e was
going with his colleagues to ask for the creation of a Forum of Art, a
kind of Exchange where the interests of AEsthetics would be discussed.
Sublime masterpieces would be produced, inasmuch as the workers would
amalgamate their talents. Ere long Paris would be covered with gigantic
monuments. He would decorate them. He had even begun a figure of the
Republic. One of his comrades had come to take it, for they were closely
pursued by the deputation from the poulterers.

"What stupidity!" growled a voice in the crowd. "Always some humbug,
nothing strong!"

It was Regimbart. He did not salute Frederick, but took advantage of the
occasion to give vent to his own bitterness.

The Citizen spent his days wandering about the streets, pulling his
moustache, rolling his eyes about, accepting and propagating any dismal
news that was communicated to him; and he had only two phrases: "Take
care! we're going to be run over!" or else, "Why, confound it! they're
juggling with the Republic!" He was discontented with everything, and
especially with the fact that we had not taken back our natural
frontiers.

The very name of Lamartine made him shrug his shoulders. He did not
consider Ledru-Rollin "sufficient for the problem," referred to Dupont
(of the Eure) as an old numbskull, Albert as an idiot, Louis Blanc as an
Utopist, and Blanqui as an exceedingly dangerous man; and when Frederick
asked him what would be the best thing to do, he replied, pressing his
arm till he nearly bruised it:

"To take the Rhine, I tell you! to take the Rhine, damn it!"

Then he blamed the Reactionaries. They were taking off the mask. The
sack of the chateau of Neuilly and Suresne, the fire at Batignolles, the
troubles at Lyons, all the excesses and all the grievances, were just
now being exaggerated by having superadded to them Ledru-Rollin's
circular, the forced currency of bank-notes, the fall of the funds to
sixty francs, and, to crown all, as the supreme iniquity, a final blow,
a culminating horror, the duty of forty-five centimes! And over and
above all these things, there was again Socialism! Although these
theories, as new as the game of goose, had been discussed sufficiently
for forty years to fill a number of libraries, they terrified the
wealthier citizens, as if they had been a hailstorm of aerolites; and
they expressed indignation at them by virtue of that hatred which the
advent of every idea provokes, simply because it is an idea--a