These childish things, at which one can but smile, made us very patriotic little persons, however—ready, as we thought, at least, to give our lives for France. We no longer learned history in our former way. Everything in it interested us. We spoke of our France, at such and such an epoch, and we discussed at length the consequences of a reign, a fact, a victory or a defeat.
If a professor had heard us, he would certainly have found in our conversations—often very silly, to be sure—elements of emulation to make young pupils love studies which usually bore them mortally.
However, after a time we grew tired of the Fronde; we should be obliged to find something new. I promised to do so. The Easter vacations were at hand, and I was to pass them at Blérancourt.
When I arrived there, it so happened that one of my father’s friends, a Fourierite, came to visit him. I had heard of Fourier, of whom I knew but little, while I had for a long time been familiar with Victor Considérant and the Democratie Pacifique.
My father’s friend explained to him a complete plan for a phalanstery, wishing to interest him in it, and I remembered what was necessary for my purpose, in order to make use of this new idea with my schoolmates during our future recreations, for we were always eager for new things.
After the departure of the Fourierite my father explained to me all that I wished to learn, and I soon understood what a phalanstery was. But my father said, and I agreed with him, that, being only nine and a half years old, I was still incapable of understanding the depth of Fourier’s theories, his social criticisms, and the elements of reform.
But he talked to me of Toussenel, and delighted me with stories taken from his L’Esprit des Bêtes, a book that had just appeared, and about which my father was enthusiastic. We had long conversations about my pigeons, whose habits I had studied a little, but I knew nothing of their intelligence and feelings. Ah! what interesting things my father, through Toussenel, revealed to me concerning bees and ants. In our walks, when we came upon an anthill, we would lie down flat, and I saw and learned many things about the tiny workers, those that laid eggs and the warriors. What my father objected to was that there should be a queen among the bees and the ants.
“You can’t get over it, papa,” I said, “and though you may talk for ages on ages, you cannot change the government of bees and ants.”
All these histories of animals were like fairy-tales, and I took the greatest pleasure in them, saying: “Tell me more, more!”
However, my father found in the study of these creatures, despite their royalism, proofs of the beauty of his own doctrines. Making everything revert to his desire to induce me to love nature and detest bourgeoise society, he tried to persuade me that the associations, the community of work and of fortune, as practised by the bees and the ants, would be the means of adding more generous perfection to human lives than mere selfish individualism.