What nature has commenced in the individual, let society carry out. Look at Claude Gueux. An intelligent and most noble-hearted man, placed in the midst of evil surroundings, he turned thief. Society placed him in a prison where the evil was yet greater, and he ended with becoming a murderer.
Can we really blame him, or ourselves?—questions which require deep thought, or the result will be that we shall be compelled to shirk this most important subject. The facts are now before us, and if the government gives no thought to the matter, what are the rulers about?
The Deputies are yearly much occupied. It is important to sift sinecures and to unravel the budget; to pass an act which compels me, disguised as a soldier, to mount guard at the Count de Lobau’s, whom I do not know, and to whom I wish to remain a stranger; or to go on parade under the command of my grocer, who has been made an officer. I wish to cast no reflections on the patrol, who keep order and protect our homes, but on the absurdity of making such parade and military hubbub about turning citizens into parodies of soldiers.
Deputies or ministers, it is important we should sound every subject, even though it end in nothing, to question and cross-question what we know but little about. Rulers and legislators, you pass your time in classical comparisons that would make a village schoolmaster smile. You assert that it is the habits of modern civilization that have engendered adultery, incest, parricide, infanticide, and poisoning—proving that you know little of Jocasta Phedra, Œdipus, Medea, or Rodoguna. The great orators occupy themselves in lengthy discussions on Corneille and Racine, and get so heated in literary argument as to make the grossest mistakes in the French language.
Very important indeed all this is, but we consider there are subjects of far greater consequence.
In the midst of such useless arguments, what answer would the Deputies give if one rose and gravely addressed them in the following words:—
“Silence, all those who have been speaking—silence I say! You consider yourself acquainted with the question: you know nothing about it.
“The question is this. In the name of justice, scarcely a year ago, a man at Panners was cut to pieces; at Dijon a woman’s head was taken off; in Paris, at Saint Jacques, executions take place without number.
“This is the question! Now take your time to consider it, you who argue over the buttons of the national guard, whether they should be white or yellow, and if security is preferable to certainty!
“Gentlemen of the Right, gentleman of the Left, the great mass of the people suffer!