What took place at their meeting was long in dispute. Enemies of Philippine independence have asserted that in wrathfully rejecting Bonifacio’s appeal Rizal declared himself against any effort for national freedom. This is in accordance with a common process of over-emphasizing (for propaganda effect) Rizal’s dislike of force and doubt of the present readiness of his people for self-government. It is certain that he declined Valenzuela’s proposal and with some heat; [198] we may also believe that with all his might he strove to dissuade his countrymen from violence. Yet there is testimony extant that when he found all his pleadings were useless and the violence he feared was but too likely he admitted that he could not in any event separate his sympathies from his struggling countrymen. The disputed versions of his reply are not worth the attention they have had, because, as has been pointed out here and more than once, Rizal’s convictions on these matters are clear. One obvious reflection is enough to illustrate them. If he had lived through such strenuous days as followed 1896 he would have been found in the front ranks of those that fought for freedom and yet would never have ceased to mourn that freedom could not be won in another way. As to this, “El Filibusterismo,” if there were nothing else, would be testimony enough; and if Philippine independence involved only sentimental and not commercial interests there would be no attempt to distort or to obscure it. When Bonifacio received Valenzuela’s report of Rizal’s decision, he swore, after his fashion, and determined to press on with his own plans and forget the exile. Against the notion that the Philippines were unready for revolution or unfitted for self-government he set himself like a man in a battle that has thrown away fear with his scabbard. He recalled that, weighing duly the relative strengths of the antagonists, the American colonists were not worse prepared for the struggle that set them free. Most revolutions, history had taught him, had been begun by people that fought with broken weapons or bare hands; witness Camille Desmoulins and the ragged crowd he led from the café in the courtyard of the Palais Royal that fateful night in July. Hardly a weapon among them all more deadly than a hammer, and yet to the echo of their feet fell absolute government in every corner of Europe. All the world now honors those empty hands; on the very spot where Desmoulins addressed the crowd, behold now his statue! Are revolutions ever wrought by well ordered ranks of daintily uniformed guards? Are they ever launched when every condition is fitted, like joiner-work, to their success? And, in fact, are they ever made to any man’s volition or by anything but blind destiny that sits behind the whirlwind?