or six men were killed. And when knights went
to the wars, at least they were not forced to do it;
they died for their pleasure. They were good for
nothing else. Nobody in the time of Saint Louis
would have thought of sending to battle a man of learning.
And the laborer was not torn from the soil to be killed.
Nowadays it is a duty for a poor peasant to be a soldier.
He is exiled from his house, the roof of which smokes
in the silence of night; from the fat prairies where
the oxen graze; from the fields and the paternal woods.
He is taught how to kill men; he is threatened, insulted,
put in prison and told that it is an honor; and, if
he does not care for that sort of honor, he is fusilladed.
He obeys because he is terrorized, and is of all domestic
animals the gentlest and most docile. We are
warlike in France, and we are citizens. Another
reason to be proud, this being a citizen! For
the poor it consists in sustaining and preserving
the wealthy in their power and their laziness.
The poor must work for this, in presence of the majestic
quality of the law which prohibits the wealthy as
well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges,
from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread.
That is one of the good effects of the Revolution.
As this Revolution was made by fools and idiots for
the benefit of those who acquired national lands,
and resulted in nothing but making the fortune of crafty
peasants and financiering bourgeois, the Revolution
only made stronger, under the pretence of making all
men equal, the empire of wealth. It has betrayed
France into the hands of the men of wealth. They
are masters and lords. The apparent government,
composed of poor devils, is in the pay of the financiers.
For one hundred years, in this poisoned country, whoever
has loved the poor has been considered a traitor to
society. A man is called dangerous when he says
that there are wretched people. There are laws
against indignation and pity, and what I say here could
not go into print.”
Choulette became excited and waved his knife, while
under the wintry sunlight passed fields of brown earth,
trees despoiled by winter, and curtains of poplars
beside silvery rivers.
He looked with tenderness at the figure carved on
his stick.
“Here you are,” he said, “poor humanity,
thin and weeping, stupid with shame and misery, as
you were made by your masters—soldiers and
men of wealth.”
The good Madame Marmet, whose nephew was a captain
in the artillery, was shocked at the violence with
which Choulette attacked the army. Madame Martin
saw in this only an amusing fantasy. Choulette’s
ideas did not frighten her. She was afraid of
nothing. But she thought they were a little absurd.
She did not think that the past had ever been better
than the present.
“I believe, Monsieur Choulette, that men were
always as they are to-day, selfish, avaricious, and
pitiless. I believe that laws and manners were
always harsh and cruel to the unfortunate.”