The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-12 00:00:00

LOUIS BLANC

The following letter has been addressed to the
editor of a morning Contemporary by Louis Blanc
is cruel to be compelled again to take up
the pen, when the soul is horror-stricken and the
hand seeks a sword.

There are things, however, of which it is abso-
lutely necessary that public opinion in Europe should
be informed.

In my own country, momentarily crushed, the
preis is dumb : I have recourse to that of a free people.
Nothing is finished, Sir. A mock Caaiar, supported
by his drunken pretorian guards, cannot impose him-
self on France. It is not by cannon shot that the
French revolution can be driven back. Nothing is
finished.

This is what every one says ; it is at least what
every one thinks. If I had only to prove this my
letter would be useless.

But one fact stands forth in the history of our
recent disasters, unforeseen, strange, most important
to explain, and of which the key is to be found in
the information which I have received since my de-
parture from London.
That an army of 100,000 men, disciplined, expe-
rienced, formed of chosen regiments, and supported
by a formidable artillery, should have held Paris i❑
check—Paris taken unprepared—Paris long since
disarmed—Paris without ammunition and without
pikes—what is there surprising in this ? And
yet, had the faubourgs thrown themselves en
masse into the insurrection, of two things one would
assuredly have happened. Either this army of 100,000
men would have been destroyed, or Louis Bonaparte
would have escaped the execrable distinction of remain-
ing erect amid corpses and ruins—so great is the in-
trepidity of the people of Paris ; such is the devotion,
such the intelligence which it brings to the combats
of liberty.
But the working men, taken cn masse, have not
engaged in the struggle. This is certain. Why
is it so ? _ _ _

Why ? Because their first words were " C'est bien
fait," when they heard of the dissolution of the As-
sembly which had sickened and disgusted them ;
when they heard of the arrest of M. Thiers, who had
spoken of them as the rile multitude, of the arrest of
General Cavaignac, who in the month of June had
fired upon and decimated their ranks ; and of General
Changarnier, of whom the reactionists boasted as a
captain capable of insulting by the use of the whip,
as well as of striking with the sword.
Placed between the maintenance of the robber law
of May and the pretended restitution of universal suf-
frage, between the danger of a monarchical restora-
tion and that of a sham republic, between the obsti-
nate denial of its rights and a hypocritical homage
rendered to its sovereignty, the people retired, leaving
the field to the two tyrannies, of which one would
serve to destroy the other, and reserving its blood
for less equivocal triumphs. The defeat of the
President, might it not result in the reinstalla-
tion of the Assembly, repudiating the people in in-
surrection after having drained its life blood, pro-
claiming itself the only legitimate power, taking pos-
session of the army, creating for its own purposes a
Parliamentary dictator, and taking into its service
some new ill-omened hero of June; and then, with
loaded cannon, turned against the people, how could
they come and demand a reckoning from their new
master?

It is true that the victory of the President was also
an immense peril. But here at least one resource re-
mained to try—the vote.
It is true on the other hand, that the people once
master of the streets, would have been more in a po-
sition to dictate than to submit to laws ; but it had
already so often had to see, in the confusion which
follows a battle, France robbed of the price of the
victory which had been gained. Distrust had even
been shown towards it, and in its turn it was dis-
trustful. The other day the Times, speaking for the
representatives of the bourgeoisie, supposed them to
say, Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis. Alas !
the people on its side, with regard to the representa-
tives of the bourgeoisie, has had the very same senti-
ment which these words express. Here is the hor-
rible, the melancholy fatality which has denominated
the occasion.
God grant that this experience may be profitable to
all. It has become absolutely necessary that the
bourgeoisie should lay on one side its unjust sus-
picions, stretch a friendly hand to the people, and con-
sent henceforth to be one with it. Here is the only
safety of liberty and civilization.
How profound and terrible a lesson!
The members of the Parliamentary majority had
triumphantly inaugurated the system of the state of
siege—and behold they themselves are made to un-
dergo its utmost rigours.
They had disarmed their fellow-citizens ; and be-
hold arms are wanting against the sanguinary domi-
nation of the soldier.

They had never ceased to decry the constitution ;
by their law of May they destroyed it ; and the con-
stitution is no longer a protection to them.
They had allowed the principle of national repre-
sentation to be odiously outraged in the persons of
their colleagues of the Loft; and drunken corporals
now lay rough hands upon them.
When the Mountain revolted against the people
being called the vile multitude, they cried out with
insolent irony, "allons done," and when they seek a
people ready to fight for their quarrel, those who
would have combatted may say—" And is this, then,
the vile multitude, which is not fit to rote, fit to die ?

A lions done."
Thii is the immortal lesson contained in the events
which have now occurred. I repeat it—let its
bearing he studied, let it be understood. The
bourgeoisie and the people must be one, and all
is saved.

And when I say " all is saved," I speak not only 01
France.

To divide Europe into three great empires—a
Russian empire extending to Constantinople; an Aus-
trian empire, with the definitive annexation of Italy ;
a French empire, with the addition of Belgium. From
this new holy alliance between these three despotic
empires to cause to arise a war to the death against
the Democratic party, and against the Liberal and
Constitutional party; todistinguish between the armies'
tread what the absolutist powers call the revolutionary
flame—that is to say, whatever lights the human
spirit on the way of progress—and if England resists
to crush her. . . . . Such is the plan (who can
doubt it longer ?)—such is the sacrilegious plan of
which the sack of Paris is the commencement, and for
the accomplishment of which Louis Bonaparte has
delivered France into the hands of French Cossacks.
On the reality of this plan, and on the abominable
complicity which binds to the fortune of the Emperor
Nicholas the ambition of Louis Bonaparte, I may be
able very shortly to publish some proofs, which I am
now in course of collecting. We can then judge of
the important influence which Russian gold exercises
in the humiliation and misfortunes of France.
Meanwhile, Sir, it is indispensable that Europe
should know that the issue of these last events is at-
tributable neither to the indifference of the people nor
to the cooling of its spirit—nor, least of all, to its
Bonapartism—a word impossible to write without a
blush.
And this will remain true, even should the result of
a shameless management of the vote appear to indicate
the contrary. No, no ; the people of France has not
deserted all its traditions of courage, of noble pride,
of devotion to liberty. Adopting the famous expres-
sion which Sieyes applied to the Assembly of 1789,
fallen for a moment under the blow of brute force—
" The people is to-day what it was before."
Dec. 9, 1851.