When I came nearer I could see that he wore a red scarf across his breast; a little nearer and I could hear 287 his passionless voice sounding; nearer still, I could distinguish every clear-cut word:
“Men of the sea, men of that ancient Armorica which, for a thousand years, has suffered serfdom, I come to you bearing no sword. You need none; you are free under this red flag I raise above you.”
He lifted the banner, shaking out the red folds.
“Yet if I come to you bearing no sword, I come with something better, something more powerful, something so resistless that, using it as your battle-cry, the world is yours!
“I come bearing the watchword of world-brotherhood—Peace, Love, Equality! I bear it from your battle-driven brothers, scourged to the battlements of Paris by the demons of a wicked government! I bear it from the devastated towns of the provinces, from your homeless brothers of Alsace and Lorraine.
“Peace, Love, Equality! All this is yours for the asking. The commune will be proclaimed throughout France; Paris is aroused, Lyons is ready, Bordeaux watches, Marseilles waits!
“You call your village Paradise—yet you starve here. Let this little Breton village be a paradise in truth—a shrine for future happy pilgrims who shall say: ‘Here first were sewn the seeds of the world’s liberty! Here first bloomed the perfect flower of universal brotherhood!”
He bent his sleek, gray head meekly, pausing as though in profound meditation. Suddenly he raised his head; his tone changed; a faint ring of defiance sounded under the smooth flow of words.
He began with a blasphemous comparison, alluding to the money-changers in the temple—a subtle appeal to righteous violence.
“It rests with us to cleanse the broad temple of our country and drive from it the thieves and traitors who enslave us! How can we do it? They are strong; we 288 are weak. Ah, but are they truly strong? You say they have armies? Armies are composed of men. These men are your brothers, whipped forth to die—for what? For the pleasure of a few aristocrats. Who was it dragged your husbands and sons away from your arms, leaving you to starve? The governor of Lorient. Who is he? An aristocrat, paid to scourge your husbands and children to battle—paid, perhaps, by Prussia to betray them, too!”