_ BOOK III
THE CRIME
But this government, this horrible, hypocritical, and stupid government,--this government which causes us to hesitate between a laugh and a sob, this gibbet-constitution on which all our liberties are hung, this great universal suffrage and this little universal suffrage, the first naming the President, and the other the legislators; the little one saying to the great one: "_Monseigneur, accept these millions_," and the great one saying to the little one: "_Be assured of my consideration_;" this Senate,--this Council of State--whence do they all come? Great Heaven! have we already reached the point that it is necessary to remind the reader of their source?
Whence comes this government? Look! It is still flowing, it is still smoking,--it is blood!
The dead are far away, the dead are dead.
Ah! it is horrible to think and to say, but is it possible that we no longer think of it?
Is it possible that, because we still eat and drink, because the coachmakers' trade is flourishing, because you, labourer, have work in the Bois de Boulogne, because you, mason, earn forty sous a day at the Louvre, because you, banker, have made money in the mining shares of Vienna, or in the obligations of Hope and Co., because the titles of nobility are restored, because one can now be called _Monsieur le Comte_ or _Madame la Duchesse_, because religious processions traverse the streets on the Fete-Dieu, because people enjoy themselves, because they laugh, because the walls of Paris are covered with bills of fetes and theatres,--is it possible that, because these things are so, men forgot that there are corpses lying beneath?
Is it possible, that, because one has been to the ball at the Ecole Militaire, because one has returned home with dazzled eyes, aching head, torn dress and faded bouquet, because one has thrown one's self on one's couch, and fallen asleep, thinking of some handsome officer,--is it possible that one no longer remembers that under the turf, in an obscure grave, in a deep pit, in the inexorable gloom of death, there lies a motionless, ice-cold, terrible multitude,--a multitude of human beings already become a shapeless mass, devoured by worms, consumed by corruption, and beginning to blend with the earth around them--who existed, worked, thought, and loved, who had the right to live, and who were murdered?
Ah! if men recollect this no longer, let us recall it to the minds of those who forget! Awake, you who sleep! The dead are about to pass before your eyes. _