commencement of a reform
under the law which we design to make a revolution paramount to all
law."

"They begin to fear already that they have gone too far, those discreet
men!" said Louis Blanc, smiling bitterly. "Did you observe how they
shuffled to-night at M. Barrot's, and finally resolved to abandon the
banquet, but, as a sop to the people, pledged themselves to impeach the
Ministry?"

"Ah! ha! ha!" laughed Ledru Rollin; "just as if their abandonment of the
banquet is to keep the people away from it to-morrow, any more than the
Ministerial ordinances! Why, not one man in ten thousand knows of the
existence of these manifestoes! But the faubourgs have been promised a
holiday for a fortnight past, and they don't intend to be put off
again."

"Whether the Dynastics designed or wished to be compromised in this
affair," remarked Marrast, "they certainly are committed now, and it is
too late for them to get out of the movement. Indeed, I view it as
nothing less than a union of all the oppositions against the Crown--aye,
against the Crown, and for a republic! We comprehend this--they don't.
They have not, like us, waited seventeen years for a signal for
revolution;--and now, before God, I believe the hour is at hand! This is
no accidental insurrection of the 5th and 6th of June, '32--no outbreak
at a funeral--no riot of operatives--no unmeaning revolt, as in '39. It
is a reform, with the first names in France as its advocates and
supporters, which we will make a revolution if we can secure the
National Guard."

"The National Guard is secured already," said Louis Blanc. "Are they
not of the people? At least twenty thousand of the National Guard are
Republicans. Of the remaining forty thousand, nearly all are well
disposed or neutral in feeling. Have I studied the National Guard for
twenty years in vain, and have all the measures of the Communists to
secure them, when the crisis came on, proved utterly ineffectual? On the
National Guard we may rely. The Municipal Guard are picked men, and well
paid to support the Throne--they will fight even better than the Line.
With the Line and the National Guard the people must seek to fraternize
from the beginning--with the other troops they have solely to
fight--but, after all, general facts and principles only can be laid
down. Circumstances utterly beyond human control must direct and govern,
and vary and determine results when the period of action arrives; and
arrive it may