Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 398, December 1848

"That belief should be a comfort and encouragement to you, Vivian. And now, good-night, – I have much to do."

"Good-night, then," said Vivian, and we parted.

I made my way to Mr Trevanion's house, and to the study. There was a formidable arrear of business waiting for me, and I sate down to it at first resolutely; but, by degrees, I found my thoughts wandering from the eternal blue-books, and the pen slipped from my hand, in the midst of an extract from a Report on Sierra Leone. My pulse beat loud and quick; I was in that state of nervous fever which only emotion can occasion. The sweet voice of Fanny rang in my ears; her eyes, as I had last met them, unusually gentle – almost beseeching – gazed upon me wherever I turned; and then, as in mockery, I heard again those words, – "One ought to be an earl, at least, to aspire to" – Oh! did I aspire? Was I vain fool so frantic? – household traitor so consummate? No, no! Then what did I under the same roof? – why stay to imbibe this sweet poison, that was corroding the very springs of my life? At that self-question, which, had I been but a year or two older, I should have asked long before, a mortal terror seized me; the blood rushed from my heart, and left me cold – icy cold. To leave the house! leave Fanny! – never again to see those eyes – never to hear that voice! – better die of the sweet poison than of the desolate exile! I rose – I opened the windows – I walked to and fro the room: I could decide nothing – think of nothing; all my mind was in an uproar. With a violent effort at self-mastery, I approached the table again. I resolved to force myself to my task, if it were only to re-collect my faculties, and enable them to bear my own torture. I turned over the books impatiently, when, lo! buried amongst them, what met my eye – archly, yet reproachfully? the face of Fanny herself! Her miniature was there. It had been, I knew, taken a few days before, by a young artist whom Trevanion patronised. I suppose he had carried it into his study to examine it, and so left it there carelessly. The painter had seized her peculiar expression – her ineffable smile – so charming, so malicious; even her favourite posture, – the small head turned over the rounded Hebe-like shoulder – the eye glancing up from under the hair. I know not what change in my madness came over me; but I sank on my knees, and, kissing the miniature again and again, burst into tears. Such tears! I did not hear the door open – I did not see the shadow steal over the floor; a light hand rested on my shoulder, trembling as it rested. I started – Fanny herself was bending over me!

"What is the matter?" she asked tenderly. "What has happened? – your uncle – your family – all well? Why are you weeping?"

I could not answer; but I kept my hands clasped over the miniature, that she might not see what they contained.

"Will you not answer? Am I not your friend? – almost your sister? Come, shall I call mamma?"

"Yes – yes; go – go."

"No, I will not go yet. What have you there? – what are you hiding?"

And innocently, and sister-like, those hands took mine; and so – and so – the picture became visible! There was a dead silence. I looked up through my tears. Fanny had recoiled some steps, and her cheek was very flushed, her eyes downcast. I felt as if I had committed a crime – as, if dishonour clung to me; and yet I repressed – yes, thank Heaven! I repressed the cry that swelled from my heart, that rushed to my lips – "Pity me, for I love you!" I repressed it, and only a groan escaped me – the wail of my lost happiness! Then, rising, I laid the miniature on the table, and said, in a voice that I believe was firm —

"Miss Trevanion, you have been as kind as a sister to me, and therefore I was bidding a brother's farewell to your likeness; it is so like you – this!"

"Farewell!" echoed Fanny, still not looking up.

"Farewell —sister! There – I have boldly said the word; for – for" – I hurried to the door, and, there turning, added, with what I meant to be a smile – "for they say at home that I – I am not well; too much for me this; you know mothers will be foolish; and – and – I am to speak to your father to-morrow; and – good-night – God bless you, Miss Trevanion!"

REPUBLICAN FIRST-FRUITS

[10 - Jérome Paturot à la Recherche de la Meilleure des Républiques. Par Louis Reybaud. Volumes 1 to 3. Paris: 1848.Monsieur Bonardin, ou les Agrémens de la République – Proverbe en plusieurs Décades. Paris: 1848.] When reviewing, in last month's Magazine, the accumulated French novels of the summer, we reserved two, partly on account of incompleteness and tardy arrival, but chiefly as worthy of a separate notice. They belong to a branch of literature not much cultivated in France of late years, but which revives and flourishes by favour of recent convulsions, and of the present feverish political atmosphere of the country. Political satire, even in the gay disguise of fiction, was not quite a safe venture during the reign of Louis Philippe the king. Bearing in mind certain arbitrary infractions of the liberty of the press, it might well have proved a dangerous one under the rule of Cavaignac the dictator. Nevertheless, here are two books of sharp jests, that must be caustic to the cuticle of the heroes and votaries of the republican regime. In style different, their aim is identical: it is nothing less than an exposure of the faults, follies, and deceptions of the French republic. One is comedy, the other broad farce; whilst the latter plunges into burlesque, the former rarely oversteps the limits of polished satire, and often but faithfully depicts – with altered names, but with scarcely a touch of caricature – scenes and personages in the great serio-comic drama enacting in France since February last. There can be no dispute as to the comparative merits of the books, nor, indeed, can a comparison be instituted between them. Jérome Paturot has, in some parts, almost the weight of history, and it would not be surprising to see it hereafter so referred to. It is the work of a man of acknowledged talent, an esteemed and experienced writer, a member of the legislative chamber both before and since the expulsion of the King of the French. If occasionally rather diffuse, M. Louis Reybaud is always witty and shrewd: he is an acute observer; and, to crown our praise, he is evidently of stanch Tory principles. There is a strong good sense, a calm contempt of cant and of pseudo-liberalism, a stripping, whipping, and pickling of humbug, in his Jérome Paturot, at any time agreeable to behold, but peculiarly refreshing just now, by its contrast with the folly, hypocrisy, and fanaticism of many of his countrymen. We are glad to find there still are Frenchmen capable of thinking and writing so soundly and sensibly – a fact which, with every disposition to judge the nation favourably, recent events have almost made us doubt. "Jérome Paturot in quest of the best possible Republic" is more than witty, spirited, and amusing. Its strong good sense and sledge-hammer truths may and must influence, in a right direction, the minds of many of its French readers. Should any of these be so obtuse as not fully to appreciate Jérome's sly wit and pungent epigrams, to them Monsieur Bonardin addresses himself, secure of comprehension: him every one will understand. The dramatised narrative of his misadventures, commencing on the morrow of the republic's proclamation, and comprised in thirteen decades, was doubtless suggested by the perusal of Paturot, and this the anonymous author tacitly acknowledges, rather than attempts to conceal. He chooses his hero in the same respectable trade to which Jérome devoted his time and industry, when the ambitious cravings of his restless youth had subsided, and before increasing wealth, the epaulets of a captain of nationals, and the glitter of a citizen-king's court, turned him from the paths of commerce, to climb an eminence whence he finally got a fall. Paturot and Bonardin are both bonnetiers, or hosiers – venders of unpoetical white nightcaps, pointed and tasselled, and of other wares woven of cotton. Either on account of the prosaic associations suggested by these useful manufactures, or for some other reason, to us unknown, the bonnetier is a favourite character with French writers when they wish to portray a good, simple-hearted, steady-going, pusillanimous Parisian burgess. Bonardin is all this: a bachelor and an epicure, he leads a monotonous but happy existence in the society of Babet and Criquet, his housekeeper and clerk; loves his dinner, his bed, and his ease; and, although a corporal in the national guard, has attained the mature age of fifty-five in profound ignorance of the process of loading and firing a musket. In short, he is the last man in the world to make or meddle with the revolution, whose passive victim, from the mere fact of his lot being cast in Paris, he unfortunately becomes. Paturot is another sort of character. Originally simple enough, his wit has been sharpened by deceptions and reverses. Although to many of our readers M. Reybaud's former works[11 - Mill's Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. p. 393.] are already well known, we briefly sketch, for the use of those who have not met with them, the career of Jérome Paturot previously to the advent of the republic. Aspiring, as a young man, to higher occupations than the sale of cottons, he refused a partnership with his uncle, a thriving hosier, to dabble in literature, art, journalism, and various unlucky speculations. Reclaimed at last, he settled down to stockings; married Malvina, a warm-hearted, ready-witted, high-spirited grisette, who had long shared his precarious fortunes; throve apace, went to court, was elected deputy, and at last, by extravagance and mismanagement, found himself ruined, and was fain to retire into a provincial nook, to vegetate upon the wretched salary of a petty government appointment. Here, soured by misfortune, he grumbled himself into republicanism. But when the republic came, he, the only pure and genuine "republican of the eve" in the town, was elbowed aside by mushroom "republicans of the morrow," and deprived of his place; whereupon his wife sent him to Paris, to recover it or get a better one, and followed him herself, after bringing about, by an active canvass and clever manœuvres, the election to the National Assembly of one Simon – an honest, ignorant miller, with a strong arm, a thick head, and a sonorous voice – at whose house the Paturots had occasionally paused for refreshment in their country walks, and through whom Malvina reckons on advancing her husband's interests, and on commanding a vote in the Chambers.

At Paris, Paturot meets an old friend, Oscar, an artist, remarkable for a large beard and a small talent, and for a vanity that nothing can intimidate. In his society, and in the intervals of his place-hunting – to all appearance a fruitless chase – Jérome begins a course of "Life under the Republic," his rambles and adventures serving as pegs whereon to hang cutting satire of the anomalies and absurdities of the new order of things. At first he is greatly struck by the gay aspect of the town.

"Paris was in continual festival – its busy life exchanged for complete idleness. Eager for amusement, the crowd quitted the workshop, to pick and choose amongst the pastimes offered them. These were abundant; archery, games at the ring, lotteries in the open air – a perpetual fair. It seemed a new Cocaigne, and a people exempt from all cares for the future. Happy shepherds! fortunate sheep! Theological divertisements for those; for these a free field and plenteous pasture. Thus were the parts distributed in this eclogue worthy of Gessner. Now and then, it is true, there were a few more fireworks than were ordered, and some of the illuminations were not quite spontaneous; but these were imperceptible blemishes in a glorious picture. In pursuit of an idea, I was tempted to think I had found it realised on my path without trouble or effort, and as a gift of circumstances.

"Nevertheless I had my doubts, my fears, that this apparent joy was a mask to mysterious sufferings. In these joyous cries and bursts of enthusiasm, there was a something harsh and artificial, which roused my suspicions. At the bottom of this feverish activity, I sought labour, serious labour – the health of the soul and the bread of the body – and I found it not. These men, so ardent in their rejoicings, daily borrowed from the commonwealth a portion of its substance, giving nothing in return. Could this last? Did they themselves think it could? The inquiry was worth making. I addressed myself to persons of all ranks and classes. The problem was simple enough. If the republic was really the joy and pride of France, it of course insured the happiness of individuals."

The result of Jérome's inquiries was that the joy was on the surface, not in the heart. The spectacle he had before him was the pitiable one of a people getting drunk upon its own acclamations, raising a senseless clamour to drown the fiend of misery, which approached their door with swift and certain step. Already the bony foot of the monster was on many a threshhold. Paturot questioned a banker. "Alas!" was the reply, – "see you not what occurs? Twenty first-class banking-houses unable to meet their engagements; others will follow. Those who continue to pay decline business and announce their winding up. Before two months there will be no cashing a bill in all Paris. Every body is suspected – you, I, the bank, the treasury. Credit is lost, confidence extinguished." This was discouraging; but Jérome, not satisfied with one testimony, passed on to a manufacturer. "Manufactures!" said this man, a republican of the very first water – "you ask the state of manufactures, citizen! you might as well ask after a dead man's health. I employed two thousand workmen; now I employ one hundred, and only for humanity's sake do I keep them. Our country asked us to make her a present of two hours' work a-day. We sacrificed our interest to a principle, and did so. But two hours' work is a loss of ten per cent, and as my average gain was only five, you understand I am obliged to stop my looms. If the public would pay a better price for our stuffs, well and good; but there seems little chance of that. Poor customers, citizen, – a parcel of ruined men. For half-nothing I would be off to America, with my foremen and my patents." The fundholder's account of the matter was no better. "Buy my stock?" said he to his interrogator – "shall have it cheap. My fives cost me 122, and my threes 84: I had confidence, sir – the word explains every thing. Now the threes are at 34, and the fives at 50. I have railway shares of all the lines – Orleans, North, Rouen, &c. God knows the hard cash I paid for them! To-day they are worth the paper: here they are, blue, green, and red. I would as soon have shares in the Mississippi. I had treasury bonds – cash lent, payable at will; I reckoned on it. Door shut. Come another day, my good man, and we will see what we can do. If you are in a hurry, go on 'Change. You will get 500 francs for 1000." Heart-sick, Paturot descended the social scale, but the song was every where the same. "I fought in July and in February," said the shopkeeper; "I helped to take the Louvre and the Tuileries; I was seen upon the barricades, musket in hand. What is my reward? a shop full of goods, and an empty till. For two months past, not a purchaser. Debtors will not pay, and creditors will be paid." As a last forlorn hope, Jérome accosted an artisan. "You want to know my opinion, citizen? You shall have it, in two words. The thing is a failure, and must be done over again. 'Lend a hand to the Revolution,' they said to us, 'and this time you shall not be forgotten.' Very good; word passed, bargain accepted. In a turn of the hand, the thing is done. Here are your goods, where's your money? There the difficulty began. 'Let us organise labour,' they exclaimed at the Luxembourg. Very well; organise, citizens – take your time. The workman has his savings, he will wait. Three days, four days, pass in speeches, embraces, mutual congratulations. The workman has deputed comrades who sit upon the benches of the peers; it is always an honour, if it does not fill the belly. He takes patience, and forgets himself for the general good, until a voice is heard from the Luxembourg saying, 'We are going to try to organise labour.' The deuce, says the workman; the first day they organise, and now they try to organise; that is not like progress. Meanwhile, he is on the street, more pinched than ever. Little by little his money goes, and his credit too. He returns to his workshop; door shut, nothing doing. He tries another; same answer. Whilst they 'tried to organise,' work had disappeared. I am wrong – nominal work was still to be had – alms in the guise of labour. Sooner break my arm than have recourse to it."

The reader will recognise in these passages exact statements of facts. The artisan's last reference is, of course, to the national workshops, whither we shall presently accompany M. Reybaud's hero. The disease of the social body, of which Paturot's inquiries gave him warning, soon became too prevalent for concealment; and, as usual in such cases, a host of quacks started up, puffing their panaceas. This, however, was not till the self-appointed, but more regular physicians of the Republic had made desperate attempts at a cure. Attempts and quackeries were alike recorded in the journals of the day. M. Reybaud writes a chronicle, and deserves our gratitude for its lucid and pointed style. The first prescription of the lawful practitioner was a national loan, to be subscribed at par. On reflection, however, the drug was thought too expensive, the electuary did not advance beyond the state of a project, and, of course, the patient was no better. The next remedy was a wooden one, but none the worse for that. "It was resolved to apply to the diseased organs a portion of the crown-forests, millions of ash and birch trees – antiquated elms, and historical limes – all the vegetable riches of the country! What treasury would not be saved at this price? The responsible doctor could not doubt success; he hugged himself for the bright idea. Well! heaven, jealous of his genius, frustrated his combinations. Unfortunately, the forests could not be applied to the patient's relief in their natural state. The ash-trees positively refused to enter the public cash-box in the form of an essence; the birches were equally obstinate, the elms no less so. It was necessary to transmute them into metal, and there was the difficulty. With time, the thing might have been done; but what avails distant succour to a dying man?" Other plans were then suggested; decree followed decree with startling rapidity, but without avail; distress gained ground, and the crisis reached its height. Entire streets closed their shops and counting-houses. Time-honoured names found their way into the gazette; some of their owners nobly sustaining the shock, others yielding to despair and rushing to suicide. It was a frightful and unexpected scene of ruin, which surprised the financial world in the midst of the abuse of credit, and of a fever of speculation.

"How arrest the evil? What dyke oppose to this growing devastation? There was no lack of saviours – they swarmed; nor of miraculous plans – the walls were covered with them. Every day hundreds of individuals presented themselves, offering to contract with the country for a supply of felicity. In their eyes, all this misfortune was but a mistake; to remedy it they had sure balsams and magic charms. It was a new profession that suddenly started up, that of saviour of the country, with or without government guarantee."

The quacks were the leaders of the clubs, several of which were visited by Oscar and Paturot; and Jérome was surprised to find how little freedom of discussion was allowed amongst men professing universal equality. Contradiction to the great orator of the hour and place was usually a signal for the expulsion of the rash offender, unless the follower of Fourier interposed, and expressed his willingness to enter the lists of argument. Cabet and the Icarians are capitally shown up. At the end of the discussion, which more resembled a lecture, the pontiff of the community produced a packet of letters, received from the colony where his Utopian schemes were to be carried out, and read extracts to his admiring auditors, interlarding them with reflections of his own. "Father," the despatch began, "all goes well; fraternity intoxicates us. We cannot sleep at night for the mosquitoes; but, like every thing else, these insects are in common: that thought consoles us."

'Poor dear children!'

"We have been visited by a great drought; it was common to us all. Grass failed for the flocks, and meat for man. But with fraternity all is light – even our diet. Yesterday morning we went to draw water from the Tair. The river was dry; we got nothing but locusts."

'Divine! pastoral! like a page of the Bible.'

"To-day a tribe of Sioux paid us a neighbourly visit. We invited them to join our brotherhood. They scalped two of our brethren. Father, this concerns us greatly. Two scalped and the others not. Where is the equality? They should have scalped us all."

'Touching scruple!'

"You are expected here with the liveliest impatience, and will be received with open arms. We run short of shirts; hasten to send us some, or we shall find ourselves in the condition of a primitive people. Father, bless your children.

"The Colony of the Tair."

There is more caricature in this than M. Reybaud generally permits himself. The reading of the despatch from the communist pioneers was followed by a collection, whose announcement nearly cleared the room, and whose result was pitifully small, the enthusiasm of the assembly having expired upon the road from the lips to the pocket. Jérome departed in disgust. He was scarcely better pleased at the next club he visited, whose orator harped perpetually upon one string, whence it was impossible to detach him. "Let us associate all men's capital, labour, and talent," said he emphatically. "It is the salvation and reconciliation of all interests." Jérome, who had always disliked "those sententious aphorisms which resemble pompous signs before empty shops," could not forbear an interruption, and requested the speaker to explain his words. But it was impossible to drag the socialist from his formula. His reply was a repetition of the same nonsense in other words. "Do what I would, I could not detach him from these common-place and pompous generalities. A controversy ensued, and I tried to bring it round to the boreal crown and the cardinal aromas. He refused to follow; and at last, finding himself hard pressed, he made me the offer of a ministry of progress. If there had been no door, I certainly should have jumped out of window." After a visit to Louis Blanc at the Luxembourg, Paturot repaired to the national workshops, whose administration occupied the park and pavilions of Monceaux.

"The following problem being given: – How to realise the least possible work with the greatest possible number of workmen;

"And supposing it is desired to discover the institution, existing or to exist, which shall most completely fulfil the end proposed;

"The solution will necessarily be —

THE NATIONAL WORKSHOP

"Never perhaps did a fact of this nature present itself, especially with such proportions. Before us, it had occurred to no one to confound alms with work. Nobody ever thought of cloaking alms with the appearance of a useless labour. In a few individual cases of misery, this way of concealing the donor's hand may leave some illusion to him who receives; but the assistance afforded by the public treasury to an entire army, to a hundred thousand men, admits of no doubt as to its nature. It is nothing more or less than English pauperism in the rudimental state."

Jérome had heard Oscar speak of these national workshops, one of whose brigades contained, according to the artist's account, the flower of Parisian society – five sculptors, twelve painters, and a whole company of authors. One of the sculptors had fixed his own task at twenty-five pebbles a-day. Monday he carried them from right to left; on Tuesday from left to right, and so on. The twenty-five pebbles had already brought him in seventy-five francs, three francs a pebble, and in time he hoped to get them up to a napoleon a-piece. Each workman received two francs a-day when employed; one franc when idle. Eight francs a-week were guaranteed to him, at work or not. Paturot, who doubted Master Oscar's details, resolved to use his own eyes, and set out for Monceaux. The gates were besieged by discontented workmen, clamorous to see the director, who was in no haste to show himself. Work was the cry, on account of the additional franc gained by a day of nominal labour. And work there was none for three-fourths of the sixty thousand men (subsequently 120,000) then upon the roll of the national workshops. And even when the director, to save the park gates from destruction, made his appearance and heard their complaints, they still were hard to please. They would find terrace-making at the Champ de Mars: – they were tired of that. They might break stones at Asnières; – many thanks; it spoiled their hands. Would they condescend to plant early potatoes in the fields of St Maur? They should have the eating of them when ripe. The offer was treated with contempt. At last they were suited. A nurseryman at Ville d'Avray was to deliver a lot of saplings to plant upon the Boulevards, in lieu of those trees planted after the revolution of 1830, which just began to afford an appearance of shade when they were swept away by that of 1848. It was a pleasant walk to Ville d'Avray, across the Bois de Boulogne and by St Cloud; and the national workmen set out, two hundred and fifty in number. The nurseryman was astounded at their arrival. He had already hired two carts, for fifteen francs, to convey the two hundred and fifty acacias, which were carefully packed in mould and matting. Torn from their envelopes, they were shouldered by the workmen. On the way back to Paris, rain came on, and at Sevres a halt was called: the trees were piled by the roadside, and the bearers crowded the wine-houses. Paturot and Oscar, who had accompanied them on their walk, entered the tavern patronised by Comtois and Percheron, in whom M. Reybaud typifies the Parisian populace. Comtois was a giant, strong as a horse, and gentle as a lamb; Percheron, weaker of arm, was stronger of head, and far more glib of tongue. "The one represented the strength and goodness of the people, the other its turbulence and causticity." One was resistance, the other restless progress. These two men, who thereafter frequently figure in the book, attracted Paturot's particular attention. A few bottles of wine won their hearts; they proposed his health, and offered to elect him deputy at the next election. Speeches followed, and bitter complaints of a government that neglected the workman. Percheron was then called upon for a song, and gave parodies of the Marseillaise and of the Mourir pour la Patrie, which he converted into Nourris par la Patrie. When he came to the last couplet of the Marseillaise, his comrades called out for the flag accompaniment.

"'As at the Français, Percheron! as at the Français!

"'Really! What epicures! Nothing but the best will serve you, it seems. Well, my boys, you shall be satisfied.'

"At the same time he arranged a couple of napkins in the fashion of a flag, draping himself with them picturesquely; then, rolling his eyes in their orbits, he threw himself on his knees, and assumed the airs of a Pythoness who has diligently studied posture before her mirror."

The parodies, rich in thieves' slang, at an end, and the bottles empty, the grateful pensioners of the national workshops resumed their march, cutting practical jokes, and cudgel-playing with the acacias, which were considerably deteriorated by the proceeding. "Such," says Jérome Paturot, "was the end of this memorable day, during which Oscar and myself were enabled to appreciate a national workshop and the services it rendered. The account was easily made up. Two hundred and fifty men had carried two hundred and fifty saplings. Two francs for each man's day's work, and three francs for each acacia, made five hundred francs on the one hand, and seven hundred and fifty on the other. Total cost, twelve hundred and fifty francs. Not one of the plants survived the consequences of the breakfast, notwithstanding which there was the expense of planting them, and afterwards that of digging them up. Double work, double charges. Such were the national workshops; such the profits of the institution."

The allusion in the tavern-scene to Mademoiselle Rachel is not the only cut administered by M. Reybaud to the tragedy-queen of the French republican stage.

Jérome and Oscar, strolling one evening down the Rue Richelieu, found a crowd at the theatre doors. The Provisional Government treated the people to the play. The whole mass of tickets was divided amongst the twelve mayors of Paris, who distributed them in their arrondissements. But somehow or other a considerable number had got into the hands of the ticket merchants, and for twenty francs Paturot and his companion obtained a couple of stalls. The play over, the hour of the Marseillaise arrived.

"The tragedian approached the foot-lamps, a tricoloured flag in her hand. Her manner of singing the republican hymn at once carried away and revolted the hearer. It was like the roar of the lioness urging her male to the combat. The tone was not of our period; its energy and ferocity had no sufficient motive. It breathed vengeance – where was the injury to revenge? conquest – and where the territory to conquer? Even as an artistical study, the effect should have been more measured, more restrained. That effect was nevertheless great, and was felt by every one in the theatre. Under the flash of that glance and the power of that voice, a sort of low shuddering ran along the benches, and was broken only by a universal acclamation. The enthusiasm sustained itself thus to the last couplet, which was of itself a scene and a tableau."

The song over, a workman in a blouse leaped upon the stage, bent his knee before the actress, and presented her with a bouquet of choice flowers and a paper. The manager, at the demand of the audience, read the latter aloud. It was the following acrostic in honour of Rachel: —

R eine de l'empire magique,
A vous ce don de l'ouvrier;
C harmez-nous par votre art magique,
H éroïne au royal cimier,
E t chantez d'un accent guerrier
L' hymne ardent de la république.

This apropos piece of gallantry drew down thunders of applause, to which the members of the Provisional Government there present contributed their share. But Paturot had recognised, to his great surprise, in the bouquet-bearer, the smart young scamp of whom he had purchased his admission, and whom he had noticed as being evidently a leading character amongst the not very reputable fraternity of ticket-mongers. Curious to penetrate the secret of his sudden metamorphosis, he followed him, and overheard his conversation with his colleagues. The bouquet had cost fifty francs, the acrostic five, flowers of literature being cheaper under the republic than those of the hothouse. Mitouflet's comrades are bewildered by his extravagance, until he divulges the secret that – government pays. "Happy nation!" exclaims Jérome, "whom a benevolent government finds in bread and tragedies! What more can it desire?"

No class of society escapes M. Reybaud's satire. Under the title of "The Victims of Events," he devotes a chapter to the authors, artists, and actors whom the revolution has deprived of bread. They deserve their fate, he maintains; they have abandoned the true for the worship of false gods, they have dealt in maleficent philters instead of wholesome medicines; they have used their power to mislead and corrupt, not to guide and rightly direct, those who pinned their faith on their performances. They were mischievous quacks, not conscientious physicians. The literary sufferers are the first whom he exhibits. "Some employed history as a die, and struck with it a coin of very base metal." Take that, M. Dumas. "Others fomented violent instincts in the bosom of the masses, and invited them to sacrilegious revolts, exhibiting only the impurities of civilisation, and conducting the people to anger by the road of disgust." This, we need hardly say, is levelled at the Sue school. But the names of these men, one day so loud in the ears of the multitude, the next were drowned in the tumult of revolutions. "To fill the cup of bitterness to the brim, it was not honour alone that remained on this calamitous field of battle. The bank-notes shared the same fate. Who would have predicted this, in those opulent days, when a piece of gold was found at the end of every line, like the natural product of a seemingly inexhaustible mine? Who would have foretold it in those hours of success, amidst the intoxications of luxury, and in the indulgence of a thousand caprices worthy an Eastern prince? Every road was then strewed with emeralds, every path covered with rubies. There was no style of living that Imagination, with its fairy fingers, could not sustain. She gave her favourites every thing – coaches and lackeys, open house, and a prince's retinue. How remote is that happy time! What a falling off in that Asiatic existence! Where are the emeralds? where the rubies? The bank-note is a figment; gold a chimera. Money and glory have gone down into the same tomb… But the man of style was not easy to vanquish. He braved neglect, and, deeming himself a necessary element in the world's economy, he set to work again – only, following the example of the modern divinities, he took care to transform himself. Hitherto, politics had appeared to him of secondary importance, and he had abandoned them to colourists of an inferior grade. Events had rendered them worthy of the great pens of the age. 'Aha!' said the man of style – 'Aha! they force us to it: very well, they shall see. We lived quietly in the sanctuary of art, asking but sequins and perfumes of the external world. Provided the sherbet was cool and the amber bright, what cared we for the rest? But now they besiege us in our favourite asylum. Distress is at the door, pressing and menacing. To arms, then, to institute a new system of politics.' And the man of style entered the arena of politics, ferula in hand, and spur on heel." But only to encounter a lamentable break-down. It is pretty evident whom M. Reybaud had in view when making this sketch, here greatly abridged, but which is very exact and amusing in its details, and must be particularly gratifying to Alexander Dumas. He then takes up the painters, and exposes the system of mutual puffing and hired criticism. The comedian has his turn: "But lately he reigned and laid down the law. Each note of his voice was a priceless treasure; his gestures were current coin. For him the bank had not enough notes, nor fame enough trumpets. The mob crowded round him, when he walked abroad, as round a prince of the blood. Vienna and Petersburg disputed him; the two worlds were his domain. How believe that such an idol should one day be hurled from his pedestal? Nevertheless it came to pass. He beheld vacant benches and an empty treasury. He had been improvident, and misery sat down by his hearth. Perhaps he then remembered how he had defied fate, and squandered wealth; how he had abused every thing – his health and his talent, the public and himself. Had he not given into that vein of falsehood and monstrosity, which made the theatre a school of perversity, and art an instrument of disorder? Had he not degraded the stage by creakings of snuff-boxes and misplaced hiccups? Had he not ridiculed, in a celebrated type, instincts the most sacred and worthy of respect? Such excesses escape not punishment." There is much truth in this. But is it a fact, that Frederick Lemaitre (here evidently selected as the type of his profession) has thus suddenly lost his popularity and sunk into poverty? The last time we saw his name in a French theatrical feuilleton, his successful appearance in a new piece was recorded. Has he not also, since the revolution, drawn crowds to witness his performance of Robert Macaire, the piece to which M. Reybaud more particularly alludes, and which was prohibited under the monarchy, because Lemaitre, in acting the part of the swindler Robert, used to make himself up to resemble Louis Philippe, and introduced unpleasant hits at the King of the French? There is no question, however, that Lemaitre is an instance of the prostitution of great talents. With more respect for himself and for the public, he might have aspired to a high place in the profession, with one of whose lower walks he has all his life remained contented.

Meanwhile, secret hands were at work preparing a movement, of which the national workshop was to be the chief instrument. One morning, when stone-breaking at the Porte Maillot, Percheron took Comtois aside to inform him that the clubs had decided on an outbreak. Comtois does not at first relish the idea, and is anxious to return to his hammer and pebbles, but Percheron, who, by reason of his superior intelligence, is one of six workmen to whom the plan has been communicated, bewilders the simple giant by the sunny prospects he exposes. This time it is the people who will reap the profits of the revolution. No more kid gloves and varnished boots; the blouse will be the passport to the good things of this life. No more wages. All Frenchmen are to be partners. An immense association; real equality; the workman well dressed, well fed, well housed, and always with twenty-five francs in his pocket, guaranteed by the state. The bourgeois, the rich man, is to be entirely abolished. Under pain of death, no one is to have more than a hundred francs in his possession. Costly furniture, plate, carriages, liveries, fine houses, jewellery, statues, pictures – all are to be suppressed. Poor stupid Comtois, venturing to inquire what will become of servants, jewellers, coach-makers, &c., &c., is forthwith snubbed by his smarter comrade. "They will do something else; there is to be work for every body." The communists have found an apt scholar in Percheron. Comtois reflects, admits they can always break stones, and agrees to place himself, upon the following Monday, at the orders of the conspirators. Upon that day (the famous 15th May) the fate of the Poles is to be discussed in the National Assembly; and, under colour of a demonstration in their favour, a clean sweep is to be made of the representatives of the people.