“Bravo! adopted!” responded the audience.
The Citizen Jean Jacques Langreneux, a printer in the Rue Dauphin, would like to have a monument raised to the memory of the martyrs of Thermidor.
Michel Evariste Népomucène, ex-professor, gave expression to the wish that the European democracy should adopt unity of language. A dead language might be used for that purpose—as, for example, improved Latin.
“No; no Latin!” exclaimed the architect.
“Why?” said the college-usher.
And these two gentlemen engaged in a discussion, in which the others also took part, each putting in a word of his own for effect; and the conversation on this topic soon became so tedious that many went away. But a little old man, who wore at the top of his prodigiously high forehead a pair of green spectacles, asked permission to speak in order to make an important communication.
It was a memorandum on the assessment of taxes. The figures flowed on in a continuous stream, as if they were never going to end. The impatience of the audience found vent at first in murmurs, in whispered talk. He allowed nothing to put him out. Then they began hissing; they catcalled him. Sénécal called the persons who were interrupting to order. The orator went on like a machine. It was necessary to catch him by the shoulder in order to stop him. The old fellow looked as if he were waking out of a dream, and, placidly lifting his spectacles, said:
“Pardon me, citizens! pardon me! I am going—a thousand excuses!”
Frederick was disconcerted with the failure of the old man’s attempts to read this written statement. He had his own address in his pocket, but an extemporaneous speech would have been preferable.
Finally the president announced that they were about to pass on to the important matter, the electoral question. They would not discuss the big Republican lists. However, the “Club of Intellect” had every right, like every other, to form one, “with all respect for the pachas of the Hôtel de Ville,” and the citizens who solicited the popular mandate might set forth their claims.
“Go on, now!” said Dussardier.
A man in a cassock, with woolly hair and a petulant expression on his face, had already raised his hand. He said, with a stutter, that his name was Ducretot, priest and agriculturist, and that he was the author of a work entitled “Manures.” He was told to send it to a horticultural club.
Then a patriot in a blouse climbed up into the rostrum. He was a plebeian, with broad shoulders, a big face, very mild-looking, with long black hair. He cast on the assembly an almost voluptuous glance, flung back his head, and, finally, spreading out his arms:
“You have repelled Ducretot, O my brothers! and you have done right; but it was not through irreligion, for we are all religious.”
Many of those present listened open-mouthed, with the air of catechumens and in ecstatic attitudes.
“It is not either because he is a priest, for we, too, are priests! The workman is a priest, just as the founder of Socialism was—the Master of us all, Jesus Christ!”
The time had arrived to inaugurate the Kingdom of God. The Gospel led directly to ’89. After the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the proletariat. They had had the age of hate—the age of love was about to begin.
“Christianity is the keystone and the foundation of the new edifice—”
“You are making game of us?” exclaimed the traveller in wines. “Who has given me such a priest’s cap?”
This interruption gave great offence. Nearly all the audience got on benches, and, shaking their fists, shouted: “Atheist! aristocrat! low rascal!” whilst the president’s bell kept ringing continuously, and the cries of “Order! order!” redoubled. But, aimless, and, moreover, fortified by three cups of coffee which he had swallowed before coming to the meeting, he struggled in the midst of the others:
“What? I an aristocrat? Come, now!”
When, at length, he was permitted to give an explanation, he declared that he would never be at peace with the priests; and, since something had just been said about economical measures, it would be a splendid one to put an end to the churches, the sacred pyxes, and finally all creeds.
Somebody raised the objection that he was going very far.
“Yes! I am going very far! But, when a vessel is caught suddenly in a storm—”
Without waiting for the conclusion of this simile, another made a reply to his observation:
“Granted! But this is to demolish at a single stroke, like a mason devoid of judgment—”
“You are insulting the masons!” yelled a citizen covered with plaster. And persisting in the belief that provocation had been offered to him, he vomited forth insults, and wished to fight, clinging tightly to the bench whereon he sat. It took no less than three men to put him out.
Meanwhile the workman still remained on the rostrum. The two secretaries gave him an intimation that he should come down. He protested against the injustice done to him.
“You shall not prevent me from crying out, ‘Eternal love to our dear France! eternal love all to the Republic!’ ”
“Citizens!” said Compain, after this—“Citizens!”
And, by dint of repeating “Citizens,” having obtained a little silence, he leaned on the rostrum with his two red hands, which looked like stumps, bent forward his body, and blinking his eyes:
“I believe that it would be necessary to give a larger extension to the calf’s head.”
All who heard him kept silent, fancying that they had misunderstood his words.
“Yes! the calf’s head!”
Three hundred laughs burst forth at the same time. The ceiling shook.
At the sight of all these faces convulsed with mirth, Compain shrank back. He continued in an angry tone:
“What! you don’t know what the calf’s head is!”
It was a paroxysm, a delirium. They held their sides. Some of them even tumbled off the benches to the ground with convulsions of laughter. Compain, not being able to stand it any longer, took refuge beside Regimbart, and wanted to drag him away.
“No! I
