BOOK FIRST.--THE WAR BETWEEN
       FOUR WALLS

 
  CHAPTER I THE CHARYBDIS OF
       THE FAUBOURG SAINT ANTOINE
       AND THE SCYLLA OF THE
       FAUBOURG DU TEMPLE

    The two most memorable barricades
          which the observer
               of social maladies
            can name
             do not
                  belong to the period
         in which the action
               of this work
            is laid.

    These two barricades,
           both of them symbols,
         under two different aspects,
           of a redoubtable situation,
         sprang from the earth
               at the time
                   of the fatal
                 insurrection
                    of June,
           1848,
         the greatest
              war of the streets
             that history has ever beheld.

    It sometimes happens that,
           even contrary to principles,
         even contrary to liberty,
           equality,
         and fraternity,
           even contrary
               to the universal vote,
         even contrary to the government,
           by all for all,
         from the depths
               of its anguish,
           of its discouragements
               and its destitutions,
         of its fevers,
           of its distresses,
         of its miasmas,
           of its ignorances,
         of its darkness,
           that great and despairing body,
         the rabble,
           protests against,
         and that
               the populace wages battle against,
           the people.

    Beggars attack the common right;
        the ochlocracy rises against demos.

    These are melancholy days;
        for there is
              always a certain amount
                   of night
             even in this madness,
           there is suicide
               in this duel,
         and those words
              which are intended
                  to be insults
         -- beggars,
               canaille,
             ochlocracy,
               populace--
           exhibit,
         alas!

    rather the fault of those
         who reign
               than the fault of those
             who suffer;
        rather the fault
               of the privileged
             than the fault
                   of the disinherited.

    For our own part,
           we never pronounce those words
             without pain and without respect,
         for when philosophy
            fathoms the facts
             to which they correspond,
           it often
              finds many a grandeur
                   beside these miseries.

    Athens was an ochlocracy;
        the beggars
            were the making of Holland;
        the populace
              saved Rome more than once;
        and the rabble
              followed Jesus Christ.

    There is no thinker
         who has not
               at times
                 contemplated
                    the
                 magnificences
                    of the lower classes.

    It was of this rabble
         that Saint Jerome was thinking,
           no doubt,
         and of
               all these poor people
             and all these vagabonds
               and all these miserable people
             whence sprang the apostles
                   and the martyrs,
           when he uttered
               this mysterious saying:
         "Fex urbis,
               lex orbis,"
              -- the dregs
                   of the city,
               the law of the earth.

    The exasperations of this crowd
          which suffers and bleeds,
           its violences contrary
               to all sense,
         directed against the principles
              which are its life,
           its masterful deeds
               against the right,
         are its popular coups d'etat
            and should be repressed.

    The man
           of probity sacrifices himself,
         and out
               of his very love
             for this crowd,
         he combats it.

    But how excusable
         he feels it even
           while holding out against it!

    How he venerates it even
         while resisting it!

    This is one of
           those rare moments when,
         while doing
             that which it
                is one's duty to do,
         one feels something
              which disconcerts one,
           and which
            would dissuade one
                   from proceeding further;
        one persists,
           it is necessary,
         but conscience,
           though satisfied,
         is sad,
           and the accomplishment of duty
            is complicated
                   with a pain
                 at the heart.

    June,
           1848,
         let us hasten to say,
           was an exceptional fact,
         and almost impossible
               of classification,
           in the philosophy of history.

    All the words which
         we have just uttered,
           must be discarded,
         when it
            becomes a question of this
                 extraordinary
                    revolt,
           in which one
            feels the holy anxiety