Les Misérables, page 233
CHAPTER II--BADLY SEWED
But the task of sages is one thing, the task of clever men is another.The Revolution of 1830 came to a sudden halt.
As soon as a revolution has made the coast, the skilful make haste toprepare the shipwreck.
The skilful in our century have conferred on themselves the titleof Statesmen; so that this word, _statesmen_, has ended by becomingsomewhat of a slang word. It must be borne in mind, in fact, thatwherever there is nothing but skill, there is necessarily pettiness. Tosay "the skilful" amounts to saying "the mediocre."
In the same way, to say "statesmen" is sometimes equivalent to saying"traitors." If, then, we are to believe the skilful, revolutions likethe Revolution of July are severed arteries; a prompt ligature isindispensable. The right, too grandly proclaimed, is shaken. Also, rightonce firmly fixed, the state must be strengthened. Liberty once assured,attention must be directed to power.
Here the sages are not, as yet, separated from the skilful, but theybegin to be distrustful. Power, very good. But, in the first place, whatis power? In the second, whence comes it? The skilful do not seem tohear the murmured objection, and they continue their manouvres.
According to the politicians, who are ingenious in putting the maskof necessity on profitable fictions, the first requirement of a peopleafter a revolution, when this people forms part of a monarchicalcontinent, is to procure for itself a dynasty. In this way, say they,peace, that is to say, time to dress our wounds, and to repairthe house, can be had after a revolution. The dynasty conceals thescaffolding and covers the ambulance. Now, it is not always easy toprocure a dynasty.
If it is absolutely necessary, the first man of genius or even the firstman of fortune who comes to hand suffices for the manufacturing of aking. You have, in the first case, Napoleon; in the second, Iturbide.
But the first family that comes to hand does not suffice to make adynasty. There is necessarily required a certain modicum of antiquity ina race, and the wrinkle of the centuries cannot be improvised.
If we place ourselves at the point of view of the "statesmen," aftermaking all allowances, of course, after a revolution, what are thequalities of the king which result from it? He may be and it is usefulfor him to be a revolutionary; that is to say, a participant in his ownperson in that revolution, that he should have lent a hand to it, thathe should have either compromised or distinguished himself therein, thathe should have touched the axe or wielded the sword in it.
What are the qualities of a dynasty? It should be national; that is tosay, revolutionary at a distance, not through acts committed, but byreason of ideas accepted. It should be composed of past and be historic;be composed of future and be sympathetic.
All this explains why the early revolutions contented themselves withfinding a man, Cromwell or Napoleon; and why the second absolutelyinsisted on finding a family, the House of Brunswick or the House ofOrleans.
Royal houses resemble those Indian fig-trees, each branch of which,bending over to the earth, takes root and becomes a fig-tree itself.Each branch may become a dynasty. On the sole condition that it shallbend down to the people.
Such is the theory of the skilful.
Here, then, lies the great art: to make a little render to success thesound of a catastrophe in order that those who profit by it may tremblefrom it also, to season with fear every step that is taken, to augmentthe curve of the transition to the point of retarding progress, to dullthat aurora, to denounce and retrench the harshness of enthusiasm, tocut all angles and nails, to wad triumph, to muffle up right, to envelopthe giant-people in flannel, and to put it to bed very speedily, toimpose a diet on that excess of health, to put Hercules on the treatmentof a convalescent, to dilute the event with the expedient, to offer tospirits thirsting for the ideal that nectar thinned out with a potion,to take one's precautions against too much success, to garnish therevolution with a shade.
1830 practised this theory, already applied to England by 1688.
1830 is a revolution arrested midway. Half of progress, quasi-right.Now, logic knows not the "almost," absolutely as the sun knows not thecandle.
Who arrests revolutions half-way? The bourgeoisie?
Why?
Because the bourgeoisie is interest which has reached satisfaction.Yesterday it was appetite, to-day it is plenitude, to-morrow it will besatiety.
The phenomenon of 1814 after Napoleon was reproduced in 1830 afterCharles X.
The attempt has been made, and wrongly, to make a class of thebourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is simply the contented portion of thepeople. The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down. A chairis not a caste.
But through a desire to sit down too soon, one may arrest the very marchof the human race. This has often been the fault of the bourgeoisie.
One is not a class because one has committed a fault. Selfishness is notone of the divisions of the social order.
Moreover, we must be just to selfishness. The state to which that partof the nation which is called the bourgeoisie aspired after the shockof 1830 was not the inertia which is complicated with indifference andlaziness, and which contains a little shame; it was not the slumberwhich presupposes a momentary forgetfulness accessible to dreams; it wasthe halt.
The halt is a word formed of a singular double and almost contradictorysense: a troop on the march, that is to say, movement; a stand, that isto say, repose.
The halt is the restoration of forces; it is repose armed and on thealert; it is the accomplished fact which posts sentinels and holdsitself on its guard.
The halt presupposes the combat of yesterday and the combat ofto-morrow.
It is the partition between 1830 and 1848.
What we here call combat may also be designated as progress.
The bourgeoisie then, as well as the statesmen, required a man whoshould express this word Halt. An Although-Because. A compositeindividuality, signifying revolution and signifying stability, in otherterms, strengthening the present by the evident compatibility of thepast with the future.
This man was "already found." His name was Louis Philippe d'Orleans.
The 221 made Louis Philippe King. Lafayette undertook the coronation.
He called it _the best of republics_. The town-hall of Paris took theplace of the Cathedral of Rheims.
This substitution of a half-throne for a whole throne was "the work of1830."
When the skilful had finished, the immense vice of their solution becameapparent. All this had been accomplished outside the bounds of absoluteright. Absolute right cried: "I protest!" then, terrible to say, itretired into the darkness.
