Delhomme signified his approval of this, and every one began to laugh: Lengaigne, Clou, Fouan, even Delphin and the conscripts, who derived a certain amount of amusement from what was going on, as they hoped it would lead to blows. Canon and Hyacinthe, annoyed at seeing "inky fingers," as they called the schoolmaster, shout louder than themselves, also affected to snigger merrily. They were even inclined to side with the peasants.
"It's folly to quarrel," said Canon, shrugging his shoulders. "What is wanted is organisation."
Lequeu made a gesture of hot anger.
"I've no patience to hear such folly talked! I am for making a clean sweep of everything!"
His face was quite livid, and he flung these words in their faces as though he wished to knock them down with them.
"You pitiful cowards!" he cried. "Yes, you're all of you cowards, you peasants! To think you are more numerous and stronger, and yet that you let yourselves be devoured by the middle-class townsfolk and the workmen! I've but one regret, and that is that my father and mother were peasants. Perhaps that is the reason why you fill me with such disgust. There is nothing to prevent you becoming the masters. But you won't combine together. You keep yourselves isolated from each other, full of suspicion and ignorance, and you exhaust all your knavery in preying upon one another. What is it that you are concealing beneath the surface of your stagnant water? for you are like stagnant pools which men believe to be deep, though they would not drown a cat! To think that you should be such a mighty, undeveloped force, a force which might mould the future, and yet you lie about as inert as logs of wood! And what makes it all the more exasperating is that you have ceased to believe in what the priests tell you. If there be no God, what is it that holds you back? As long as you stood in fear of hell, one could understand that you continued to grovel on your bellies; but now, rush forward! pillage everything! burn everything! As a commencement, it will perhaps be simpler for you to go on strike. You have all got some savings, and you could hold out as long as would be necessary. Cultivate the ground for yourselves, don't carry anything to market, not a single sack of corn, not a single bushel of potatoes! Let Paris starve! That's the way to set to work."
A gust of cold air, wafted from the distant blackness of the night, had rushed in through the open window. The flames of the lamps were shooting up very high. No one now attempted to interrupt the excited speaker, despite the abuse that he lavished upon everybody.
He now banged his book down on a table, making the glasses jingle, and proceeded to finish his oration:
"I have told you all that; but still I am quite easy about the future. Cowards you may be now, but when the proper time comes I know that you will be the fellows to make a clean sweep of everything. It has been so more than once before, and it will be so once again. Wait till misery and hunger send you rushing down upon the towns like so many wolves! Very likely the occasion will arise anent this corn which is being brought from over the sea. When there has been too much of it there won't be enough of it, and then there will be scarcity and famine again. It is always for the sake of corn that men rise up in rebellion and slay each other! Yes, let the towns be burned down and razed to the ground, the villages deserted, the fields uncultivated, over-run with brambles, and watered with streams of blood; then perhaps they will hereafter bring forth bread for those who are born into the world when we are gone!"