r, they enter the
tomb. And this hopeless combat, this stoical disappearance they accept
in order to bring about the supreme and universal consequences, the
magnificent and irresistibly human movement begun on the 14th of July,
1789; these soldiers are priests. The French revolution is an act of
God.

Moreover, there are, and it is proper to add this distinction to the
distinctions already pointed out in another chapter,--there are accepted
revolutions, revolutions which are called revolutions; there are refused
revolutions, which are called riots.

An insurrection which breaks out, is an idea which is passing its
examination before the people. If the people lets fall a black ball, the
idea is dried fruit; the insurrection is a mere skirmish.

Waging war at every summons and every time that Utopia desires it, is
not the thing for the peoples. Nations have not always and at every hour
the temperament of heroes and martyrs.

They are positive. A priori, insurrection is repugnant to them, in the
first place, because it often results in a catastrophe, in the second
place, because it always has an abstraction as its point of departure.

Because, and this is a noble thing, it is always for the ideal, and for
the ideal alone, that those who sacrifice themselves do thus sacrifice
themselves. An insurrection is an enthusiasm. Enthusiasm may wax wroth;
hence the appeal to arms. But every insurrection, which aims at a
government or a regime, aims higher. Thus, for instance, and we
insist upon it, what the chiefs of the insurrection of 1832, and, in
particular, the young enthusiasts of the Rue de la Chanvrerie were
combating, was not precisely Louis Philippe. The majority of them,
when talking freely, did justice to this king who stood midway between
monarchy and revolution; no one hated him. But they attacked the younger
branch of the divine right in Louis Philippe as they had attacked its
elder branch in Charles X.; and that which they wished to overturn in
overturning royalty in France, was, as we have explained, the usurpation
of man over man, and of privilege over right in the entire universe.
Paris without a king has as result the world without despots. This is
the manner in which they reasoned. Their aim was distant no doubt,
vague perhaps, and it retreated in the face of their efforts; but it was
great.

Thus it is. And we sacrifice ourselves for these visions, which are
almost always illusions for the sacrificed, bu