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Yet how much soever, or how little soever, the suffrage be extended in the direction of the working man, let it be extended, at least in some equal degree, in the direction of the educated man. Few bodies in England now express the opinions of educated men less than does the present House of Commons. It is not chosen by educated men, any more than it is by proletaires.
But I wish, in order to reconcile you to equality, to measure for you the greatest literary personage of our century. Do not accuse me of envy, proletaires, if I, a defender of equality, estimate at their proper value talents which are universally admired, and which I, better than any one, know how to recognize. A dwarf can always measure a giant: all that he needs is a yardstick.
In the sanguinary drama that has been unrolled before your eyes, the atrocities had a quite different source from the sentiments common to the barbarians that were swarming in the dregs of society and always ready to soil it with every crime; in plainer words, it is not to the unfortunate people who have neither property, nor capital, living by the work of their hands, to the prolétaires, that we are to impute the deplorable incidents which marked Bailly's last moments.
In speaking thus, you unconsciously argue exactly after the manner of M. Cousin, who always reasons from possession to PROPERTY. This coincidence, however, does not surprise me. M. Cousin is a philosopher of much mind, and you, proletaires, have still more. Certainly it is honorable, even for a philosopher, to be your companion in error.
Nevertheless, you all feel that a revolution is to come, and that you alone can accomplish it. What, then, is the idea which governs you, proletaires of the nineteenth century? for really I cannot call you revolutionists. What do you think? what do you believe? what do you want? Be guarded in your reply. I have read faithfully your favorite journals, your most esteemed authors.
But at this point a gigantic and complicated conspiracy is hatched against the capitalists. The weapon of the EXPLOITERS is met by the EXPLOITED with the instrument of commerce, a marvellous invention, denounced at its origin by the moralists who favored property, but inspired without doubt by the genius of labor, by the Minerva of the proletaires.
In five years more, the Emperor Napoleon, or his successor, will resign his power to a provisional triumvirate, composed of three eminent proletaires of the positivist faith; for proletaires, though not fit for permanent rule, are the best agents of the transition, being the most free from the prejudices which are the chief obstacle to it.
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