is, of how little weight are the reproaches now brought against
me!

"It is true that one does not efface the other; but, after all, are
we not acting on the defensive when we respond to the blows which we
receive from above? I know very well that I shall be told that I
ought to have confined myself to speech for the vindication of the
people's claims. But what can you expect! It takes a loud voice to
make the deaf hear. Too long have they answered our voices by
imprisonment, the rope, rifle volleys. Make no mistake; the
explosion of my bomb is not only the cry of the rebel Vaillant, but
the cry of an entire class which vindicates its rights, and which
will soon add acts to words. For, be sure of it, in vain will they
pass laws. The ideas of the thinkers will not halt; just as, in the
last century, all the governmental forces could not prevent the
Diderots and the Voltaires from spreading emancipating ideas among
the people, so all the existing governmental forces will not prevent
the Reclus, the Darwins, the Spencers, the Ibsens, the Mirbeaus, from
spreading the ideas of justice and liberty which will annihilate the
prejudices that hold the mass in ignorance. And these ideas,
welcomed by the unfortunate, will flower in acts of revolt as they
have done in me, until the day when the disappearance of authority
shall permit all men to organize freely according to their choice,
when we shall each be able to enjoy the product of his labor, and
when those moral maladies called prejudices shall vanish, permitting
human beings to live in harmony, having no other desire than to study
the sciences and love their fellows.

"I conclude, gentlemen, by saying that a society in which one sees
such social inequalities as we see all about us, in which we see
every day suicides caused by poverty, prostitution flaring at every
street corner,--a society whose principal monuments are barracks and
prisons,--such a society must be transformed as soon as possible, on
pain of being eliminated, and that speedily, from the human race.
Hail to him who labors, by no matter what means, for this
transformation! It is this idea that has guided me in my duel with
authority, but as in this duel I have only wounded my adversary, it
is now its turn to strike me.

"Now, gentlemen, to me it matters little what penalty you may
inflict, for, looking at this assembly with the eyes of reason, I can
not help smiling to see you, atoms lost in matter,