Eugène Sue

“ Pity them—do not follow their example."
"And yet to see what we see, mother!" cried the youth. "To think that father, our dear father, a man of such integrity and courage, of such tried patriotism, finds himself at this hour in a convict's prison! To know that our enemies derive an insane joy from the prolongation of his undeserved sufferings!"
"In what way does that affect the honor, courage or patriotism of your father, my child?" suggested Madam Lebrenn. "Is it in the power of anybody in the world to stain that which is pure? to disgrace what is great? to turn an honest man into a felon? ”

“ We gave three months of misery to the service of the Republic, they the poor workingmen in the civil service, who were the first to be struck by the commercial crisis! And yet, behold them, the first to offer to the country the little that they possess—half their morrow's bread, perhaps!"
"And these men," added Madam Lebrenn, "who set such a noble example to the rich and the happy of the land; these men who display so much abnegation, such broadness of heart, so much resignation, so much patriotism, are they not to escape from their servitude! ”

“ We are in insurrection, my young fellow, because it riles us to see thousands of ragamuffins like Flameche, children of the Paris pavements, without hearth or home, father or mother, abandoned to the mercy of the devil, and exposed to become, some day or other, out of lack for a crust of bread, thieves and assassins, like yourself, my young fellow!"
"You need not fear, father Bribri," put in Flameche; "you need not fear—I shall never need to steal. I help you and other traders in old duds to pack your sacks and dispose of your pickings. I treat myself to the best that the dogs have left over. ”

“ What great and noble things are we not about to witness; not so, father?"
"To doubt it, my children, would be to deny the onward march, the constant progress of humanity," answered Lebrenn. "Never yet did mankind retrogress."
"May the good God hear you, Monsieur Lebrenn," put in father Morin. "Although I am quite old, I expect to see a good part of that beautiful picture. To want more than that, one must be quite a glutton," added the old man naïvely, and casting a tender look upon the merchant's daughter. ”

“ No, no, George! The intelligent bourgeois, and they are numerous, do not separate their cause from that of their brothers of the common people. Proletarians and bourgeois have for centuries fought side by side, heart by heart, in order to regain their freedom. Their blood has mingled in order to cement the holy union of the conquered against the conquerors! of the vanquished against the vanquishers! of the weak and the disinherited against force and privilege! How, then, should the interests of the bourgeois and the proletarians not be common? They have ever had the same enemy to contend with. ”

“ Let us, then, follow the example of our forefathers; let us follow in the footsteps of their belief; and let us, like them, preserve our name, our tongue and our faith."
"We shall not fail in that pledge, father," answered Velleda.
"We shall show neither less courage nor less persistence than our ancestors," added Sacrovir. "Oh, how I shall be thrilled with ecstasy when I read those venerated lines which they have traced! But is the chirography of the Celtic or Gallic language the same exactly as the Breton, which we are accustomed to read, father?" ”

“ The woman was handsome, but of a haughty and sinister beauty, a beauty that betrayed a violent temperament. Her features bore the stamp of that lassitude that excesses leave in their train. Her head was enveloped in long white and black veils. Her large grey-green eyes sparkled under their thick red brows. Her blood-red lips expressed at once wickedness and sensuousness. Finally, the crosier and the bloody sword in the hands of an abbess imparted to the portrait a weird, almost shocking appearance.
Lebrenn contemplated the image with disgust and horror, and muttered to himself:
"Oh, Meroflede! ”

“ Not that I mistrust them," added the merchant with a smile, "they are true Gallic women, worthy of our mothers, the valiant women, who, with act and voice, encouraged their fathers, brothers, sons and husbands in battle. But you know our by-laws. They impose upon us absolute silence towards outsiders. George, within three days either the throne of Louis Philippe will be overthrown, or our party will have been once more vanquished. But not discouraged. To it belongs the future. At this appeal to arms, you or I, you and I, my friend, may be laid low upon the barricade." ”

“ When you will see, my friends, that in the gloomiest days of our history—such days as the Kings, the seigneurs and the clergy have almost always afflicted man with; when you will see that we, the conquered, started with slavery and arrived step by step to popular sovereignty; you will then ask yourselves whether, at this hour, when we find ourselves invested with that so painfully earned sovereignty, it would not be criminal on our part to mistrust the future. To mistrust it! Great God! Oh! Our fathers, despite all their martyrdom never did mistrust the future! ”

“ We may weep over your father's absence, but let us never forget that every day of his martyrdom exalts and does him honor!"
"You are right, mother," replied Sacrovir, sighing heavily. "Thoughts of hatred and vengeance injure the heart."
"Oh!" exclaimed Velleda sadly. "Poor father! He looked forward to to-morrow's date with so much impatience!"
"To to-morrow?" George asked his wife. "Why so?"
"To-morrow is my son's birthday," explained Madam Lebrenn. "To-morrow, September 11, he will be twenty-one years of age. For several reasons that anniversary was to be a family holiday to us." ”

“ As to the Kings, they massacre, they threaten, they foam at the mouth with rage—and, above all, with terror! Already they see myriads of avengers arise out of the blood of the martyrs whom they assassinated. These crown-carriers have the vertigo. And there is good reason therefor. If a European war breaks out, immediately the Revolution will raise its head in their own camp and devour them; if peace prevails, the pacific tide of civilization will rise higher and higher, and engulf their thrones. Proceed, children."
"But at home!" cried George. "At home!" ”

“ Mother," cried Sacrovir with eyes that sparkled with enthusiasm, "Paris has the fever—it follows that all hearts must be beating more strongly. Without knowing one another, people look for and understand at a glance. On all the streets the words you hear are ardent, patriotic appeals to arms. In short, it smells of gunpowder. Oh, mother! mother!" added the young man with exaltation, "what a beautiful sight is the awakening of a people!"
"Keep cool, enthusiast that you are!" said Madam Lebrenn. ”

“ Yes!" repeated several voices.
"No!" shouted back the linendraper, barring the door with his gun, while George came to his support. "No! No! No massacre after battle! No cowardice!"
"The colonel killed my brother with a pistol shot fired within an inch of his face—down there, at the corner of the street," bellowed a man with bloodshot eyes, his mouth foaming with rage, and brandishing a sword. "Death to the colonel!"
"Yes! Yes! Death!" shouted several threatening voices. "Death!"
"No! You shall not kill a wounded man! You can not mean to murder an unarmed man—a prisoner!" ”

“ Do you, my son, and you, my daughter, in default of him, pledge yourselves to register in all sincerity the deeds and events of your own lives, be they just or unjust, praiseworthy or blamable, to the end that the day when you depart from this existence to another, the narrative of your own life may increase our family chronicles, and that the inexorable sense of justice of our descendants may praise or condemn our memory, according as we shall have deserved? ”

“ Perchance, because, without being rich, exactly, I enjoy some comfort and have a few duds to sell? What business have I, I suppose you are thinking, with a party, the aim of which is the conquest for the proletariat of political life, through universal suffrage, and of property through the organization of labor? Why, my good George, just because I have, it is my duty to assist my brothers to conquer what they have not. ”

“ But, while piously glorifying the past, let us continue, in step with the movement of mankind, to march towards the future. Let us apt forget that a New World began with Christianity. Unquestionably its divine spirit of fraternity, equality and freedom has been outrageously belied, trampled in the dirt, and persecuted since the first centuries of its era by most of the Catholic bishops, who were themselves holders of slaves, and were gorged with wealth that they wheedled from the conquering Franks, in return for the absolution of their abominable crimes which the high clergy sold to them. ”

“ The bourgeois of St. Denis Street are no longer afraid, as once they were, of lettres de cachet to the Bastille. And if Monsieur Duke, or Monsieur Marquis took it into his head to be discourteous to them—to them or to their family—bless my soul! the bourgeois of St. Denis Street might bestow a thorough drubbing—pardon me, monsieur, for this great freedom—I said, might administer a thorough drubbing to Monsieur Marquis or Monsieur Duke—even if he were of royal or imperial lineage."
"'Sdeath, monsieur!" ejaculated the colonel, hardly able to restrain his anger, and turning pale with rage. ”

“ Because there are bourgeois—or, to use the full, big term, republican Socialist bourgeois? Come, now, George, speaking seriously, is not the cause of the bourgeois that of the proletariat? Is there any doubt but that I, for instance, yesterday a proletarian, whom good luck has so far favored, might, through some stroke of bad luck, become again a proletarian to-morrow; and, if not I, my son? Am not I—and my case is that of all other small traders—at the mercy of the barons of high finance, of the strong iron safes, just as our forefathers were at the mercy of the barons of the strong forts? ”

“ And what did you say to the merchant of men? 'My grandfather is ailing; he can hardly any longer earn his living; I am his only support; I may fail him, either through sickness, or through lack of work; he is old; secure to him a little life annuity, and I shall sell myself to you.' And you did it!" cried the old man with tears in his eyes, and raising his spoon to the ceiling with such vehemence that, if George had not quickly seized the table it would have tumbled down to the floor with the bowl of soup and all. ”

“ He was just about to remove the heavy outer wrappage of coarse grey burlap when Monsieur Lebrenn, who only then noticed the illumination which his shop-assistant had provided himself with, cried out:
"Hold, Gildas! Are you crazy? Put the candle back on the table, quick. The devil take it! You would blow us all up, my boy!"
"Blow us all up!" echoed Gildas, terror-stricken, and he bounded away from the bale, while Sacrovir himself placed the candle on the table. "What should blow us up?"
"The cartridges, my lad, which these bales contain. You must look out what you are doing." ”

“ Help!"
"If you can read, read this," said one of the workingmen, holding up the poster before the thief. "If you can not read, I shall read it for you:
"SHOT AS A THIEF."
"Shot?" stammered the fellow growing livid. "Shot? Mercy! Help! Assassins! Murder! Watchmen, murder!"
"An example must be set for the likes of you, in order that they may not dishonor the Revolution!" explained father Bribri.
"Now, down on your knees, you scoundrel!" ordered a blacksmith who still had his leathern apron on. "And all of you, my friends, get your guns ready! Down on your knees!" ”