Marcelo was opposed to the Empire like all the youths of his generation.  He was also much influenced by the older workmen who had taken part in the Republic of ’48, and who still retained vivid recollections of the Coup d’Etat of the second of December.

One day he saw in the streets of Marseilles a popular manifestation in favor of peace which was practically a protest against the government.  The old republicans in their implacable struggle with the Emperor, the companies of the International which had just been organized, and a great number of Italians and Spaniards who had fled their countries on account of recent insurrections, composed the procession.  A long-haired, consumptive student was carrying the flag.  “It is peace that we want—­a peace which may unite all mankind,” chanted the paraders.  But on this earth, the noblest propositions are seldom heard, since Destiny amuses herself in perverting them and turning them aside.

Scarcely had the friends of peace entered the rue Cannebiere with their hymn and standard, when war came to meet them, obliging them to resort to fist and club.  The day before, some battalions of Zouaves from Algiers had disembarked in order to reinforce the army on the frontier, and these veterans, accustomed to colonial existence and undiscriminating as to the cause of disturbances, seized the opportunity to intervene in this manifestation, some with bayonets and others with ungirded belts.  “Hurrah for War!” and a rain of lashes and blows fell upon the unarmed singers.  Marcelo saw the innocent student, the standard-bearer of peace, knocked down wrapped in his flag, by the merry kicks of the Zouaves.  Then he knew no more, since he had received various blows with a leather strap, and a knife thrust in his shoulder; he had to run the same as the others.

That day developed for the first time, his fiery, stubborn character, irritable before contradiction, even to the point of adopting the most extreme resolution.  “Down with War!” Since it was not possible for him to protest in any other way, he would leave the country.  The Emperor might arrange his affairs as best he could.  The struggle was going to be long and disastrous, according to the enemies of the Empire.  If he stayed, he would in a few months be drawn for the soldiery.  Desnoyers renounced the honor of serving the Emperor.  He hesitated a little when he thought of his mother.  But his country relatives would not turn her out, and he planned to work very hard and send her money.  Who knew what riches might be waiting for him, on the other side of the sea! . . .  Good-bye, France!