"Men and events count for nothing," said the Republican, following out his theory in spite of hiccoughs; "in politics, as in philosophy, there are only principles and ideas.""What an abomination! Then you would ruthlessly put your friends to death for a shibboleth?""Eh, sir! the man who feels compunction is your thorough scoundrel, for he has some notion of virtue; while Peter the Great and the Duke of Alva were embodied systems, and the pirate Monbard an organization.""But can't society rid itself of your systems and organizations?" said Canalis.
"Oh, granted!" cried the Republican.
"That stupid Republic of yours makes me feel queasy. We sha'n't be able to carve a capon in peace, because we shall find the agrarian law inside it.""Ah, my little Brutus, stuffed with truffles, your principles are all right enough. But you are like my valet, the rogue is so frightfully possessed with a mania for property that if I left him to clean my clothes after his fashion, he would soon clean me out.""Crass idiots!" replied the Republican, "you are for setting a nation straight with toothpicks. To your way of thinking, justice is more dangerous than thieves.""Oh, dear!" cried the attorney Deroches.
"Aren't they a bore with their politics!" said the notary Cardot.
"Shut up. That's enough of it. There is no knowledge nor virtue worth shedding a drop of blood for. If Truth were brought into liquidation, we might find her insolvent.""It would be much less trouble, no doubt, to amuse ourselves with evil, rather than dispute about good. Moreover, I would give all the speeches made for forty years past at the Tribune for a trout, for one of Perrault's tales or Charlet's sketches.""Quite right! . . . Hand me the asparagus. Because, after all, liberty begets anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and despotism back again to liberty. Millions have died without securing a triumph for any one system. Is not that the vicious circle in which the whole moral world revolves? Man believes that he has reached perfection, when in fact he has but rearranged matters.""Oh! oh!" cried Cursy, the vaudevilliste; "in that case, gentlemen, here's to Charles X., the father of liberty.""Why not?" asked Emile. "When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.
"Let us drink to the imbecility of authority, which gives us such an authority over imbeciles!" said the good banker.
"Napoleon left us glory, at any rate, my good friend!" exclaimed a naval officer who had never left Brest.
"Glory is a poor bargain; you buy it dear, and it will not keep. Does not the egotism of the great take the form of glory, just as for nobodies it is their own well-being?""You are very fortunate, sir----"
"The first inventor of ditches must have been a weakling, for society is only useful to the puny. The savage and the philosopher, at either extreme of the moral scale, hold property in equal horror.""All very fine!" said Cardot; "but if there were no property, there would be no documents to draw up.""These green peas are excessively delicious!""And the cure was found dead in his bed in the morning. . . .""Who is talking about death? Pray don't trifle, I have an uncle.""Could you bear his loss with resignation?"
"No question."
"Gentlemen, listen to me! HOW TO KILL AN UNCLE. Silence! (Cries of "Hush! hush!") In the first place, take an uncle, large and stout, seventy years old at least, they are the best uncles. (Sensation.) Get him to eat a pate de foie gras, any pretext will do.""Ah, but my uncle is a thin, tall man, and very niggardly and abstemious.""That sort of uncle is a monster; he misappropriates existence.""Then," the speaker on uncles went on, "tell him, while he is digesting it, that his banker has failed.""How if he bears up?"
"Let loose a pretty girl on him."
"And if----?" asked the other, with a shake of the head.
"Then he wouldn't be an uncle--an uncle is a gay dog by nature.""Malibran has lost two notes in her voice."
"No, sir, she has not."
"Yes, sir, she has."
"Oh, ho! No and yes, is not that the sum-up of all religious, political, or literary dissertations? Man is a clown dancing on the edge of an abyss.""You would make out that I am a fool."
"On the contrary, you cannot make me out."
"Education, there's a pretty piece of tomfoolery. M. Heineffettermach estimates the number of printed volumes at more than a thousand millions; and a man cannot read more than a hundred and fifty thousand in his lifetime. So, just tell me what that word education means. For some it consists in knowing the name of Alexander's horse, of the dog Berecillo, of the Seigneur d'Accords, and in ignorance of the man to whom we owe the discovery of rafting and the manufacture of porcelain.
For others it is the knowledge how to burn a will and live respected, be looked up to and popular, instead of stealing a watch with half-a-dozen aggravating circumstances, after a previous conviction, and so perishing, hated and dishonored, in the Place de Greve.""Will Nathan's work live?"
"He has very clever collaborators, sir."
"Or Canalis?"
"He is a great man; let us say no more about him.""You are all drunk!"
"The consequence of a Constitution is the immediate stultification of intellects. Art, science, public works, everything, is consumed by a horribly egoistic feeling, the leprosy of the time. Three hundred of your bourgeoisie, set down on benches, will only think of planting poplars. Tyranny does great things lawlessly, while Liberty will scarcely trouble herself to do petty ones lawfully.""Your reciprocal instruction will turn out counters in human flesh,"broke in an Absolutist. "All individuality will disappear in a people brought to a dead level by education.""For all that, is not the aim of society to secure happiness to each member of it?" asked the Saint-Simonian.
