“He is right,” said Blondet.  “What times we live in, gentlemen!  When the fire of intelligence appears among us, it is promptly quenched by haphazard legislation.  Almost all our lawgivers come up from little parishes where they studied human nature through the medium of the newspapers; forthwith they shut down the safety-valve, and when the machinery blows up there is weeping and gnashing of teeth!  We do nothing nowadays but pass penal laws and levy taxes.  Will you have the sum of it all!—­There is no religion left in the State!”

“Oh, bravo, Blondet!” cried Bixiou, “thou hast set thy finger on the weak spot.  Meddlesome taxation has lost us more victories here in France than the vexatious chances of war.  I once spent seven years in the hulks of a government department, chained with bourgeois to my bench.  There was a clerk in the office, a man with a head on his shoulders; he had set his mind upon making a sweeping reform of the whole fiscal system—­ah, well, we took the conceit out of him nicely.  France might have been too prosperous, you know she might have amused herself by conquering Europe again; we acted in the interests of the peace of nations.  I slew Rabourdin with a caricature."[*]

[*] See Les Employes [The Government Clerks aka Bureaucracy].

“By religion I do not mean cant; I use the word in its wide political sense,” rejoined Blondet.

“Explain your meaning,” said Finot.

“Here it is,” returned Blondet.  “There has been a good deal said about affairs at Lyons; about the Republic cannonaded in the streets; well, there was not a word of truth in it all.  The Republic took up the riots, just as an insurgent snatches up a rifle.  The truth is queer and profound, I can tell you.  The Lyons trade is a soulless trade.  They will not weave a yard of silk unless they have the order and are sure of payment.  If orders fall off; the workmen may starve; they can scarcely earn a living, convicts are better off.  After the Revolution of July, the distress reached such a pitch that the Lyons weavers—­the canuts, as they call them—­hoisted the flag, ‘Bread or Death!’ a proclamation of a kind which compels the attention of a government.  It was really brought about by the cost of living at Lyons; Lyons must build theatres and become a metropolis, forsooth, and the octroi duties accordingly were insanely high.  The Republicans got wind of this bread riot, they organized the canuts in two camps, and fought among themselves.  Lyons had her Three Days, but order was restored, and the silk weavers went back to their dens.  Hitherto the canut had been honest; the silk for his work was weighed out to him in hanks, and he brought back the same weight of woven tissue; now he made up his mind that the silk merchants were oppressing him; he put honesty out at the door and rubbed oil on his fingers.  He still brought back weight for weight, but he sold the silk represented by the oil; and the French silk