s himself so little man, that as
soon as ever he comes out, he must greedily seek the most intense
excitement of the human faculties, that which concentrates the sentiment
of boundless liberty in the short moment of a delicious dream. This
excitement is intoxication, especially the intoxication of love." The
workman becomes vicious; but extreme physical dependency, the claims of
instinctive life, which once more revert to dependency, moral impotency,
and the void of mind, are the causes of his vices. Talk of the bondage
of the peasant! What is his slavery to that of the workman! _He_ was at
least a happy _child_. He lived in the air and played. He was at
liberty, whilst his body and his strength were forming: the chains did
not gall him till his wrist was hard: he was not called upon to suffer,
before his spirit was sufficient to cope with life. Yes, there is
positive bondage here.

And the _Artisan_? Is he at liberty? As an apprentice-boy, he is already
in bondage. "Whatever annoys or irritates his master or his master's
wife, falls very often upon his shoulders. A bankruptcy happens, the
apprentice is beaten: the master comes home drunk, the apprentice is
beaten: the work is slack or pressing, he is beaten all the same."
Apprenticeship over, the artisan marries--has a wife, family; expense,
misery! His children grow up, and the mother (we are in France, and M.
Michelet speaks) is ambitious. Drawing will be serviceable, says the
mother, to her boy in his business. She pinches herself for a few sous
for _crayons_ and paper, and a miserable artist is made of one who would
have proved a good workman. Or an inspired artist, the child of labour,
is left an orphan and a beggar in the midst of his aspirations and
struggles towards distinction: to subsist, he must desert art, and
become a workman like his father. "All his life he will curse his fate;
he will work here, but his soul will be elsewhere." If he weds, and has
a family--that family will become less and less loved. "A man embittered
in such a struggle, and wholly intent on personal progress, considers
every thing else of little value. He weans himself even from his native
land imputing to it the injustice of fate." And so there is imprisonment
and hatred also here.

Look at the _Manufacturer_. The manufacturers of France have, generally
speaking, all been workmen. Six hundred thousand have become
manufacturers or tradesmen since the peace. "Those brave men, who,
re