outbreak. They have not the physical superiority that can master it, the
vulgar charlatanism which can charm it away, the tricks of a Scapin to
throw it off the scent, the bull's neck, the mountebank's gestures, the
stentor's lungs, in short, the resources of the energetic temperament
and of animal cunning, alone capable of diverting the rage of the
unchained brute. To find such fighters, they seek three or four men of
a different race and education, men having suffered and roamed about,
a brutal commoner like the abbe Maury, a colossal and dirty satyr like
Mirabeau, a bold and prompt adventurer like that Dumouriez who, at
Cherbourg, when, through the feebleness of the Duc de Beuvron, the
stores of grain were given up and the riot began, hooted at and nearly
cut to pieces, suddenly sees the keys of the storehouse in the hands of
a Dutch sailor, and, yelling to the mob that it was betrayed through
a foreigner having got hold of the keys, himself jumps down from the
railing, seizes the keys and hands them to the officer of the guard,
saying to the people, "I am your father, I am the man to be responsible
for the storehouse!"[2326] To entrust oneself with porters and brawlers,
to be collared by a political club, to improvise on the highways, to
bark louder than the barkers, to fight with the fists or a cudgel, as
much later with the young and rich gangs, against brutes and lunatics
incapable of employing other arguments, and who must be answered in
the same vein, to mount guard over the Assembly, to act as volunteer
constable, to spare neither one's own hide nor that of others, to be
one of the people to face the people, all these are simple and effectual
proceedings, but so vulgar as to appear to them disgusting. The idea of
resorting to such means never enters their head; they neither know how,
nor do they care to make use of their hands in such business.[2327] They
are skilled only in the duel and, almost immediately, the brutality of
opinion, by means of assaults, stops the way to polite combats. Their
arms, the shafts of the drawing-room, epigrams, witticisms, songs,
parodies, and other needle thrusts are impotent against the popular
bull.[2328] Their personality lacks both roots and resources; through
super-refinement it has weakened; their nature, impoverished by
culture, is incapable of the transformations by which we are renewed
and survive.--An all-powerful education has repressed, mollified, and
enfeebled their ve