"True, most true!" observed Marrast; "this is the work of the Dynastics—Thiers, Barrot and the rest—the commencement of a reform under the law which we design to make a revolution paramount to all law."
"They begin to fear already that they have gone too far, those discreet men!" said Louis Blanc, smiling bitterly. "Did you observe how they shuffled to-night at M. Barrot's, and finally resolved to abandon the banquet, but, as a sop to the people, pledged themselves to impeach the Ministry?"
"Ah! ha! ha!" laughed Ledru Rollin; "just as if their abandonment of the banquet is to keep the people away from it to-morrow, any more than the Ministerial ordinances! Why, not one man in ten thousand knows of the existence of these manifestoes! But the faubourgs have been promised a holiday for a fortnight past, and they don't intend to be put off again."
"Whether the Dynastics designed or wished to be compromised in this affair," remarked Marrast, "they certainly are committed now, and it is too late for them to get out of the movement. Indeed, I view it as nothing less than a union of all the oppositions against the Crown—aye, against the Crown, and for a republic! We comprehend this—they don't. They have not, like us, waited seventeen years for a signal for revolution;—and now, before God, I believe the hour is at hand! This is no accidental insurrection of the 5th and 6th of June, '32—no outbreak at a funeral—no riot of operatives—no unmeaning revolt, as in '39. It is a reform, with the first names in France as its advocates and supporters, which we will make a revolution if we can secure the National Guard."
"The National Guard is secured already," said Louis Blanc. "Are they not of the people? At least twenty thousand of the National Guard are Republicans. Of the remaining forty thousand, nearly all are well disposed or neutral in feeling. Have I studied the National Guard for twenty years in vain, and have all the measures of the Communists to secure them, when the crisis came on, proved utterly ineffectual? On the National Guard we may rely. The Municipal Guard are picked men, and well paid to support the Throne—they will fight even better than the Line. With the Line and the National Guard the people must seek to fraternize from the beginning—with the other troops they have solely to fight—but, after all, general facts and principles only can be laid down. Circumstances utterly beyond human control must direct and govern, and vary and determine results when the period of action arrives; and arrive it may at any hour of the day or night. At this moment Paris sleeps on a volcano, the fires of which have long been gathering through many a fair and sunny day! God only knows when the volcano will burst; but, when the hour comes, let the people be prepared!"
As these enthusiastic words were uttered, the dark eye of the speaker flashed and his lip quivered. The silver clock on the mantel, beside which the conspirators stood, struck the first quarter after two. The night was waning, but the festivity seemed rather to increase than diminish within the salons of the magnificent mansion, while the storm howled even more drearily without, and the rain, at intervals, in heavy blasts, beat even more fiercely against the northern casements.
As Louis Blanc ceased speaking, M. Flocon entered the salon, and, as if by some preconcerted arrangement, at once sought his political friends.
"What of the night, watchman?" cried Ledru Rollin, as the editor of "La Réforme" approached. "The latest news! for 'That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker,' as the English Shakespeare says. The news! good or bad!"
"As I entered," said Flocon, "the house trembled with the jar of a train of heavy ordnance, attended by tumbrels and artillery caissons, and escorted by a regiment of horse, which rolled along the pavement of the Champs Elysées."