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Mazzini and Herzen, Kossuth and Ledru-Rollin, Bakounine, Louis Blanc, and a crowd of less eminent fighters in the everlasting war of human emancipation. The war that aims at Peace; the strife that assails tyranny, and militarism, and international hatred. He succeeded neither as man of thought nor as man of action.
There was an interval of silence. The noise of the multitude without sounded like the murmuring of the ocean. Ledru-Rollin went on: "What the people want is the Republic at once, the Republic without waiting." "The Republic without any delay?" said Lamartine, covering an objection in this interpretation of Ledru-Rollin's words.
Ledru-Rollin disavowed the offending Bulletin; but the growing uneasiness of the bourgeoisie, the unruly discontent among the workmen, the Government, embarrassed and utterly disorganized, was powerless to allay.
They made no attempt to prevent any one from entering. I opened the door of the Executive Committee's office. Ledru-Rollin, very red, was half seated on the table. Two or three colonels, among them Representative Charras, were conversing in a corner. I only recall Arago vaguely. I do not remember whether M. Marie was there. The sun was shining brightly.
These banquets extended over France, attended by a coalition of hostile parties, the chiefs of which were Thiers, Odillon Barrot, De Tocqueville, Garnier-Pagès, Lamartine, and Ledru-Rollin, who pointed out the evils of the times. At last, in 1848, the opposition resolved on a great banquet in Paris, to defy the government. The radicals sounded the alarm in the newspapers.
The five men thus nominated and chosen to be rulers of France were Lamartine, Crémieux, Ledru-Rollin, Garnier-Pagès, and Arago. Meantime in the Hôtel-de-Ville the mob had set up another provisional government under Socialistic leaders, and the first thing the more genuine provisional government had to do was to get rid of the others.
Ask Juliette Adam whether the bread-and-butter misses of France in the year 1847 did not squabble over the obstinacy of King Louis Philippe and the greed of M. Guizot, the claims of Louis Napoleon and the theories of Louis Blanc, of Odilon Barrot, and Ledru-Rollin? And I who write, have I not seen a North Antrim Sunday-school wrecked in a faction-fight between the Orange and the Green?
The Paris insurrection was put down, and Ledru-Rollin fled the country. Thiers, Broglie, Mole, Montalembert, and other adherents of the Bourbons, either of the old or of the Orleans branch, now professed to yield to Louis Napoleon their adhesion. His measures for the restraint of the press, the punishment of political offenses, etc., were popular, especially in the provinces.
Ledru-Rollin, in the fulness of his heart, seeing these one hundred and twenty thousand men all marching with some discipline, said to his colleagues in the Council Chamber: "Do you know that your popularity is nothing to mine? I have but to open this window and call upon these men, and you would every one of you be turned into the street. Do you wish me to try it?"
Another matter for astonishment: Cavaignac was flagging; the Garde Mobile was exposing itself to suspicion. Ledru-Rollin had ruined himself even in Vaucorbeil's estimation. The debates on the Constitution interested nobody, and on the 10th of December all the inhabitants of Chavignolles voted for Bonaparte.
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