Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (55 page)

The enfranchisement of the proletariat, according to Vatnaz, was only possible by the enfranchisement of women. She wished to have her own sex admitted to every kind of employment, to have an enquiry made into the paternity of children, a different legal code, the abolition, or at least a more intelligent regulation, of marriage. In that case every Frenchwoman would be bound to marry a Frenchman, or to adopt an old man. Nurses and midwives should be civil servants receiving salaries from the State.

There should be a jury to examine the works of women, special editors for women, a polytechnic school for women, a National Guard for women, everything for women! And, since the Government ignored their rights, they ought to overcome force with force. Ten thousand citizenesses with good guns ought to make the Hôtel de Ville quake!

Frédéric’s candidature appeared to her favourable for carrying out her ideas. She encouraged him, pointing out the glory that shone on the horizon. Rosanette was delighted at the notion of having a man who would make speeches at the Chamber.

“And then, perhaps, they’ll give you a good post?”

Frédéric, a man prone to every foible, was infected by the universal mania. He wrote an address and went to show it to M. Dambreuse.

At the sound made by the great door falling back, a curtain gaped open a little behind a window, and a woman appeared. He had not time to find out who she was; but, in the hall, a picture caught his attention—Pellerin’s picture—which lay on a chair, no doubt temporarily.

It represented the Republic, or Progress, or Civilisation, under the form of Jesus Christ driving a locomotive, which was passing through a virgin forest. Frédéric, after a minute’s contemplation, exclaimed:

“How appalling!”

“Is it not—eh?” said M. Dambreuse, coming in unexpectedly just at the moment when this opinion was uttered, and thinking that it made reference, not so much to the picture as to the doctrine glorified by the work. Martinon presented himself at the same time. They made their way into the study, and Frédéric was drawing a paper out of his pocket, when Mademoiselle Cécile, entering suddenly, said, with an innocent air:

“Is my aunt here?”

“You know well she is not,” replied the banker. “No matter! make yourself at home, Mademoiselle.”

“Oh! no thanks! I am going!”

Scarcely had she left when Martinon seemed to be searching for his handkerchief.

“I forgot to take it out of my overcoat—excuse me!”

“Of course!” said M. Dambreuse.

Evidently he was not deceived by this manoeuvre, and even seemed to regard it with favour. Why? But Martinon soon reappeared, and Frédéric began reading his address.

At the second page, which pointed towards the preponderance of financial interests as a disgrace, the banker made a grimace. Then, touching on reforms, Frédéric demanded free trade.

“What? Allow me, now!”

The other paid no attention, and went on. He called for a tax on yearly incomes, a progressive tax, a European federation, and the education of the people, the encouragement of the fine arts on the liberal scale.

“If the country could provide men like Delacroix or Hugo with incomes of a hundred thousand francs, what would be the harm?”

At the close of the address advice was given to the upper classes.

“Spare nothing, ye rich; but give! give!”

He stopped, and remained standing. The two who had been listening to him did not utter a word. Martinon opened his eyes wide; M. Dambreuse was quite pale. At last, concealing his emotion under a bitter smile:

“That address of yours is simply perfect!” And he praised the style exceedingly in order to avoid giving his opinion as to the content of the address.

This virulence on the part of an inoffensive young man frightened him, especially as a sign of the times.

Martinon tried to reassure him. The Conservative party, in a little while, would certainly be able to take its revenge. In several cities the commissioners of the provisional government had been driven away; the elections were not to occur till the twenty-third of April; there was plenty of time. In short, it was necessary for M. Dambreuse to present himself personally in the Aube; and from that time forth, Martinon no longer left his side, became his secretary, and was as attentive to him as any son could be.

Frédéric arrived at Rosanette’s house very happy with himself. Delmar happened to be there, and told him of his intention to stand as a candidate at the Seine elections. In a poster addressed to the people, in which he addressed them in a familiar tone, the actor boasted of being able to understand them, and of having, in order to save them, gotten himself “crucified for the sake of art,” so that he was the incarnation, the ideal of the popular spirit. He believed that he had, in fact, such enormous power over the masses that he proposed, when he was in a Ministry office, to quell any outbreak single-handedly; and, with regard to the means he would employ, he gave this answer: “Never fear! I’ll show them my face!”

Frédéric, in order to mortify him, gave him to understand that he was himself a candidate. The showman, from the moment he realized that his future colleague aspired to represent the province, declared himself his servant, and offered to be his guide to the various clubs.

They visited them, or nearly all, the red and the blue, the furious and the tranquil, the puritanical and the licentious, the mystical and the intemperate, those that had voted for the death of kings, and those in which the frauds in the grocery trade had been denounced; and everywhere the tenants cursed the landlords; the smock was full of spite against the tailcoat; and the rich conspired against the poor. Many wanted compensation on the ground that they had formerly been martyrs of the police; others appealed for money in order to carry out certain inventions, or else there were plans of phalansteria, projects for village bazaars, systems of universal happiness; then, here and there a flash of genius amid these clouds of folly, sudden as splashes, the law formulated by an oath, and flowers of eloquence on the lips of some soldier-boy, with a shoulder-belt strapped over his bare, shirtless chest. Sometimes, too, a gentleman made his appearance—an aristocrat of humble demeanour, talking in a plebeian strain, and with his hands unwashed, so as to make them look calloused. A patriot recognised him; the most fanatical members insulted him; and he went off with rage in his soul. On the pretext of good sense, it was desirable to be always criticizing the lawyers, and to make use as often as possible of these expressions: “To carry one’s stone to the building,” “social problem,” “workshop.”

Delmar did not miss the opportunities afforded him for getting in a word; and when he no longer found anything to say, his device was to plant himself in some conspicuous position with one of his hands on his hip and the other in his waistcoat, turning himself round abruptly in profile, so as to give a good view of his head. Then there were outbursts of applause, which came from Mademoiselle Vatnaz at the lower end of the hall.

Frédéric, in spite of the weakness of orators, did not dare to try the experiment of speaking. All those people seemed to him too unpolished or too hostile.

But Dussardier made enquiries, and informed him that there existed in the Rue Saint-Jacques a club which bore the name of the “Club of Intellect.” Such a name gave good reason for hope. Besides, he would bring some friends there.

He brought those whom he had invited to have punch with him—the bookkeeper, the wine-merchant, and the architect; even Pellerin had offered to come, and Hussonnet would probably form one of the party, and on the pavement before the door stood Regimbart, with two individuals, the first of whom was his faithful Compain, a rather heavy-set man with pock-marks and bloodshot eyes; and the second, an ape-like negro, exceedingly hairy, and whom he knew only as “a patriot from Barcelona.”

They passed through an alley, and were then introduced into a large room, no doubt a carpenter’s workshop with walls still fresh and smelling of plaster. Four oil-lamps were hanging parallel to each other, and shed an unpleasant light. On a platform, at the end of the room, there was a desk with a bell; below a table, representing the rostrum, and on each side two others, somewhat lower, for the secretaries. The audience that lined the benches consisted of old painters, school monitors, and literary men who could not get their works published.

In the midst of those lines of overcoats with greasy collars could be seen here and there a woman’s cap or a workman’s linen smock. The back of the room was full of workmen, who had in all likelihood come there to pass an idle hour, and who had been brought along by some speakers in order that they might applaud.

Frédéric took care to place himself between Dussardier and Regimbart, who was scarcely seated when he leaned both hands on his walking-stick and his chin on his hands and shut his eyes, whilst at the other end of the room Delmar stood looking down at the assembly. Sénécal appeared at the president’s desk.

The worthy bookkeeper thought Frédéric would be pleased at this unexpected discovery. It only annoyed him.

The crowd showed great deference to the president. He was one who, on the twenty-fifth of February, had desired an immediate organisation of labour. On the following day, at the Prado, he had declared himself in favour attacking the Hotel de Ville; and, as every person at that time modeled himself after someone, one copied Saint-Just, another Danton, another Marat; as for him, he tried to be like Blanqui, who imitated Robespierre.
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His black gloves, and his hair brushed back, gave him a severe look exceedingly becoming.

He opened the proceedings with the declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen—a customary act of faith. Then, a vigorous voice struck up Béranger’s “Souvenirs du Peuple.”

Other voices were raised:

“No! no! not that!”

“ ‘La Casquette!’ ” the patriots at the back began to howl.

And they sang in chorus the favourite lines of the period:

At a word from the president the audience became silent.

One of the secretaries proceeded to open the letters.

Some young men announced that they burned a copy of the
Assemblée Nationale
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every evening in front of the Panthéon, and they urged all patriots to follow their example.

“Bravo! adopted!” responded the audience.

The Citizen Jean Jacques Langreneux, a printer on the Rue Dauphin, would like to have a monument raised to the memory of the martyrs of Thermidor.
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Michel Evariste Népomucène, ex-professor, gave expression to the wish that the European democracy should adopt unity of language. A dead language might be used for that purpose—as, for example, improved Latin.

“No; no Latin!” exclaimed the architect.

“Why?” said the school master.

And these two gentlemen engaged in a discussion, in which the others also took part, each putting in a word of his own for effect; and the conversation on this topic soon became so tedious that many left. But a little old man, who wore below his prodigiously high forehead a pair of green spectacles, asked permission to speak in order to make an important communication.

It was a memorandum on the assessment of taxes. The figures flowed on in a continuous stream, as if they were never going to end. The impatience of the audience was expressed at first in murmurs, in whispered talk. He allowed nothing to bother him. Then they began hissing and calling out. Sénécal called the persons who were interrupting to order. The orator went on like a machine. It was necessary to take him by the elbow in order to stop him. The old fellow looked as if he were waking out of a dream, and, placidly lifting his spectacles, said:

“Pardon me, citizens! pardon me! I am going—a thousand pardons!”

Frédéric was disconcerted by the failure of the old man’s attempts to read this written statement. He had his own address in his pocket, but an extemporaneous speech would have been preferable.

Finally the president announced that they were about to pass on to the important matter, the question of elections. They would not discuss the big Republican lists. However, the “Club of Intellect” had every right, like every other, to form its own list, “with all respect for the pashas of the Hôtel de Ville,” and the citizens who sought the popular mandate might state their qualifications.

“Go on, now!” said Dussardier.

A man in a cassock, with woolly hair and a petulant expression on his face, had already raised his hand. He said, with a stutter, that his name was Ducretot, priest and agriculturist, and that he was the author of a work entitled “Manure.” He was told to send it to a horticultural club.

Then a patriot in a smock climbed up onto the platform. He was a man of the people, with broad shoulders, a big face, very gentle-looking, with long black hair. He cast on the assembly an almost voluptuous glance, flung back his head, and, finally, spreading out his arms:

“You have repelled Ducretot, O my brothers! and you have done right; but it was not through irreligion, for we are all religious.”

Many of those present listened open-mouthed, with the ecstatic air of catechumens.

“It is not either because he is a priest, for we, too, are priests! The workman is a priest, just as the founder of Socialism was—the Master of us all, Jesus Christ!”

The time had arrived to inaugurate the Kingdom of God. The Gospel led directly to ’89. After the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the proletariat. They had had the age of hate—the age of love was about to begin.

“Christianity is the keystone and the foundation of the new edifice—”

“Are you making fun of us?” exclaimed the wine merchant. “Who has given me such a priest’s cap?”