Chapter I: Go to Boarding-School

I was a very aggressive malcontent moreover. My discussions with grandmother became so violent that grandfather several times was angry with me, and even Blondeau blamed me. My friend Charles, who would probably have upheld me--for he was a revolutionist, as well as my father and myself--had left Chauny to become the secretary of one of his boyhood friends, a high functionary of the Republic, at Paris.

My father soon became greatly excited. “They are lying to us, they are deceiving us, they are trying to put us to sleep,” he said, much grieved, feeling his Christian-heathen-socialist-scientific Republic escaping him.

My grandmother felt more and more secure. “Order is maintained, and therefore the form of government matters little, after all,” she said. Grandfather, when my father and I became more hopeless, said:

“Come, come, things are going very well for the Empire.”

But I made my grandparents very unhappy with my sorrow, my recriminations, my imprecations. Life became insupportable, intolerable, to all of us. It must have been the same, at that time, in every family where there were idealists and sincere Republicans, those who believed they could bring down the moon for the people, worthy, as they thought them, of all miraculous gifts.

The national workshops, which had interested me so much, now made me despair. Alas! they were going wrong. What! that admirable conception--the State creating workshops to give employment to those who needed it, to feed those who were dying of hunger; that benevolent, protecting institution, a social safeguard against poverty, an admirable example held up to all nations--was it to be dissolved?

Émile Thomas, who was at the head of these workshops, did not follow Louis Blanc’s ideas, although he often said to the contrary. They were beginning to suspect him of being the agent of “the man of the Strasbourg and Boulogne riots.” Instead of organising the national workshops, he disorganised them.

“The reactionists,” said my father to me, “endeavour to make it believed that Émile Thomas is acting according to Louis Blanc’s ideas, when, on the contrary, he is the worst enemy of those ideas. They wish to render pure socialism guilty of the crimes they are committing in its name. Trélat, the Minister of Public Instruction, cannot suffer the national workshops; the Executive Committee abhors them, the middle class has a horror of them, because it is afraid of them. What will happen if, as the National Assembly, composed of reactionists, desires, they abolish the workshops? A hundred thousand men thrown suddenly out of work, on the streets of Paris, will cause terrible riots; there will be a bloody revolution, in which reforms will be drowned, and that is their aim.”

Ah! those hundred thousand men threatened with being turned into the streets! I saw them unhappy, wandering about, without work, despairing, while their wives and children were dying of hunger at home. I wept over them. My heart was full of an immense pity for them, and, day by day, I felt obliged to be kept informed of all that was taking place. My grandmother, who had recently subscribed to the _National_, wished to prevent my reading it, but I insisted on seeing it, and, while I was revolted at the hatred of the “yellow gloves” for _my_ national workshops, I kept myself informed about events until my father’s visits.

When I learned that Monsieur de Falloux was commissioned by the National Assembly to furnish a plan of dissolution of the national workshops, I knew that everything was falling to pieces.

My father said to me: “They are organising butchery; they wish to dissolve the national workshops from one day to another. Trélat himself sees the danger. He proposes to replace the workmen successively, little by little. He has destituted Émile Thomas, seeing at last the disorganising work he was accomplishing; he has given his son-in-law, Lalanne, the place, and Lalanne is reorganising the workmen, but it is too late, for the wolves of the National Assembly wish carnage.”

This nearly killed me. The people, the good people, so patient, so generous, who had behaved so admirably in the fateful days of February, were being urged to yield to the evil instincts of plunder from the poverty imposed upon them.

I was so unhappy at all I felt, and my suffering came so much into contradiction with my grandparents’ and Blondeau’s excessive hardness of heart, who said: “Let them finish at once with the beggars!” that I begged grandmother to allow me to return to Blérancourt with my father on his next visit.

“You can do as you please,” she said. “But I warn you, my poor Juliette, that in your present state of aberration of mind, the little good sense remaining to you will be imperilled if you live with your father. He will destroy it, and your marriage with a workman will be an appropriate ending to your follies. Now, I must confide to you that young X. has already expressed great admiration for you. He is seventeen years old, and his father, half seriously, half laughingly, on account of your youth, has made overtures to me regarding a possible alliance, a few years hence, between our two families. Certainly, this is not what I had hoped for you, for I should like you to be married in Paris, where I would go and live part of the year with you, in order to direct your steps in the path of that destiny which, until lately, I had foreseen for you. But you have such insane notions that perhaps a good middle-class marriage in the country would be better for you than all I had desired for my only grandchild. Here is what I propose: Will you go to school as a boarder? The school is so near that I shall feel you still with me. You can lecture your schoolmates as much as you please, and then your grandfather and I and Blondeau, having to bear with you only once a week, will be better able to endure your outbursts of passion. But if we must see you weep or be angry, either suffering or in a rage every day because this good Republic does not suit you, why, then, my darling grandchild, the situation will be untenable.”

I realised then, from this proposition, the amount of annoyance I had caused my grandparents. Could it be possible that grandmother, who until lately had found the hours I spent at school too long, and our separation, while I was at Chivres or Blérancourt, unbearable--could she wish that I should go to boarding-school? I was stunned; however, my foolish pride prevented me from throwing myself on grandmother’s neck and asking pardon for my folly, for I realised at that moment how absurd I had been; and then, what she had told me of X., a handsome young man, whom I found charming and witty, raised me in my own estimation so much that I thought a young person like myself, nearly twelve years old, could not ask pardon like a little girl, so I replied, although with an aching heart:

“Very well, grandmother, it is agreed; I will go to boarding-school as soon as you wish.”

“To-morrow,” she replied.

I nearly burst into tears, but it was class-hour, and I left for school, saying to myself it would be the last day that I would have my own room all to myself, where, from morning until night, I was surrounded by evidences of my grandmother’s passionate tenderness and my grandfather’s gay affection. I could see only from afar my pigeons fly down, cooing and pecking in the courtyard. I should miss the friendship of Blondeau, to whom I could no longer confide my sorrows, or experiment upon with my father’s startling theories, which I had fully adopted, but which he accepted only with certain modifications.

* * * * *

The next day I went as a boarder to the Mlles. André’s school. My grandfather accompanied me there, and it needed all my courage, when I bade him good-bye, not to beg him to allow me to return home at night. I breakfasted and dined with my schoolmates. At class, at recreations, and all the day long, I saw no one but them. The absolute silence at table was a veritable torture. When I had gone to bed, I was so unhappy and wept so much that I could not sleep, and this was the first sleepless night I had ever passed in my life. I was frightened to think of the next night, for this had seemed to me as terrible as the infernal regions, and I imagined I could never sleep again; this caused me great anxiety, but of course I did not confide it to any of my friends, the most intimate of whom were boarders like myself.

One of my political enemies who knew me well, said to herself that some disaster, some great quarrel between my grandmother and myself, could alone have caused our separation, and she amused herself maliciously by passing to and fro before me, sneering, as she spread about a fantastic story concerning my coming as a boarder. My red eyes, my discomposed face, gave credence to her tale, which was circulated about during the mid-day recreation. They said that my grandmother loved me no longer, that she did not wish to see me any more, that I had done all manner of disobedient things; and, of course, I was at once informed of all this gossip.

At the afternoon recreation several of my schoolmates suddenly ran to me and said:

“Your grandmother is on the top of the wall in the back courtyard. She wishes you to go and say good-night to her.”

Being aware of the stories spread about me by my political enemy, I went to the foot of the wall, which I would not otherwise have done, most certainly, for I was so angry with grandmother that I did not wish to answer her summons.

“How are you, my grandchild?” she asked, perched on the top of a ladder, her head alone appearing above the wall. “Have you slept well?”

“No, grandmother, I have not slept at all, and most surely I shall never sleep again. But what does that matter to you? You are happy, you sleep well; that is all that is necessary. Say good-night to grandfather and to Blondeau for me. Good-night, grandmother, but let me warn you that, if you call for me again to-morrow from the top of that horrid wall, I won’t come!” and I ran away.

The following days I worked only by fits and starts, when my pride was at stake, or when I wished to surpass a political adversary. Being the head of my party, I could not allow myself to be conquered.

My heart was saddened by the sorrow of living no longer under my beloved grandmother’s wing, and I continued to feel grievous distress of mind in connection with my fears concerning the workmen of the national workshops.

To understand rightly the sum of love contained in the words, “The poor people,” or to comprehend to what a degree those who were sincere socialist-republicans believed themselves its friends, one must go back to quite another epoch.

We socialist-republicans had no longer the courage to play at recreations. The National Assembly was treating our workmen of the memorable February days, those who had written on the walls of the Tuileries, “Death to thieves!” as if they were bandits and plunderers!

How we suffered with the poor people! It was all over with them. We knew it was only a question of days and hours before one hundred thousand men would be given over to hunger and want. Not one of my schoolmates had allowed herself for a long time to spend one cent on delicacies or sweets. We counted up our resources constantly. By combining them we should be able to feed one man of the national workshops, but no more. I decided that we would write a touching letter to the Minister Trélat, whom we detested, who, according to our thinking, was the cause of all the trouble, proposing to him that we should take charge of one workman of the national workshops. Certainly, one was not much out of a hundred thousand, but if in every boarding-school they would do as much, there would be, at all hazards, a certain number saved.

The planning of this letter was most difficult, and took a great deal of time. Each separate group, having made out its draught, communicated it to the other groups. We numbered eleven groups, secretly bound together, each one of which had its partisans, and all our partisans wished to share in the drawing up of the letter. At last the final result, compiled from all the other draughts, received the approbation of the united groups, and the important letter was despatched. I addressed it to my friend Charles, in Paris, for him to take and deliver it from us to the Minister in person.

At that same moment the National Assembly cruelly decided that the workmen from seventeen to twenty-five years of age should be incorporated in different regiments, and also to send to the department of Sologne--a country desolated by fever, and whose climate was deadly--a certain number of workmen of the national workshops; and that the remainder should be distributed in the provinces, to build roads and do other work, which should be planned by the municipalities.

Thinking that our “national workman” would be sent to us some day, not only did we stop eating cakes, and economise in every possible way, but we begged and collected everything we could from our relatives under all sorts of pretexts. One girl had obtained a suit of clothes from one of her brothers, and had cleaned and mended it with care. No one was to be allowed even to suspect our plot, for we knew that we should be excommunicated by all our families if they should imagine that we were thinking of protecting one of the “monsters” of the national workshops.

So we had specified in our letter to Minister Trélat that our national workman was to present himself at the boarding-school of the Mlles. André of Chauny as a pensioner of Juliette Lambert!

My father had written to me that things were worse than had been reported; that the authorities occupied themselves no longer to find any sort of place for the workmen; that the National Assembly was odious, criminal; that it wished to dissolve the national workshops immediately, without caring what became of the hundred thousand men turned adrift. “There will be great misfortunes,” he added.

I went for a vacation the next day, a Sunday, to grandmother’s; and Blondeau talked politics before me without my saying a word, for I had determined, since my entrance at the boarding-school, not to speak of anything but commonplaces when I went to visit my grandparents.

Blondeau related what seemed incredible--that Trélat, the Minister of Public Instruction, had asked that some pity should be shown to the bandits of the national workshops, and had begged the National Assembly, with trembling voice, not to throw a hundred thousand men on the streets, and to allow him to discover some way of finding places for them; that he had proposed incorporation, sending them to the department of Sologne, road-building, and other work to be decided upon by the municipalities.

“Your news is a week old, Blondeau,” I could not help saying to him. “And you can add that the National Assembly laughed at Trélat’s tardy outbursts of feeling, and that it decided....”

I related the decision, and there was silence.

My grandfather, provoked, and scarcely able to control his anger, asked me:

“Are you for the insurgents?”

“I am, grandfather, for the hundred thousand wretched men, to whom, perhaps imprudently, they promised to give work, and whom, suddenly, without pity, they wish to deprive of it.”

“But they are assassins!”

“Whom have they assassinated?”

“They are thieves!”

“From whom have they stolen?”

“They terrify the country.”

“Oh! yes, they make them out bugbears. They say they are madmen, in order to kill them; perhaps, finally, they will, indeed, make them terrifying, grandfather.”

Blondeau and grandmother looked at each other bewildered. Neither the one nor the other breathed a word.

“It is time that Prince Louis should occupy himself with it,” replied grandfather, “or else such ideas as yours, Juliette, will drive us all crazy.”

“Alas! your Prince Louis occupies himself too much with it. It is he, through Émile Thomas, who has made the national workshops fail.”

“Prince Louis could never occupy himself too much with the affairs of France, do you hear, little insurgent? He must save us by a good Empire, securely founded, and which must last, at least, until my death.”

XXXV

DARK DAYS FOR THE REPUBLIC

One of our schoolmates brought us the next day a clipping from a newspaper containing an article applauding the measures taken by the Government after the following facts had occurred.

Under the threat, voted by the National Assembly, of an immediate disbanding, the workmen had sent delegates to the Luxembourg, who had begged Monsieur Marie, a man high in the Government, to delay the Assembly’s decision.

Monsieur Marie had answered, so said the newspaper, “as a Cæsar might have done”:

“If the workmen will not leave, we will make them do so by force; do you understand?”

That night armed bands had gone through the streets of Paris, singing: “_On n’part pas! on n’part pas!_” to the tune of the _Lampions_. Groups of workmen had been heard to say: “We have been betrayed, and we must begin the revolution of February over again.” Other groups had cried out: “We must have Napoleon!” and they had been the most clamorous of all. The workmen were indignant with de Lamartine, Garnier-Pagès and Arago, who had failed in all their promises.

The poor people were in revolt. There was danger of a massacre. The anger of the wretched had burst forth.

It seemed to us that petitions might prevent all this. Was it possible to understand, we said, that the members of the Government, or others, had not placed themselves at the head of a manifestation for conciliation? How could it be that they had driven a hundred thousand men, all bearing the arms of the National Guards, to desperation? Did they wish to bring about the end of the Republic?

We thought of nothing but these terrible things. At the least allusion to similar events in our lessons of history, we exchanged sorrowful notes with one another during class hours.

What was taking place? What was going to happen?

I received a letter from my friend Charles, addressed to Blondeau, commissioning him to give it to me. I should not have received it until a week later, when I was to leave school for my day at home, if Blondeau had not come at the mid-day recreation and asked to see me in the parlour. He said to me:

“Here is a letter from Charles, and I come to tell you at the same time that since the day before yesterday, the 23d of June, the insurrection has broken out in Paris; that they are killing one another by thousands, and that blood is flowing like water. Are you contented, dreadful little revolutionist?”

“Blondeau!” I said, crying, “that was what I feared. They have exasperated those poor, wretched men beyond endurance at last.”

“Now you are beginning again! But open your letter from Charles. You see I have not unsealed it; Charles has told me, doubtless, the same thing that he has written to you.”

This was what I read:

“At last, my dear Juliette, the Government has seen that it must defend society energetically against the miserable creatures in whom you are interested. All the partisans of order, from the Monarchical party of the Rue de Poitiers to my friend and patron, Flocon, have united to crush those who have been brought over here and hired by foreigners.

“I kiss you good-bye, Juliette, until we meet again. Your friend, Charles.”

I held out the dreadful missive to Blondeau.

“He is perfectly right. He says what is true!” exclaimed Blondeau, giving the letter back to me after having read it.

I left him without even saying good-bye, and ran to my schoolmates and partisans, who were gathered together, and anxious about the visit I had received.

“The revolution has broken out again,” I said, and I read to them my ex-friend Charles’s letter. I emphasised the _ex_, for I had already torn him from my heart.

I was in such a state of excitement that I felt as if I were intoxicated. My faithful friends, after a half-hour of unanimous expressions of indignation, thought as I did.

“I am of the opinion,” I said to them, “that we should do something. We cannot remain inert while they are massacring innocent people in Paris. I have hidden at the bottom of a little bag, in my linen-closet, a large handkerchief which my father gave me, in the centre of which is printed: ‘Long live the Democratic and Socialistic Republic!’ Find me a long stick in the wood-house, a ribbon or a string, and we will arrange a flag out of it, and will make a manifestation. Will you follow me?”

“We will!” they cried.

“If we could add a few recruits, some partisans, to our united groups, so that our manifestation would be more imposing, don’t you think it would be better?”

“We will all try to get some,” said my comrades.

We then dispersed. I soon returned with my large blue, white, and red handkerchief, and I fastened it to a long stick in such a manner that the words, “Long live the Democratic and Socialist Republic” should be plainly visible.

With my heart ready for battle, I placed myself at the head of my battalion, crying: “Long live the Democratic-Socialist Republic! Long live the insurgents! ‘_On n’part pas! on n’part pas!_’”

A certain number of my schoolmates followed us; the others looked at us, terrified. The Mlles. André came running, and snatched my handkerchief-flag out of my hands. I defended it heroically. Several of my schoolmates supported me. But a troop commanded by my political enemy came up, crying: “Down with the Democratic-Socialist Republic!” and, lending aid to the Mlles. André and the under-governess, got the better of us. I received some well-directed blows, and I suffered at once from physical pain and from the humiliation of defeat. I was dragged to the drawing-room, held by both arms, and much jostled about. My valiant comrades followed me.

The Mlles. André sat down in their two largest arm-chairs to give me trial. Mlle. Sophie, the younger, questioned my partisans and allies.

“It was Juliette Lambert, was it not, who incited you to this act of scandalous folly?” she asked them.

Alas! out of twenty-two, seventeen answered:

“Yes, mademoiselle.”

The five others clung close to one another. Mlle. Sophie could drag nothing from them but one and the same answer:

“Both she and ourselves wished to make a manifestation!”

“Oh! yes, you are brave and faithful friends,” Mlle. Sophie replied, who did not really wish to punish any one but me. “It is a noble sentiment, for which I give you praise. Was it one of you--now, don’t lie--who furnished the handkerchief?”

“No, mademoiselle.”

“You see, the premeditation came alone from Juliette Lambert.”

I had not said a word, nor made a gesture, wishing to keep up my dignity, though accused, and to force my judges, my faithful friends, and even the traitors, to admire me.

“Do you deny what you have done?” Mlle. Sophie asked me.

“No, mademoiselle, I am an insurgent, but--”

At this moment the mother of one of my faithful friends entered, exclaiming:

“My daughter--I wish my daughter--where is she? The insurgents are marching on Chauny!”

There was a general panic. They allowed my friend and her mother to depart, and they barricaded the front door.

“Don’t be frightened!” I cried, going from one to another of my schoolmates, making no discrimination between friends and enemies, “I will protect you. They are my friends, and we will go and mount guard.”

We picked up our unfortunate and much damaged flag, and my corporal, my four “insurgents” and I, went and placed ourselves by the barricaded front door. We heard a battalion of the National Guard passing by, crying: “Down with the insurgents! Death to them!”

Frightened people in the streets talked together, saying:

“The Guards have gone to bar the way to the insurgents.”

The Mlles. André closed all the doors and shutters of the house, and they left us where we were from half-past one o’clock in the afternoon until nightfall. One of us tried to open a door at dinner-time. It was impossible, and we were obliged to remain there very hungry.

We were boarders, all five of us, and could not think of returning to our families. Besides, the padlocked door and the high walls prevented any hope of flight. We said to one another:

“After all, those who are fighting suffer much more than we. They also are hungry; they are wounded, they are dying for their cause, and what are our sufferings compared with theirs?”

Finally, after what seemed interminable hours, they came to fetch us, and sent us to bed without supper. We were too proud to ask for any; but the traitors had kept a little of their bread for us, and, with some chocolate they gave us, by slipping it under our sheets, we were able to satisfy our hunger a little, which sleep finally pacified.

The next day, in the morning, I was again called to the drawing-room, but this time alone. My faithful friends, cleverly influenced, had agreed to beg pardon, and had made their submission.

The elder Mlle. André asked me whether I repented.

I tried to prove to her that I had not acted like a child; that I was convinced of my right to have my own opinions, and that I had defended ideas about which I had seriously reflected.

“Disturbing, dangerous, and wicked ideas!” replied the elder Mlle. André.

“They are ideas of conciliation, of peace, and of justice, mademoiselle, but they are not understood by those who find present things excellent, or by those who are afraid of all reform.”

“This is my sentence,” said Mlle. André, curtly. “You will take breakfast in the refectory, and I shall announce at the end of the meal that I am going to send you home to your parents. Such scandals cannot end without an example being made.”

I breakfasted with good appetite, and when I heard the sentence delivered I was neither ashamed nor remorseful. My only fear was that I might be severely blamed by my grandmother.

I said to myself that in any case I would have recourse to my father, who could but uphold me for having defended our common cause, and for having suffered for our opinions.

I rose proudly and replied, at least with apparent calmness, for in reality my heart was almost strangling me, so fast did it beat:

“I am delighted to leave; I stifle under oppression, and I am going to be free at last!”

I said good-bye to no one. I went and put on my hat and waited for Mlle. Sophie, who was to take me back to grandmother.

My friends considered me an heroic victim to my cause, but were not sorry, so one of them told me later, to be relieved from the excitement I caused them.

My grandmother was at first disturbed on hearing the story of my escapade; but, seeing my resolute attitude, she thought more of winning me back than of scolding me, for, during her last days of fright, fearing the insurgents would come, she was all the more unhappy at not having me with her in the danger threatening the town. She had thought continually of sending for me. Since I had returned, why should she be angry? So, with quickly recovered calmness, she replied to Mlle. Sophie:

“As you consider Juliette’s action an act of insubordination toward you, you are quite right to bring her back to me. But, permit me to tell you that I think her conduct unusual. It shows me Juliette as I love to see her--giving proof of a strong will and a courage that everyone does not possess. Although the child returns to me without my having sent for her, neither she nor I will suffer from it, and, mademoiselle, I have a greater desire to thank you for having brought her back to me than to ask pardon for her.”

I threw myself into grandmother’s arms, and all trace of ill-feeling between us disappeared.

Panic was on the increase during the following days. They said that the insurgents, driven out of Paris, were coming to sack the town; the National Guard went to bar the way against the plunderers. Grandmother, in spite of my reassuring words, was terrified. She hid at night, in a large hole which grandfather dug in our courtyard, her silver, her jewels, all the valuable things she possessed. Blondeau also buried his money-box in the hole, which they covered with earth and gravel.

My father, to whom grandmother had written, sent me a letter of congratulation at having left a school where they taught nothing but inane middle-class ideas.

XXXVI

ANOTHER VISIT AT CHIVRES

I then had a long vacation, which began the 1st of July and did not finish until the 1st of October.

I remained three months with my aunts at Chivres, to their great delight.

I took intense pleasure in the study of Latin, and made real progress in the reading and translating of the “bucolics.”

My aunts, however, sermonised me severely on the reason for my having been sent away from school. The _National_ had inspired them with a holy horror of the plunderers, of those who had been “bought up by the foreigner,” and the twelve thousand men who had been killed in the June riots. The twenty thousand prisoners and exiles did not soften their hearts for a moment. My harangues interested them as ill-sustained paradoxes, but did not convince them in any way.

The citizen Louis Blanc, with his project of a conciliatory proclamation; the citizen Caussidière, with his extraordinary motion to have the Deputies go into the streets, to send them to the barricades and to the insurgents with a flag of truce, had exasperated them. They were merciless. The stories of the cruelties of the National Guards in the provinces, and of the Mobile Guard firing on the insurgent prisoners through the vent-holes of cellars, did not revolt them. It was necessary to kill as many as possible of those “mad dogs,” they said. And it was gentle Frenchwomen, faithful Liberals--or believing themselves such--who spoke thus! Marguerite knew nothing of the truth concerning it. To her the insurgents were savages, devils, etc.; and I could not make any feeling of clemency, any pity, enter into the minds or hearts of Marguerite or my aunts. They had all been too frightened.

While my father was alarmed, and cried out against the abomination of seeing men who for long years had defended liberty, who had called themselves its soldiers, condemn and persecute the people to whom they had made public and solemn promises to act for their good, and who had only asked them to keep those promises within the measure of possibility, my aunts spoke of Pascal Duprat, a Democratic-Republican, as a sublime man, who, while pretending to wish to save the Republic, had been the first man to demand a Dictatorship.

The death of General Bréa, killed by two acknowledged Bonapartists, Luc and Lhar; that of Archbishop Affre, due to an accident and not to an assassination, were, to my aunts, premeditated crimes, whose expiation demanded the death of thousands of men belonging to “the most ignoble and abject populace.”

My aunt Constance still trembled as she told me of her emotion when she had read the words of the President of the Chambers, mounting the tribune to say: “All is finished!”

It would have been folly to endeavour to convert my aunts to a more enlightened feeling of humanity. I gave up trying to do it. I read the _National_ in secret, Marguerite giving it to me after my aunts and great-grandmother had read it in turn, and I suffered every day with renewed sorrow at the violence of the reaction, the sentences of the Council of War, at the persecutions, the denunciations, the state of the public mind, which my father wrote to me had become so Cæsarian that it would throw us into the arms of Napoleon, who had been too delicately brought up by England to subdue us.

The night session, when the prosecution of Louis Blanc and Caussidière was voted, delighted my aunts. They would not even read Louis Blanc’s justification, much changed though it was in the _National_, for I compared it later with the text of the _Democratie Pacifique_, which my father sent to me. In my aunts’ opinion, and in that of all the middle class, Louis Blanc was “the founder, the responsible author of the monstrous national workshops.”

Now, Louis Blanc proved in court, what his partisans had known for a long time, that the national workshops had been established not only without his participation, but against his will, and that he had not visited them even once.

The obstinacy of holding to a preconceived opinion against absolute proof, admitting no discussion, seemed to me at that time the most extraordinary thing in the world. I endeavoured several times to read Louis Blanc’s protestation to my aunts; they would not listen to it, not wishing to hear it, or to be convinced by it, and they continued to call him the “sinister man of the national workshops.”

I confess that this obstinacy irritated me, and that my affection for my dear aunts suffered from it.

Louis Napoleon was elected in five departments at the supplementary elections. The terms he used in thanking his electors, for different reasons, provoked both my father and my grandmother, and my aunts as well, whose disgust for “Badinguet” increased daily.

“The Democratic-Republic shall be my religion,” said Louis Napoleon, “and I will be its priest.”

My grandfather would certainly have made a wry face at this speech, had he not always had the habit of saying, concerning all the manifestations of him whom he called his “beloved Pretender”:

“He is admirable, in the way he scoffs at the republican birds.”

They talked of nothing but “Badinguet” at my aunts’ all through September and October--of his oath of gratitude and devotion to the National Assembly, of the repeal of the law of 1832, which gave the Bonapartes liberty to live in France. I heard my aunts continually discussing the good faith of pretenders.

“Certain republicans are absurdly simple when they believe that an oath cannot be violated,” said aunt Sophie. “One must know one’s Roman history very little not to see that ‘Badinguet’ is playing the eternal game of the Cæsars.”

“When once they have voted to have a President of the Republic, and have chosen ‘a man of the Brumaire,’ when men of moderate opinions uphold this proceeding, what can possibly enlighten them? How can de Lamartine uphold such aberration of mind with his authority? Unless he deceives himself to the extent of thinking he will be named President of the Republic, his conduct is inexplicable,” said aunt Constance.

Politics still interested me a little in conversation, but when I did not talk of them, I thought no more about them.

“Men are worth nothing, nothing at all,” said aunt Anastasie one day; “I do not know a single man who has a just mind.”

“You know so many!” replied aunt Constance, with her habitual scoffing. “I never knew you to have but three masculine friends: the miller, his mill-keeper, and Roussot!”

I worked happily with aunt Sophie, who found me very desirous to learn Latin, and less occupied with explaining or contradicting everything. I no longer sought for eccentricities in ideas or opinions. I studied methodically, realising how much time I had lost.

I felt for the first time in my life, perhaps, that I had only a very youthful mind; that I had for a long while really learned but little, but, like a parrot, had remembered a good deal. I condemned myself as pretentious, insupportable, and I resolved that I would begin to be quite a different person, desirous solely to learn, and to be very studious and proper.

XXXVII