"Yes, I am for battle, father."
"Well, then, war!" cried John; "Long live the Republic."
"Someone to see you, sir," announced a servant.
"These are the delegates of our friends, come for the word. Ask the gentlemen in."
The servant showed into the room three workmen, in their laboring clothes. One of them, a man still young, and with a face full of fire, addressed John Lebrenn: "Are we to fight, or not to fight, in this quarter, sir? They say it is warming up in St. Antoine, and that they are building barricades. Our St. Denis Street is behind-hand; that will be humiliating for the quarter."
"My men, you have asked my advice—" began Lebrenn.
"We felt the need of getting in touch with things, Monsieur Lebrenn. Yes, for indeed we said to each other from the first, Ordinances, coups d'etat—what has all that to do with us? Our misery is great, our wages hardly buy bread for our children and ourselves; will our distress be any greater after the coup d'etat than before? And still we said that these Bourbons, these 'whites,' are the enemies of the people, and that we should seize the occasion to turn them out. But after all, what will it bring us? The same misery as in the past."
"What will we have gained by driving out Charles, Polignac, and the skull-cap bands?" added the other two workingmen.
"My men, here in two words is the meat of the matter. To-day, in 1830, the proletarians of the towns and the country, in other words the immense majority of the people, produce, almost by their labor alone, the riches of the country; and yet they live in misery. Why is it thus? Because you have no political rights."
"And what help would political rights be to us?"