Henri Léon interrupted him:
“The Army, the Church, the magistracy, the bourgeoisie, the butcher boys—in other words, the whole excursion train of the Republic. The train is travelling nevertheless, and will continue to do so until the driver stops the engine.”
“Ah,” sighed Joseph Lacrisse, “if only we had President Faure with us still.”
“Félix Faure,” resumed Henri Léon, “joined us out of sheer vanity. He became a Nationalist in order to get invitations to hunt with the Brécés, but he would have turned against us as soon as he saw us on the verge of success. It was not in his interest to restore the monarchy. Dame! What could the monarchy have offered him? We could not have offered him a Lord High Constable’s bâton. We may regret him, for he loved the army; we may mourn him, but we must not allow ourselves to be inconsolable. He was not the driver; Loubet is not the driver either; the President of the Republic, whoever he may be, is never master of his engine. To me the ghastly part of it is that the Republican train is controlled by a phantom driver. He is invisible, and yet the train rushes on. It positively frightens me.
“Then there is another thing,” he continued, “and that is the general indifference of the public. Speaking of that, reminds me of a very significant remark once made by Citizen Bissolo. It was when the anti-Semites and ourselves were organizing spontaneous manifestations against Loubet. Our crowds went down the boulevards shouting ‘Panama! Resign! Long live the Army!’ It was magnificent. Young Ponthieu and General Decuir’s two sons headed the crowd, with glossy silk hats, white carnations in their buttonholes, and gold-headed canes in their hands. And the toughest hooligans of Paris made up the procession. We had seen to that, and as it was a case of good pay and no risk we had our pick. They would have been sorry to miss such a lark. Lord! what voices they had, and what fists, and what cudgels!
“A counter-manifestation quickly made its appearance; a smaller and more insignificant crowd, though warlike and determined enough, advanced to meet us amid shouts of ‘Long live the Republic! Down with the priests!’ with an occasional solitary cry for Loubet that seemed surprised to find itself in the air. Before it was over this unexpected disturbance aroused the anger of the police, who at that moment were barricading the boulevard and looking just like an austere border of black wool on a brightly variegated carpet. Soon, however, this black border, actuated by a movement of its own, hurled itself upon the van of the counter-manifestation, while another body of police harassed them from the rear. In this way the police had soon dispersed the partisans of Monsieur Loubet, dragging the unrecognizable débris off to the insidious depths of the Drouot police-station. That was the way they did things in those troublous times. Was Monsieur Loubet, at the Élysée, ignorant of the methods employed by his police for enforcing in the streets of Paris respect for the head of the State? Or, if he knew of them, was he unable and unwilling to alter them? I do not know. Did he realize that his unpopularity, real and undoubted as it was, was fading into insignificance, almost disappearing in fact, before the strange and agreeable spectacle which was offered nightly to a witty and intelligent people? I do not think so, for in that case the man would have been a terrifying person; he would have been a genius, and I should no longer feel confident of sleeping outside the King’s door at the Élysée this winter. No, I believe Loubet was once again so fortunate as to be unable to do anything. Anyhow, it is certain that the police, who acted spontaneously and solely out of the goodness of their hearts, succeeded, by their sympathetic repression, in shedding over the advent of the President a little of that popular rejoicing which had been totally lacking. In so doing, if one considers the matter, they did us more harm than good, for they pleased the public, while it was to our advantage that the general discontent should increase.
“However, one night, one of the last of that eventful week, when the expected manœuvre was taking place from point to point, and the counter-manifestation found itself attacked simultaneously in the van and in the rear by the police and in flank by us, I saw Bissolo extricate himself from the menaced van of the Republicans and, with long strides and a desperate wriggling of his little body, reach the corner of the Rue Drouot, where I was standing with a dozen or so roughs who in response to my orders were shouting ‘Panama! Resign!’ It was a nice quiet little corner! I beat time, and my men pronounced each syllable with great distinctness—‘Pa-na-ma!’ It was really done with taste. Bissolo took refuge between my legs. He feared me far less than the police; and he was right. For two years Citizen Bissolo and I had met face to face in all our manifestations: we had headed the processions at the beginning and end of every meeting. We had exchanged every imaginable sort of political insult: ‘Hypocrite! Time-server! Forger! Traitor! Assassin! Outcast!’ That sort of thing binds people together and creates a mutual sympathy. Besides, it pleased me to see a Socialist, almost a Libertarian, standing up for Loubet, who is in his own fashion a Moderate. I said to myself: ‘The President must hate being acclaimed by Bissolo, a dwarf with a voice of thunder, who at all public meetings demands the nationalization of capital. Bourgeois that he is, the President would surely prefer a bourgeois like myself for a supporter. But he can feel in his pockets.’ Panama! Panama! Resign! Resign! Long live the Army! Down with the Jews! Long live the King!
“All this made me treat Bissolo with courtesy. I had only to say ‘Hullo, here’s Bissolo,’ and my dozen costers would promptly have cut him in pieces, but that wouldn’t have done any good. I said nothing. We were very quiet; we stood beside one another and watched the march past of Joubet’s supporters driven to the police-station in the Rue Drouot. Most of them, having previously been clubbed, staggered along beside the police like so many drunkards. Among them was a Socialist deputy, a very handsome man with a big beard; his sleeves had been torn off; there was a young apprentice sobbing and crying ‘Mother! Mother!’ and the editor of some trashy daily with two black eyes and his nose streaming with blood. And the Marseillaise! ‘Qu’un sang impur.’... I noticed one man who was far more respectable and far more sorry for himself than the rest. He looked like a professor, a serious, middle-aged man. He had evidently made an attempt to explain his point of view; he had tried subtle and persuasive arguments on the police. Otherwise the way in which they were kicking him in the back with their hobnailed boots and banging him with their fists was quite inexplicable. And as he was very tall, very thin, anything but strong, and weighed very little, he skipped about under these blows in the most ridiculous fashion. He displayed a comical tendency to make his escape upwards. His bare head had a most pitiable appearance. He had that submerged expression which comes over a short-sighted man when he has lost his glasses. His face expressed the infinite distress of a being whose only contact with the outside world comes through sturdy fists and hobnailed boots.
“As this unfortunate prisoner passed us, Bissolo, although he was on hostile territory, could not help sighing and saying: ‘It is a strange thing that Republicans should be so treated in a Republic.’ I politely replied that it was in truth somewhat amusing. ‘No, Citizen Monarchist,’ replied Bissolo, ‘it is not amusing, it is sad. But that is not the chief misfortune. The chief misfortune, I tell you, is the lethargy of the public.’ Bissolo spoke these words with a confidence that did us both honour. I glanced at the crowd, and it is a fact that it seemed to me flabby and without energy. Now and again a cry rose from its depths like a firework let off by a child: ‘Down with Loubet! Down with the thieves! Down with the Jews! Long live the Army!’ And it seemed friendly enough towards the worthy police, but there was no electricity in the air—no storm brewing. Citizen Bissolo continued with melancholy philosophy: ‘The great evil is the lethargy of the public. We Republicans, Socialists and Libertarians are suffering from it to-day. You Monarchists and Imperialists will suffer from it to-morrow, and will learn in your turn that you may lead a horse to the water but you can’t make him drink. Republicans are arrested and no one stirs a finger; and when it is the turn of the Royalists to be arrested, no one will stir a finger, you may be sure of that. The crowd will not stir an inch to deliver you, Monsieur Henri Léon, or your friend Monsieur Déroulède.’
“I must admit that by the light of these words I seemed to catch a glimpse of a profoundly dismal future flashing across my vision. Somewhat ostentatiously, however, I replied: ‘Citizen Bissolo, there is nevertheless this difference between you and ourselves—that the crowd looks upon you as a mob of time-servers without love for your country, while we Monarchists and Imperialists enjoy the esteem of the public. We are popular.’ Citizen Bissolo smiled pleasantly at this and remarked: ‘Your horse is there, monseigneur, and you have only to mount her. But when you are on her back she will quietly lie down by the side of the road and will pitch you off. There is no sorrier jade anywhere, I warn you. Tell me which one of her riders has not had his back broken by popularity? In time of peril have the people ever been able to offer the least assistance to their idols? You Nationalists are not so popular as you profess, you and your candidate Gamelle are almost unknown to the general public. But if ever the mob enfolds you in its loving embrace, you will very quickly discover its stupendous impotence and cowardice.’