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_ Of what is revolt composed? Of nothing and of everything.
Of an electricity disengaged, little by little, of a flame suddenly
darting forth, of a wandering force, of a passing breath.
This breath encounters heads which speak, brains which dream,
souls which suffer, passions which burn, wretchedness which howls,
and bears them away.
Whither?
At random. Athwart the state, the laws, athwart prosperity
and the insolence of others.
Irritated convictions, embittered enthusiasms, agitated indignations,
instincts of war which have been repressed, youthful courage which has
been exalted, generous blindness; curiosity, the taste for change,
the thirst for the unexpected, the sentiment which causes one to
take pleasure in reading the posters for the new play, and love,
the prompter's whistle, at the theatre; the vague hatreds,
rancors, disappointments, every vanity which thinks that destiny
has bankrupted it; discomfort, empty dreams, ambitious that are
hedged about, whoever hopes for a downfall, some outcome, in short,
at the very bottom, the rabble, that mud which catches fire,--
such are the elements of revolt. That which is grandest and that
which is basest; the beings who prowl outside of all bounds,
awaiting an occasion, bohemians, vagrants, vagabonds of the
cross-roads, those who sleep at night in a desert of houses with no
other roof than the cold clouds of heaven, those who, each day,
demand their bread from chance and not from toil, the unknown
of poverty and nothingness, the bare-armed, the bare-footed, belong
to revolt. Whoever cherishes in his soul a secret revolt against
any deed whatever on the part of the state, of life or of fate,
is ripe for riot, and, as soon as it makes its appearance,
he begins to quiver, and to feel himself borne away with the whirlwind.
Revolt is a sort of waterspout in the social atmosphere which
forms suddenly in certain conditions of temperature, and which,
as it eddies about, mounts, descends, thunders, tears, razes,
crushes, demolishes, uproots, bearing with it great natures
and small, the strong man and the feeble mind, the tree
trunk and the stalk of straw. Woe to him whom it bears away
as well as to him whom it strikes! It breaks the one against the other.
It communicates to those whom it seizes an indescribable
and extraordinary power. It fills the first-comer with the
force of events; it converts everything into projectiles.
It makes a cannon-ball of a rough stone, and a general of a porter.
If we are to believe certain oracles of crafty political views,
a little revolt is desirable from the point of view of power. System:
revolt strengthens those governments which it does not overthrow.
It puts the army to the test; it consecrates the bourgeoisie,
it draws out the muscles of the police; it demonstrates the force
of the social framework. It is an exercise in gymnastics;
it is almost hygiene. Power is in better health after a revolt,
as a man is after a good rubbing down.
Revolt, thirty years ago, was regarded from still other points
of view.
There is for everything a theory, which proclaims itself "good sense";
Philintus against Alcestis; mediation offered between the false and
the true; explanation, admonition, rather haughty extenuation which,
because it is mingled with blame and excuse, thinks itself wisdom,
and is often only pedantry. A whole political school called "the
golden mean" has been the outcome of this. As between cold water
and hot water, it is the lukewarm water party. This school with its
false depth, all on the surface, which dissects effects without going
back to first causes, chides from its height of a demi-science,
the agitation of the public square.
If we listen to this school, "The riots which complicated the affair of
1830 deprived that great event of a portion of its purity. The Revolution
of July had been a fine popular gale, abruptly followed by blue sky.
They made the cloudy sky reappear. They caused that revolution,
at first so remarkable for its unanimity, to degenerate into a quarrel.
In the Revolution of July, as in all progress accomplished by fits
and starts, there had been secret fractures; these riots rendered
them perceptible. It might have been said: `Ah! this is broken.'
After the Revolution of July, one was sensible only of deliverance;
after the riots, one was conscious of a catastrophe.
"All revolt closes the shops, depresses the funds, throws the
Exchange into consternation, suspends commerce, clogs business,
precipitates failures; no more money, private fortunes rendered uneasy,
public credit shaken, industry disconcerted, capital withdrawing,
work at a discount, fear everywhere; counter-shocks in every town.
Hence gulfs. It has been calculated that the first day of a riot
costs France twenty millions, the second day forty, the third sixty,
a three days' uprising costs one hundred and twenty millions, that is
to say, if only the financial result be taken into consideration,
it is equivalent to a disaster, a shipwreck or a lost battle,
which should annihilate a fleet of sixty ships of the line.
"No doubt, historically, uprisings have their beauty; the war of the
pavements is no less grandiose, and no less pathetic, than the war
of thickets: in the one there is the soul of forests, in the other
the heart of cities; the one has Jean Chouan, the other has a Jeanne.
Revolts have illuminated with a red glare all the most original points
of the Parisian character, generosity, devotion, stormy gayety,
students proving that bravery forms part of intelligence,
the National Guard invincible, bivouacs of shopkeepers, fortresses of
street urchins, contempt of death on the part of passers-by. Schools
and legions clashed together. After all, between the combatants,
there was only a difference of age; the race is the same; it is
the same stoical men who died at the age of twenty for their ideas,
at forty for their families. The army, always a sad thing in
civil wars, opposed prudence to audacity. Uprisings, while proving
popular intrepidity, also educated the courage of the bourgeois.
"This is well. But is all this worth the bloodshed? And to
the bloodshed add the future darkness, progress compromised,
uneasiness among the best men, honest liberals in despair,
foreign absolutism happy in these wounds dealt to revolution
by its own hand, the vanquished of 1830 triumphing and saying:
`We told you so!' Add Paris enlarged, possibly, but France most
assuredly diminished. Add, for all must needs be told, the massacres
which have too often dishonored the victory of order grown ferocious
over liberty gone mad. To sum up all, uprisings have been disastrous."
Thus speaks that approximation to wisdom with which the bourgeoisie,
that approximation to the people, so willingly contents itself.
For our parts, we reject this word uprisings as too large,
and consequently as too convenient. We make a distinction
between one popular movement and another popular movement.
We do not inquire whether an uprising costs as much as a battle.
Why a battle, in the first place? Here the question of war comes up.
Is war less of a scourge than an uprising is of a calamity? And then,
are all uprisings calamities? And what if the revolt of July did
cost a hundred and twenty millions? The establishment of Philip
V. in Spain cost France two milliards. Even at the same price,
we should prefer the 14th of July. However, we reject these figures,
which appear to be reasons and which are only words. An uprising
being given, we examine it by itself. In all that is said by the
doctrinarian objection above presented, there is no question of
anything but effect, we seek the cause.
We will be explicit. _
Read next: VOLUME IV: BOOK TENTH - THE 5TH OF JUNE, 1832: CHAPTER II. The Root of the Matter
Read previous: VOLUME IV: BOOK NINTH - WHITHER ARE THEY GOING?: CHAPTER III. M. Mabeuf
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