THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
document of the changes in his attitude during these weeks, and
I am therefore quoting the more important passages.
‘Placed at the bottom of the social edifice, in the heart of the
working masses, myself one of the leading miners who was
sapping its foundations, I saw better than the statesmen who dis
puted on the rooftops the approach o f danger and all its conse
quences. A few more days, and at the least parliamentary storm
the monarchy would collapse, and the old society with it.
‘The tempest began to blow at the banquets for reform. The
events in Rome, in Sicily, in Lombardy, added to the ardour of
the parties; the Swiss civil war excited public opinion by carrying
to its height the irritation against the ministry. Frightful scandals,
monstrous trials, added ceaselessly to the public anger. The
Chambers had not yet met for the session o f 1847-48 when I
judged that all was lost; I went immediately to Paris.
‘The two months that passed before the explosion, between the
opening of the Chambers and the fall of the throne, were the
saddest and most desolate I have endured in my life... A Repub
lican o f yesterday, and of the day before yesterday, a Republican
o f college, workshop and study, I shuddered with terror when I
saw the Republic approaching! I shuddered that none around me
believed in the advent o f the Republic, at least in an advent as close
as it was. Events were on the march, destinies were being accom
plished, and the social revolution was rising up, without anybody,
high or low, appearing to be aware o f it...
‘I wept for the poor worker, whom I considered given up in
advance to unemployment, to years o f poverty... I wept for the
bourgeois, whom I saw ruined, pushed to bankruptcy, excited
against the proletariat, and against whom the antagonism of
ideas and the necessity of circumstances would force me to fight
when I more than anybody was disposed to pity him... Be
fore the birth o f the Republic, I went into mourning and did
expiation for the Republic. And who, once again, with the same
foreknowledge, would not have given himself up to the same
fears?...
‘In that devouring anxiety, I revolted against the march of
events, I dared to condemn destiny... I longed, to have an organ
in which to wage mortal combat on Le National, La Reforme, all
the republican and reformist organs of opinion... My spirit
was in agony: I carried in advance the weight o f the sorrows of
” 7