Dantès, Edmond (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; France -- History -- February Revolution, 1848
"But the instances you cite are those only of individual rashness,
Louis, and not of the people, or of their leaders acting in concert,"
remarked Marrast.
"True, concert of action has been chiefly needed, but I have only to
recall the dates and places of our repeated attempts and defeats, for
the past ten years, to convince you all that those attempts were
premature, and had they not been so, they might have been
successful--that they have frittered away energies which, properly
concentrated and directed, might have achieved a revolution; and that
while they have betrayed our designs and depressed our friends, have
enabled our foes insultingly to triumph and caused them to be on the
constant qui vive to anticipate our movements. What but premature and
undigested uprisings were the conspiracy of the bell-tower of Notre
Dame, in January of '32, when 'Le National' was seized--or the
disturbances in La Vendee--or those in Grenoble--or those in
Marseilles--or those in the Rue des Prouvaires--or those in April,
during the cholera, when Casimir Perier died--or those of the 5th and
6th of June, on the occasion of General Lamarque's funeral, on pretence
of avenging upon the Government the affront offered during the
obsequies of Casimir Perier, the victim-Premier of the cholera? For the
part taken by 'La Tribune,' then conducted by Marrast, in this revolt,
its press was seized and sealed. The same was the fate of 'La
Quotidienne,' and the same would have been the fate of 'Le National,'
but for its barricades. Well do I remember the meeting of our friends in
this very apartment on the night after General Lamarque's funeral. The
great shade of the venerable warrior seemed among us, repeating for our
counsel and imitation his last impressive words, 'I die but the cause
lives!' But, alas! we observed it not. Doubt, dissension, dismay and
despair were in our midst. All was dark--all was defiance and
denunciation, crimination and recrimination--brother's hand raised
against brother. Armand Carrel that night sat in this chair, but he was
not the man to command his own will or opinions; how could he then bring
to obedience and concert the conflicting impulses of others? Armand
Carrel was a wonderful man. His motto, like that of Danton, was this:
'Audacity, audacity, always audacity!' Yet with all the audacity of
Danton, he had little of his firmness. An officer under the Restoration,
a conspirator at Bifort, in arms in Spain against the white flag, three
times a prisoner before a council of war--in 1830 he was with Thiers,
the founder of this journal; but everywhere he carried the exactitude of
the camp; even in dress, manner and bearing he was a soldier--lofty,
haughty, seemingly overbearing, yet, at heart, noble and generous, and
to his friends accessible in the extreme. To his military notions,
nothing could be accomplished without soldiers, and for the people to
carry a revolution against soldiers seemed to him absurd."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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