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kill, a baker who would bake, men must eat! "To make universal labor
fold its arms is a chimera!" said Jules Favre, "a dream! The People
fight for three days, for four days, for a week; society will not wait
indefinitely." As to the situation, it was doubtless terrible, it was
doubtless tragical, and blood flowed, but who had brought about this
situation? Louis Bonaparte. For ourselves we would accept it, such as it
was, and nothing more.
Emile de Girardin, steadfast, logical, absolute in his idea, persisted.
Some might be shaken. Arguments, which were so abundant in this vigorous
and inexhaustible mind, crowded upon him. As for me, I saw Duty before
me like a torch.
I interrupted him. I cried out, "It is too late to deliberate what we
are to do. We have not got to do it. It is done. The gauntlet of the
coup d'état is thrown down, the Left takes it up. The matter is as
simple as this. The outrage of the Second December is an infamous,
insolent, unprecedented defiance to Democracy, to Civilization, to
Liberty, to the People, to France. I repeat that we have taken up this
gauntlet, we are the Law, but the living Law which at need can arm
itself and fight. A gun in our hands is a protest. I do not know whether
we shall conquer, but it is our duty to protest. To protest first in
Parliament; when Parliament is closed, to protest in the street; when
the street is closed, to protest in exile; when exile is fulfilled, to
protest in the tomb. Such is our part, our office, our mission. The
authority of the Representatives is elastic; the People bestow it,
events extend it."
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