the
appropriate head."
"THE NEW PLAY entitled, 'The Laborer of Lyons,' recently produced
at the Theatre Francais with triumphant success, and which has
caused such a deep and universal sensation, is repeated to-night.
There is reason to anticipate that the author, who is supposed to
be a celebrated orator of the opposition, may be induced to comply
with the call, which will be again renewed, to avow himself."
Such were two paragraphs which the following morning appeared in
Beauchamp's journal, and similar notices of both speech and drama were
published in every other opposition sheet in Paris. In the Ministerial
organ, on the contrary, and in all the papers of like political bias,
appeared the following and similar paragraphs:
"THE SPEECH OF M. DANTES, last evening, in the Chamber of Deputies,
was one of the most dangerous diatribes to which we ever
listened--dangerous for the insidious and sophistical principles it
advanced, and the almost fiend-like eloquence with which they were
urged. Where are these things to stop? At what terrible catastrophe
do these men aim? What crisis do they contemplate?"
"THE NEW DRAMA at the Theatre Francais, called 'The Laborer of
Lyons,' which is to-night to be repeated, is calculated and seems
to have been designed by its reckless author to produce the very
worst effects among the laboring classes. We deeply regret that it
has been suffered by the censors to be brought out."
The multitude called forth by paragraphs like these to witness the new