Les Misérables v. 4/5: The Idyll and the Epic Read online

  CHAPTER IV.

  CRACKS IN THE FOUNDATION.

  At this moment, when the drama we are recounting is about to enterone of those tragic clouds which cover the beginning of the reign ofLouis Philippe, it is quite necessary that this book should give anexplanation about that king. Louis Philippe had entered upon the royalauthority without violence or direct action on his part, through arevolutionary change of wind, which was evidently very distinct fromthe real object of the revolution, but in which he, the Duc d'Orléans,had no personal initiative. He was born a prince, and believedhimself elected king; he had not given himself these functions,nor had he taken them; they were offered to him and he accepted,convinced--wrongly as we think, but still convinced--that the offerwas in accordance with right, and the acceptance in harmony with duty.Hence came an honest possession, and we say in all conscience that,as Louis Philippe was honest in the possession, and democracy honestin its attack, the amount of terror disengaged from social strugglescannot be laid either on the king or the democracy. A collision ofprinciples resembles a collision of elements; ocean defends the waterand the hurricane the air; the king defends royalty, democracy defendsthe people; the relative, which is monarchy, resists the absolute,which is the republic; society bleeds from this conflict, but what isits suffering to-day will be its salvation at a later date; and inany case those who struggle must not be blamed, for one party must bemistaken. Right does not stand, like the Colossus of Rhodes, on twoshores at once, with one foot in the republic, the other in royalty,but is indivisible, and entirely on one side; those who are mistakenare honestly mistaken, and a blind man is no more a culprit than aVendean is a brigand. We must, therefore, only impute these formidablecollisions to the fatality of things, and, whatever these tempests maybe, human irresponsibility is mixed up with them.

  Let us finish our statement: The Government of 1830 had a hard lifeof it from the beginning, and born yesterday it was obliged to combatto-day. Scarce installed, it felt everywhere the vague movements offaction beneath the foundation of July, which had so recently beenlaid, and was still anything but solid. Resistance sprang up on themorrow, and might, perhaps, have been born on the day before, andfrom month to month the hostility increased, and instead of beingdull became patent. The revolution of July, frowned upon by kings outof France, was diversely interpreted in France. God imparts to menHis will visible in events, an obscure text written in a mysteriouslanguage. Men at once make themselves translations of it,--hasty,incorrect translations, full of errors, gaps, and misunderstandings.Very few minds comprehend the divine language; the more sagacious, thecalmer, and the more profound decipher slowly, and when they arrivewith their version, the work has been done long before; there arealready twenty translations offered for sale. From each translationsprings a party, and from each misunderstanding a failure, and eachparty believes that it has the only true text, and each factionbelieves that it possesses the light. Often enough power itself isa faction, and there are in revolutions men who swim against thecurrent; they are the old parties. As revolutions issue from the rightto revolt, the old parties that cling to heirdom by grace of Godfancy that they have a right to revolt against them; but this is anerror, for in revolutions the rebel is not the people but the king.Revolution is precisely the contrary of revolt; every revolution, beinga normal accomplishment, contains its legitimacy within itself, whichfalse revolutionists sometimes dishonor, but which endures even whensullied, and survives even when bleeding. Revolutions issue, not froman accident, but a necessity; for they are a return from the factitiousto the real, and they take place because they must take place.

  The old legitimist parties did not the less assail the revolutionof 1830 with all the violence which springs from false reasoning.Errors are excellent projectiles, and they skilfully struck it atthe spot where it was vulnerable,--the flaw in its cuirass, its wantof logic,--and they attacked this revolution in its royalty. Theycried to it, "Revolution, why this king?" Factions are blind men whoaim accurately. This cry the revolutionists also raised, but comingfrom them it was logical. What was blundering in the legitimistswas clear-sightedness in the democrats; 1830 had made the peoplebankrupt, and indignant democracy reproached it with the deed. Theestablishment of July struggled between these attacks, made by the pastand the future; it represented the minute contending on one side withmonarchical ages, on the other with eternal right; and then, again,1830, no longer a revolution, and becoming a monarchy, was obligedto take precedence of Europe, and it was a further difficulty tomaintain peace, for a harmony desired against the grain is often moreonerous than a war. From this sullen conflict, ever muzzled but evergrumbling, emerged armed peace, that ruinous expedient of civilizationsuspecting itself. The royalty of July reared in the team of Europeancabinets, although Metternich would have liked to put a kicking-strapupon it. Impelled by progress in France, it impelled in its turn theslowly-moving European monarchies, and while towed, it towed too.

  At home, however, pauperism, beggary, wages, education, the penalcode, prostitution, the fall of woman, wealth, misery, production,consumption, division, exchange, money, capital, the rights of capital,and the rights of labor,--all these questions were multiplied abovesociety, and formed a crushing weight. Outside of political parties,properly so called, another movement became manifest, and a philosophicfermentation responded to the democratic fermentation, and chosenminds felt troubled like the crowd,--differently, but quite as much.Thinking men meditated, while the soil, that is to say, the people,traversed by revolutionary currents, trembled beneath them with vagueepileptic shocks. These thinkers, some isolated, but others assembledin families and almost in communities, stirred up social questionspeacefully but deeply; they were impassive miners, who quietlyhollowed their galleries beneath volcanoes, scarce disturbed by thedull commotions and the fires of which they caught a glimpse. Thistranquillity was not the least beautiful spectacle of this agitatedepoch, and these men left to political parties the question of rights,to trouble themselves about the question of happiness. What theywished to extract from society was the welfare of man; hence theyelevated material questions, and questions about agriculture, trade,and commerce, almost to the dignity of a religion. In civilization,such as it has been constituted a little by God and a great deal byman, instincts are combined, aggregated, and amalgamated so as to forma real hard rock, by virtue of a law of dynamics which is carefullystudied by social economists, those geologists of politics. These men,who grouped themselves under different appellations, but who may allbe designated by the generic title of socialists, tried to pierce thisrock and cause the living waters of human felicity to gush forth; theirlabors embraced all questions, from that of the scaffold to that ofwar, and they added to the rights of man as proclaimed by the Frenchrevolutions, the rights of the woman and the child.

  For various reasons we cannot thoroughly discuss here, from thetheoretical point of view, the questions raised by socialism, and welimit ourselves to an indication of them. All the questions which thesocialists proposed--laying aside cosmogonic visions, reverie, andmysticism--may be carried back to two original problems, the first ofwhich is, to produce wealth, and the second, to distribute it. Thefirst problem contains the question of labor, the second the questionof wages; in the first, the point is the employment of strength, andin the second, the distribution of enjoyments. From a good employmentof strength results public power, and from a good distribution ofenjoyments individual happiness. By good distribution we mean, notequal, but equitable, distribution, for the first equality is equity.From these two things--combined public power abroad and individualhappiness at home--results social prosperity; that is to say, manhappy, the citizen free, and the nation great.

  England solves the first of these two problems,--she creates wealthadmirably, but distributes it badly. This solution, which is completelyon one side, fatally leads her to these two extremes,--monstrousopulence and monstrous misery; all the enjoyments belong to the few,all the privations to the rest, that is to say, to the
people, andprivileges, exceptions, monopoly, and feudalism spring up from laboritself. It is a false and dangerous situation to base public power onprivate want, and to root the grandeur of the state in the sufferingsof the individual; it is a badly composed grandeur, in which all thematerial elements are combined, in which no moral element enters.Communism and the agrarian law fancy that they solve the secondquestion, but they are mistaken. Their distribution kills production,and equal division destroys emulation and consequently labor. It isa distribution made by the butcher who slaughters what he divides.Hence it is impossible to be satisfied with these pretended solutions,for killing riches is not distributing them. The two problems mustbe solved together in order to be properly solved; the two solutionsdemand to be combined, and only form one. If you solve but the first ofthese problems you will be Venice, you will be England; you will have,like Venice, an artificial power, like England, a material power, andyou will be the wicked rich man; you will perish by violence, as Venicedied, or by bankruptcy, as England will fall; and the world will leaveyou to die and fall, because it allows everything to die and fall whichis solely selfishness, and everything which does not represent a virtueor an idea to the human race. Of course it will be understood that bythe words Venice and England we do not mean the peoples, but the socialconstructions; the oligarchies that weigh down the nations, but not thenations themselves. Nations ever have our respect and sympathy. Venice,as a people, will live again; England, as the aristocracy, will fall,but England the nation is immortal. This said, let us continue.

  Solve the two problems, encourage the rich and protect the poor,suppress misery, put an end to the unjust exhaustion of the weak bythe strong, bridle the iniquitous jealousy which the man still onthe road feels for him who has reached the journey's end, adjustmathematically and paternally the wage to the labor, blend gratuitousand enforced education with the growth of childhood and render sciencethe basis of manhood, develop intelligence while occupying the arms,be at once a powerful people and a family of happy men, democratizeproperty, not by abolishing but by universalizing it, so that everycitizen without exception may be a land-owner,--an easier task thanit may be supposed,--in two words, know how to produce wealth and todistribute it, and you will possess at once material greatness andmoral greatness, and be worthy to call yourself France. Such was whatsocialism, above and beyond a few mistaken sects, said; this is what itsought in facts and stirred up in minds: they were admirable effortsand sacred attempts!

  These doctrines, theories, and resistances; the unexpected necessityfor the statesman of settling with the philosophers; glimpses caughtof confused evidences; a new policy to create, agreeing with the oldworld, while not disagreeing too greatly from the revolutionary ideal,a situation in which Lafayette must be used to defend Polignac, theintuition of progress apparent behind the riots, the chambers, and thestreet; the king's faith in the revolution; rivalries to be balancedaround him, possibly some eventual resignation sprung from the vagueacceptance of a definite and superior right; his wish to remain here,his race, his family affections, his sincere respect for the people,and his own honesty,--all these painfully affected Louis Philippe, andat times, though he was so strong and courageous, crushed him beneaththe difficulty of being a king. He felt beneath his feet a formidabledisintegration, which, however, was not a crumbling to dust, as Francewas more France than ever. Dark storm-clouds were collected on thehorizon; a strange, gradually increasing shadow was extended over men,things, and ideas; it was a shadow that sprang from anger and systems.Everything that had been hastily suppressed stirred and fermented,and at times the conscience of the honest man held its breath, asthere was such an uneasy feeling produced by this atmosphere, in whichsophisms were mixed with truths. Minds trembled in the social anxiety,like leaves on the approach of a storm, and the electric tension wassuch that at some moments the first-comer, a stranger, would produce aflash, but then the twilight obscurity fell over the whole scene again.At intervals, deep and muttered rolling allowed an opinion to be formedof the amount of lightning which the cloud must contain.

  Twenty months had scarce elapsed since the revolution of July, andthe year 1832 opened with an imminent and menacing appearance. Thedistress of the people, workmen without bread; the Prince of Condésuddenly departed from the world; Brussels expelling the Nassaus,as Paris had done the Bourbons; Belgium offering itself to a Frenchprince and given to an English prince; the Russian hatred of Nicholas;behind us two demons of the South, Ferdinand in Spain and Miguel inPortugal; the earth trembling in Italy; Metternich stretching out hishand over Bologna; France confronting Austria at Ancona; in the Norththe sinister sound of a hammer, enclosing Poland again in its coffin;throughout Europe angry eyes watching France; England, a suspiciousally, prepared to push any one who staggered and to throw herself onhim who fell; the Peerage taking refuge behind Beccaria to refuse fourheads to the law; the fleurs-de-lys erased from the king's coaches;the cross dragged from Notre Dame; Lafayette enfeebled, Laffitteruined; Benjamin Constant dead in poverty; Casimir Perier dead inthe exhaustion of power; a political and a social disease declaringthemselves simultaneously in the two capitals of the kingdom,--one thecity of thought, the other the city of toil; in Paris a civil war,in Lyons a servile war; and in both cities the same furnace-glow, avolcanic purple on the brow of the people; the South fanaticized,the West troubled, the Duchesse de Berry in the Vendée; plots,conspiracies, insurrections, and cholera adding to the gloomy rumor ofideas the gloomy tumult of events.