ed worth possessing; and there was
the populace crushed and groaning, sweating, bleeding, starving, and
perishing in the Roman kennels. That was a republic; the mightiest we
have seen."

Philippe strove with his impatience. "At least you will admit--you have,
in fact, admitted it--that we could not be worse governed than we are?"

"That is not the point. The point is should we be better governed if we
replaced the present ruling class by another? Without some guarantee of
that I should be the last to lift a finger to effect a change. And what
guarantees can you give? What is the class that aims at government? I
will tell you. The bourgeoisie."

"What?"

"That startles you, eh? Truth is so often disconcerting. You hadn't
thought of it? Well, think of it now. Look well into this Nantes
manifesto. Who are the authors of it?"

"I can tell you who it was constrained the municipality of Nantes to
send it to the King. Some ten thousand workmen--shipwrights, weavers,
labourers, and artisans of every kind."

"Stimulated to it, driven to it, by their employers, the wealthy traders
and shipowners of that city," Andre-Louis replied. "I have a habit of
observing things at close quarters, which is why our colleagues of the
Literary Chamber dislike me so cordially in debate. Where I delve they
but skim. Behind those labourers and artisans of Nantes, counselling
them, urging on these poor, stupid, ignorant toilers to shed their blood
in pursuit of the will o' the wisp of freedom, are the sail-makers, the
spinners, the ship-owners and the slave-traders. The slave-traders! The
men who live and grow rich by a traffic in human flesh and blood in
the colonies, are conducting at home a campaign in the sacred name
of liberty! Don't you see that the whole movement is a movement of
hucksters and traders and peddling vassals swollen by wealth into envy
of the power that lies in birth alone? The money-changers in Paris
who hold the bonds in the national debt, seeing the parlous financial
condition of the State, tremble at the thought that it may lie in
the power of a single man to cancel the debt by bankruptcy. To secure
themselves they are burrowing underground to overthrow a state and build
upon its ruins a new one in which they shall be the masters. And to
accomplish this they inflame the people. Already in Dauphiny we have
seen blood run like water--the blood of the populace, always the blood of
the populace. Now in Brittany we may see