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THE SURFACE OF THE QUESTION
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.
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