The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic. Эжен Сю
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for the last four days? Considering the great events close at hand, of which the taking of the Bastille is but the precursor and sign, can you count on the full disposition of your time? The struggle once engaged between the nation and the royal power, will it not continue impetuous, implacable? Is it at a season when the liberty of the people trembles in the balance that you ought to abandon the field of battle? And still your family must live, and it can only live by your daily labor."
"Often have I said," exclaimed Victoria, "that the people has never had the time to complete the revolutions it began! or else, if they were accomplished promptly, decisively and overwhelmingly, the time has always been lacking to defend the conquest, to maintain it, consolidate it, and fructify it. The people's enemies, on the other hand, gentlemen of leisure, free from care, kings, priests, nobles or tax-farmers, have awaited, under cover, the certain hour to ravish from the people the benefits of its short-lived conquest."
"Alas, it is but too true," assented her father. "The time has always been lacking—the time and the money."
"Such is the fatal verity!" continued Gerolstein. "Would that verity could convince the people that if they can, which is rarely the case, make some little savings from their meager pay, it is not at the tavern they should spend them. For those savings of the worker should, when the day arrives, insure to him a portion of the necessary leisure to emancipate himself. And if he has been able to put aside nothing, he is in error to yield to an exaggerated scruple of delicacy and repulse the aid fraternally offered to him by his friends in order that he may be assured one of the means to clinch his victory."
"A singular occurrence which I witnessed this morning," responded the young artisan, "strikingly reinforces your argument. One of my friends, a journeyman carpenter, and several others of our comrades, were gathered at break of day in the neighborhood of the Bastille, awaiting the signal for the attack. A man simply clad, and with an open countenance, accosted them: 'Brothers,' said he, 'you go to-day to fight for your liberty. It is your duty. But to-day you will not go to your shops, and will earn nothing. If you have families, how will they live to-morrow? If you are bachelors, what will you live on yourselves? Allow then, one of your unknown friends to come to your aid as a brother. It is not an alms that I offer; I only assure you your leisure for this great day, by delivering you from your cares for the morrow.'"
"That 'unknown friend' was the banker Anacharsis Clootz, the treasurer of the Voyants, and rich enough in his own name to aid our brothers for a long time to come," explained Franz in an undertone to Victoria, without interrupting John, who continued:
"My comrades accepted the offer so delicately made, without much hesitation."
"Now, Monsieur Lebrenn, can you still shrink from accepting, as John does, my tenders of service?"
"No, Monsieur Gerolstein, neither I nor my son will hesitate any further in accepting your generous offer, should there arise any necessity of falling back upon it," replied the father of the house.
"John," said Victoria, suddenly, "it is growing late. Go at once to Monsieur Desmarais, who is liable at any moment to leave for Versailles. Your plan must not be altered."
"True," answered the young man with a shudder. "The project is now doubly important. I must to it without delay."
"My friends, you know advocate Desmarais, deputy of the Third Estate in the States General?" asked Franz of Gerolstein. "He is reputed a good citizen and a friend of the revolution."
"We all believe that Monsieur Desmarais is not one of those suspicious and craven bourgeois who tremble at the revolution," John answered, as he made toward the door. Then he returned—"Till we meet again, Franz, I hope; meseems we are already old friends."
"Franz will await here the result of your visit, brother," said Victoria.
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