"Concert of action," said M. Dantes, mildly, "is always an indispensable requisite in the accomplishment of every enterprise which relies for its success on association, or the combined efforts of individuals laboring for a common end; yet, with all the concert of action which can possibly be attained, the best arranged and best digested scheme in the world may be ruined by premature movement. Of this we surely have sad proof in the history of the past ten years alluded to. There is something of truth in the declaration so frequently made that the French people are not yet prepared for freedom. If this be so, then it is the duty of their friends to prepare them. It is folly to suppose that the masses should, at first, intuitively know all their rights and the best mode of vindicating them. This they must be taught; and, to this end, the press should be unceasingly at work, not only all over France, but all over Europe, in diffusing correct views upon life and labor, and political rights and powers. There should be, also, concert of action among the friends of freedom, and clubs should at once be instituted in every city, town and village in France, which should be in private and intimate correspondence with similar clubs at Paris and in all the capitals of Christendom. There should, likewise, be unity of action introduced among the masses themselves. In a city like Paris, and among a people like the French, secret signals can easily be arranged, by which, at any hour of the night, or of the day, fifty thousand laborers in their blouses might be concentrated at any point where their presence is required, and that, too, with arms in their hands furnished from secret arsenals; and thus would those pitiable slaughters of helpless insurgents, like those of sheep in the shambles, we have so often witnessed, be avoided, if nothing besides were gained. The people are ever but too ready to pour out their blood, and the most difficult and delicate task in our enterprise is, after all, to restrain them--to impress upon them the all important maxim, without which nothing great, good or enduring is achieved, those three words in which all human wisdom is contained, 'Wait and hope.'" "And for what are we to wait and hope, for which we have not already in vain waited and hoped the past ten years?" asked Marrast. "The true hour to strike!" was the firm answer. "And that hour, when will it come?"