A caricature from _Charivari_ was trailing on the floor between some copies of the _Univers_. It represented a citizen the skirts of whose frock-coat allowed a tail to be seen with an eye at the end of it.

Marescot explained it amid much laughter.

They swallowed their liqueurs, and the ashes of their cigars fell on the paddings of the furniture.

The abbe, desirous to convince Girbal, began an attack on Voltaire.

Coulon fell asleep. M. de Faverges avowed his devotion to Chambord.

"The bees furnish an argument for monarchy."

"But the ants for the Republic." However, the doctor adhered to it no longer.

"You are right," said the sub-prefect; "the form of government matters little."

"With liberty," suggested Pecuchet.

"An honest man has no need of it," replied Foureau. "I make no speeches, for my part. I am not a journalist. And I tell you that France requires to be governed with a rod of iron."

All called for a deliverer. As they were going out, Bouvard and Pecuchet heard M. de Faverges saying to the Abbe Jeufroy:

"We must re-establish obedience. Authority perishes if it be made the subject of discussion. The Divine Right--there is nothing but that!"

"Exactly, Monsieur le Comte."

The pale rays of an October sun were lengthening out behind the woods. A moist wind was blowing, and as they walked over the dead leaves they breathed like men who had just been set free.

All that they had not found the opportunity of saying escaped from them in exclamations:

"What idiots!"

"What baseness!"

"How is it possible to imagine such obstinacy!"

"In the first place, what is the meaning of the Divine Right?"

Dumouchel's friend, that professor who had supplied them with instruction on the subject of aesthetics, replied to their inquiries in a learned letter.

"The theory of Divine Right was formulated in the reign of Charles II.

by the Englishman Filmer. Here it is:

"'The Creator gave the first man dominion over the world. It was transmitted to his descendants, and the power of the king emanates from G.o.d.'

"'He is His image,' writes Bossuet. 'The paternal empire accustoms us to the domination of one alone. Kings have been made after the model of parents.'

"Locke refuted this doctrine: 'The paternal power is distinguished from the monarchic, every subject having the same right over his children that the monarch has over his own. Royalty exists only through the popular choice; and even the election was recalled at the ceremony of coronation, in which two bishops, pointing towards the king, asked both n.o.bles and peasants whether they accepted him as such.'

"Therefore, authority comes from the people.

"'They have the right to do what they like,' says Helvetius; to 'change their const.i.tution,' says Vattel; to 'revolt against injustice,'

according to the contention of Glafey, Hotman, Mably, and others; and St. Thomas Aquinas authorises them to 'deliver themselves from a tyrant.' 'They are even,' says Jurieu, 'dispensed from being right.'"

Astonished at the axiom, they took up Rousseau's _Contrat Social_.

Pecuchet went through to the end. Then closing his eyes, and throwing back his head, he made an a.n.a.lysis of it.

"A convention is a.s.sumed whereby the individual gives up his liberty.

"The people at the same time undertook to protect him against the inequalities of nature, and made him owner of the things he had in his possession."

"Where is the proof of the contract?"

"Nowhere! And the community does not offer any guaranty. The citizens occupy themselves exclusively with politics. But as callings are necessary, Rousseau is in favour of slavery. 'The sciences have destroyed the human race. The theatre is corrupting, money fatal, and the state ought to impose a religion under the penalty of death.'"

"What!" said they, "here is the pontiff of democracy."

All the champions of reform had copied him; and they procured the _Examen du Socialisme_, by Morant.

The first chapter explained the doctrine of Saint-Simon.

At the top the Father, at the same time Pope and Emperor. Abolition of inheritance; all property movable and immovable forming a social fund, which should be worked on a hierarchical basis. The manufacturers are to govern the public fortune. But there is nothing to be afraid of; they will have as a leader the "one who loves the most."

One thing is lacking: woman. On the advent of woman depends the salvation of the world.

"I do not understand."

"Nor I."

And they turned to Fourierism:

"'All misfortunes come from constraint. Let the attraction be free, and harmony will be established.

"'In our souls are shut up a dozen leading pa.s.sions: five egoistical, four animistic, and three distributive. The first cla.s.s have reference to individuals, the second to groups, the last to groups of groups, or series, of which the whole forms a phalanx, a society of eighteen hundred persons dwelling in a palace. Every morning carriages convey the workers into the country, and bring them back in the evening. Standards are carried, festivities are held, cakes are eaten. Every woman, if she desires it, can have three men--the husband, the lover, and the procreator. For celibates, the Bayadere system is established----'"

"That fits me!" said Bouvard. And he lost himself in dreams of the harmonious world.

"'By the restoration of climatures, the earth will become more beautiful; by the crossing of races, human life will become longer. The clouds will be guided as the thunderbolt is now: it will rain at night in the cities so that they will be clean. Ships will cross the polar seas, thawed beneath the Aurora Borealis. For everything is produced by the conjunction of two fluids, male and female, gushing out from the poles, and the northern lights are a symptom of the blending of the planets--a prolific emission.'"

"This is beyond me!" said Pecuchet.

After Saint-Simon and Fourier the problem resolves itself into questions of wages.

Louis Blanc, in the interests of the working cla.s.s, wishes to abolish external commerce; Lafarelle to tax machinery; another to take off the drink duties, to restore trade wardenships, or to distribute soups.

Proudhon conceives the idea of a uniform tariff, and claims for the state the monopoly of sugar.

"These socialists," said Bouvard, "always call for tyranny."

"Oh, no!"