The joint debates (assemblées contradictoires) which are held, now and then, during the political campaigns, are very apt to degenerate into similar scrimmages. As a rule, such encounters—there must be a special providence for scrimmages as there is for
MAULED TO DEATH FOR SHOUTING,
"VIVE L'ARMEE!" lovers—work no great harm beyond bruises to those engaged in them; but fatal results are not unknown. Not long ago, at an anti-militarist meeting in the hall of the “Mille Colonnes,” a man who had the bad taste or the misplaced courage to cry, “Vive l’Armée!” was quickly mauled to death by the infuriate audience. This was not an “assemblée contradictoire,” it is true; but, if it had been, the outcome would probably have been the same.
It is only fair to say, however, that the anarchists, on such occasions, are not more intolerant than others. There is no certainty that a man would have fared better who, alone, in a patriotic assembly at that time had raised the cry, “A bas l’Armée!”
The anarchist, with all his haughty insistence on directness and sincerity, is not totally averse to taking or administering the sugar-coated pill. He has punchs-conférences (punch-talks) and soupes-conférences (soup-talks), the former for himself, the latter for others. At the punch-conférence he washes down the word with the beverage of his choice,—more often wine, coffee, or beer than the punch which gives the name. At the soupe-conférence he dispenses to hungry vagabonds the soup that sustains life and the doctrines that, to his mind, explain it and make it worth while; precisely as the city missionaries and the “Salvation lassies” dispense food and gospel to “hoboes” at the “mission breakfasts” and “hallelujah lunches” of English and American cities and large towns.
In the summer he has “ballades de propagande,”—picnic trips into the country, which are given a serious turn by doctrinal speeches, in the open air, after lunch.
He has also—at least he had for a season—his weekly déjeuners végétariens, at which the somewhat attenuated coating of sugar which a vegetarian lunch gives to the lecture pill is overlaid with the more substantial sweetness of frolic, song, and badinage.