I was told by a Frenchman that in the days of Louis-Philippe, E., who had been mixed up in some political business, was in hiding in Paris. \Vith all its attractions such a life becomes a la longue \Yearisome and tedious. Delessert, a bon vivant and a rich man, was Police Prefect at that time; he served in the police not from necessity but for the love of it, and sometimes like a festive dinner. He and E. had many friends in common. One day 'between the pear and the cheese,' as the French say, one of them said to him:
'\Vhat a pity it is that you so persecute poor E. ! 'Ve are deprived of a capital talker, and he is obliged to hide like a criminal.'
'Upon my soul,' said Delessert, 'his case is completely forgotten! Why is he in hiding? '
His friend smiled ironically.
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'I shall try to convince him that he's behaving absurdly-and you, too.'
On reaching home he sent for one of his chief spies and asked him,
'Is E. in Paris?'
'Yes,' answered the spy.
'Is he in hiding?' asked Delessert.
'Yes,' answered the spy.
'Where?' asked Delessert.
The spy took out his notebook, looked in it, and read out E.'s address.
'Good ; then go to him early to-morrow morning and tell him that he need not be anxious; we are not looking for him and he can live peacefully at his flat.'
The spy carried out his orders exactly, and two hours after his visit E. mysteriously informed his friends that he was leaving Paris and would be in hiding in a remote town, because the Prefect had discovered where he had been hiding!
Just as conspirators try to conceal their secret with a transparent veil of mystery and an eloquent silence, so do the phanerogamous try to display and blurt out all that is in their hearts.
They are the permanent tribunes of the clubs and cafes; they are perpetually dissatisfied with everything, and fuss about everything; they tell about everything-even things that have not happened, while things that have happened they square and cube, like mountains on a relief map. One's eye is so used to seeing them that one involuntarily looks for them at every street row, at every demonstration, at every banquet.
. . . The spectacle of the Cafe Lamblin was still new to me; at that time I was not familiar with the back premises of the revolution. It is true that I had been about in Rome and in the Cafe delle Belle Arti and in the square; I had been in the Circolo Romano and in the Circolo Popolare; but the movement in Rome had not then that character of political garishness which particularly developed after the failures of 1 848. Ciceruacchio and his friends had a naivete of their own, their southern gesticulations which strike one as commonplace and their Italian phrases which seem to us to be rant; but they were in a period of youthful enthusiasm, they had not yet come to themselves after three centuries of sleep. ll popolano Ciceruacchio was not in the least a political agitator by trade; ht would have liked nothing better than to retire once more in peace to his little house in
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Strada Ripetta and to carry on his trade in wood and timber within his family-circle like a paterfamilias and free civis romanus.
The men surrounding him were free from that brand of vulgar, babbling pseudo-revolutionism, of that tare character which is so dismally common in France.
I need hardly say that in speaking of the cafe agitators and revolutionary lazzaroni I was not thinking of those mighty workers for the emancipation of humanity, those martyrs for the love of their fellow-creatures and fiery evangelists of independence whose words could not be suppressed by prison, exile, proscription or poverty--of the drivers, the motive powers of events, by whose blood, tears and words a new historical order is established. I was talking about the incrusted border covered with barren weeds, for which agitation itself is goal and reward, who like the process of national revolution for its own sake, as Chichikov's Petrushka9 liked the process of reading, or as Nicholas liked military drill.
There is nothing for reaction to rejoice at in this, for it is overgrown with worse burdocks and toadstools, not only on the borders but everywhere. In its ranks are whole multitudes of officials who tremble before their superiors, prying spies, volunteer assassins ready to fight on either side, officers of every repulsive species from the Prussian ;unker to the predatory French Algerian, from the guardsman to the page de chambre-and here we still have touched only on the secular side of the reaction, and have said nothing of the mendicant fraternity, the intriguing Jesuits, the priestly police, or the other members of the ranks of angels and archangels.
If there are among reactionaries any who resemble our dilettante revolutionaries, they are the courtiers employed for ceremonies, the men of exits and entrances, the people who are conspicuous at levees, christenings, royal weddings, coronations, and funerals, the people who exist for the uniform, for gold lace, who represent the rays and fragrance of power.
In the Cafe Lamblin, where the desperate citoyens were sitting over their petits verres and big glasses, I learned that they had no plan, that the movement had no real centre of momentum and no programme. Inspiration was to descend upon them as the Holy Ghost once descended upon the heads of the apostles. There was only one point on which all were agreed-to come to the meeting-place unarmed. After two hours of empty 9 A character in Gogol's Dead Souls. ( Tr.)
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chatter we went off to the office of the True Republic, agreeing to meet at eight o'clock next morning at the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, facing the Chateau d'Eau.
The editor was not at home: he had gone to the 'Montagnards'10 for instructions. About twenty people, for the most part Poles and Germans, were in the big, grimy, poorly lit and still more poorly furnished room which served the editorial board as an assembly hall and a committee room. Sazonov took a sheet of paper and began writing something; when he had written i t he read i t out to us: it was a protest in the name of the emigres of all nationalities against the occupation of Rome, and a declaration of their readiness to take part in the movement.
Those who wished to immortalise their names by associating them with the glorious morrow he invited to sign it. Almost all wished to immortalise their names, and signed. The editor came in, tired and dejected, trying to suggest to everyone that he knew a great deal but was bound to keep silent; I was convinced that he knew nothing at all.
'Citoyens,' said Thorez, 'Ia !11ontagne est en permanence.'
Well, who could doubt its success-en permanence! Sazonov gave the editor the protest of the democracy of Europe. The editor read it through and said:
'That's splendid, splendid! France thanks you, citoyens; but why the signatures? There are so few that if we are unsuccessful our enemies will vent all their anger upon you.'
Sazonov insisted that the signatures should remain; many agreed with him.
'I won't take the responsibility for it,' the editor objected;
'excuse me, I know better than you the people we have to deal with.'