So long as the guillotining of the anarchists is as dispassionate as that of other killers of their kind, the guillotined are exalted into martyrs by their coreligionists alone. But when, as in the case of Vaillant, who had destroyed no life, the evident purpose of the courts is to wreak vengeance, not to deal justice, and when legal forms are stretched, if not completely snapped, by the weight of popular prejudice and passion with its old, old cry of “Crucify, crucify!” then, not only the sectaries of anarchy, but revolutionists of every shade, and all those who, while not revolutionists, are not quite ready to subscribe to the formula that society, like the king, “can do no wrong,” are pained and shocked. These last add, unconsciously perhaps, several rays to the halos of martyrdom about the heads of the anarchist thus wronged; and the cause of a single tiny sect is confounded for the time being with the cause of the oppressed at large.
The apotheosis of Vaillant is one of the most significant phenomena of modern times. His fate was sincerely and widely deplored in literary and artistic circles and by reputable contributors (if not by editors) in even the capitalistic press.
The spontaneous public pilgrimage to his burial-place, the Champ de Navets, took the police so completely by surprise that they were not prepared to arrest it. A stone, inscribed “Labor improbus omnia vincit,” was hastily erected over his grave while its guardians were at breakfast.
Although it was midwinter, bunches of fresh flowers were fairly showered upon the mound. These and the wreaths of immortelles and artificial flowers, which the French so much affect as funeral tributes, were nearly all accompanied by striking legends. A significant one of these read: “Glory to thee who wast great. I am only a child, but I will avenge thee.” There was also a symbolic crown of thorns.
The scenes that were enacted over this anarchist grave were of a poignant, mystic, almost uncanny intensity.
An aged man raised a babe above the heads of the crowd, and said impressively, “Behold the tomb of the martyr!”
A labourer lifted his voice to utter five simple terrible words, “Vaillant, thou shalt be avenged.”
A blind man declaimed: “In its lethargy the people is like a person buried alive. It wakes sometimes in the night of the tomb, and convulsively strains to break the planks of its coffin. From the depths of darkness I have heard thy cry of rage and of despair, O Vaillant! Thou hast threatened the powerful, those who live on the people and serve them not. Thy arm was raised, but thou wast thine only victim; and now earth fills thy mouth. Alas!”
A poet recited,—