The Report.
WHEN THE MEMBERS of the second and third orders had gone, seven associates remained in the lodge. They were the seven chiefs. They recognized each other by means of signs which proved their initiation to a superior degree.
Their first care was to close the doors. Then their president made himself known by displaying a ring, on which were engraved the mysterious letters, L. P. D.”
This president was charged with the most important correspondence of the order. He was in communication with the six other chiefs, who dwelt in Switzerland. Russia, America, Sweden, Spain, and Italy.
He brought with him some of the most important documents he had received from his colleagues, in order to communicate their contents to the superior circles of initiated brothers, who were above the others but beneath him.
We have already recognized this chief; it was Balsamo.
The most important of the letters contained a threatening advice. It was from Sweden, and written by Swedenborg.
“Watch the south, brothers,” he said; “under its burning rays has been hatched a traitor who will ruin you.
“Watch in Paris, brothers — the traitor dwells there; he possesses the secrets of the order, a feeling of hatred urges him on.
“A murmuring voice, a rustling flight, whispers the denunciation in my ear. I see a terrible vengeance coming, but perhaps it will be too late. In the meantime, brothers, watch! watch! A traitorous tongue, even though it be uninstructed, is sometimes sufficient to overthrow our most skillfully constructed plans.”
The brothers looked at each other in mute surprise. The language of the fierce old sage, his prescience, which had acquired an imposing authority from many striking examples, contributed in no small degree to cast a gloom over the meeting at which Balsamo presided. Balsamo himself, who placed implicit faith in Swedenborg’s second sight, could not resist the saddening influence which this letter had on the assembly.
“Brothers,” said he, “the inspired prophet is, rarely deceived. Watch, then, as he bids you. You know now, as I do, that the struggle commences. Let us not be conquered by these ridiculous enemies, whose power we sap in the utmost security. You must not forget that they have mercenary swords at their command. It is a powerful weapon in this world, among those who do not see beyond the limits of our terrestrial life. Brothers, let us distrust these hired traitors.”
“These fears seem to me puerile,” a voice; “we gather strength daily, and we are directed by brilliant genius and powerful hands.”
Balsamo bowed his thanks for the flattering eulogy.
“Yes, but as our illustrious president has said, treason creeps everywhere,” replied a brother, who was no other than the surgeon Marat, promoted, notwithstanding his youth, to a superior grade, in virtue of which he now sat for the first time on a consulting committee. “Remember, brothers, that by doubling the bait, you make a more important capture. If M. de Sartines with a bag of crownpieces can purchase the revelations of one of our obscurer brothers, the minister, with a million, or with holding out the hope of advancement, may buy over one of our superiors. Now, with us the obscurer brother knows nothing. At the most he is cognizant of the names of some of his colleagues, and these names signify nothing. Ours is an excellent constitution, but it is an eminently aristocratic one; the inferiors know nothing, can do nothing. They are called together to say or to hear trifles, and yet they contribute their time and their money to increase the solidity of our edifice. Reflect that the workman brings only the stone and the mortar, but without stone and mortar could you build the house? Now, the workman receives a very small salary, but I consider him equal to the architect who plans, creates, and superintends the whole work; and I consider him equal because he is a man, and in the eyes of a philosopher, one man is worth as much as another, seeing that he bears his misfortunes and his fate equally, and because, even more than another man, he is exposed to the fall of a stone or the breaking of a scaffold.”
“I must interrupt you, brother,” said Balsamo. “You diverge from the question which alone ought to occupy our thoughts. Your failing, brother, is that you are over zealous, and apt to generalize discussions. Our business on the present occasion is not to decide whether our constitution be good or bad, but to uphold the integrity of that constitution in all its strength. If I wished, however, to discuss the point with you, I would answer, no; the instrument which receives the impulse is not equal to the architect; the brain is not the equal of the arm!”
“Suppose M. de Sartines should seize one of our least important brethren!” cried Marat warmly, “would he not send him to rot in the Bastille equally with you or me?”
“Granted; but the misfortune in that case is for the individual only, not for the order, which is with us the all-important point. If, on the contrary, the chief were imprisoned, the whole conspiracy is at an end. When the general is absent, the army loses the battle. Therefore, brother, watch over the safety of the chiefs!”
“Yes, but let them in return watch over ours.”
“That is their duty.”
“And let their faults be doubly punished.”
“Again, brother, you wander from the constitution of the order. Have you forgotten that the oath which binds all the members of the associations is the same, and threatens all with the same punishment?”
“The great ones always escape!”
“That is not the opinion of the great themselves, brother. Listen to the conclusion of the letter which one of the greatest among us, our prophet Swedenborg, has written. This is what he adds:
“The blow will come from one of the mighty ones, one of the mightiest of the order; or, if it comes not directly from him, the fault will be traceable to him. Remember that fire and water may be accomplices; one gives light, the other revelation.
“Watch, brothers, over all and over each, watch!”
“Then,” said Marat, seizing upon those points in Balsamo’s speech and Swedenborg’s letter which suited his purpose, “let us repeat the oath which binds us together, and let us pledge ourselves to maintain it in its utmost vigor, whosoever he may be who shall betray us, or be the cause of our betrayal.”
Balsamo paused for a moment, and then, rising from his seat, he pronounced the consecrated words, with which our readers are already acquainted, in a slow, solemn, terrible voice:
“In the name of the crucified Son, I swear to break all the bonds of nature which unite me to father, mother, brother, sister, wife, relation, friend,, mistress, king, benefactor, and to any being whatsoever to whom I have promised faith, obedience, gratitude, or service.
“I swear to reveal to the chief, whom I acknowledge according to the statutes of the order, all that I have seen or done, read or guessed, and even to search out and penetrate that which may not of itself be openly present to my eyes.
“I will honor poison, steel, and fire, as a means of ridding the world, by death or idiocy, of the enemies of truth and liberty.
“I subscribe to the law of silence. I consent to die, as if struck by lightning, on the day when I shall have merited this punishment, and I await, without murmuring, the knife which will reach me in whatsoever part of the world I may be.”
Then, the seven men who composed this solemn assembly repeated the oath, word for word, standing, and with uncovered heads.
When the words of the oath had been repeated by all:
“We are now guaranteed against treachery,” said Balsamo; “let us no longer mingle extraneous matter with our discussion. I have to make my report to the committee of the principal events of the year.
“My summary of the affairs of France may have interest for enlightened and zealous minds like yours; I will commence with it.
“France is situated in the center of Europe, as the heart in the center of the body; it lives and radiates life. It is in its palpitations that we must look for the cause of all the disorder in the general organization.
“I came to France, therefore, and approached Paris as a physician approaches the heart. I listened, I felt, I experimented. When I entered it a year ago, the monarchy harassed it; to-day, vices kill it. I required to hasten the effect of these fatal debauches, and therefore I assisted them.
“An obstacle was in my way; this obstacle was a man, not only the first, but the most powerful man in the state, next to the king.
“He was gifted with some of those qualities which please other men. He was too proud, it is true, but his pride was applied to his works. He knew how to lighten the hardships of the people by making them believe and even feel sometimes that they were a portion of the state; and by sometimes consulting them on their grievances, he raised a standard around which the mass will always rally — the spirit of nationality.
“He hated the English, the natural enemies of the French; he hated the favorite, the natural enemy of the working classes. Now, if this man had been a usurper — if he had been one of us — if he would have trodden in our path, acted for our ends — I would have assisted him, I would have kept him in power, I would have upheld him by the resources I am able to create for my proteges; for, instead of patching up decayed royalty, he would have assisted us in overthrowing it on the appointed day. But he belonged to the aristocracy; he was born with a feeling of respect for that first rank to which he could not aspire, for the monarchy, which he dared not attack; he served royalty while despising the king; he did worse — he acted as a shield to this royalty against which our blows were directed. The parliament and the people, full of respect for this living dyke which opposed itself to any encroachment on the royal prerogative, limited themselves to a moderate resistance, certain as they were of having in him a powerful assistant when the moment should arrive.
“I understood the position — I undertook M. de Choiseul’s fall.
“This laborious task, at which for ten years so much hatred and interest had labored in vain, I commenced and terminated in a few months, by means which it would be useless to reveal to you. By a secret, which constitutes one of my powers — a power the greater, because it will remain eternally hidden from the eyes of all, and will manifest itself only by its effects — I overthrew and banished M. de Choiseul, and attached to his overthrow a long train of regret, disappointment, lamentation, and anger.
“You see now that my labor bears its fruit; all France asks for Choiseul, and rises to demand him back, as orphans turn to heaven when God has taken away their earthly parents.
“The parliament employs the only right it possesses — inertia; it has ceased to act. In a well-organized body, as a state of the first rank ought to be, the paralysis of any essential organ is fatal. Now, the parliament in the social is what the stomach is in the human body. When the parliament ceases to act, the people — the intestines of the state — can work no longer; and, consequently, must cease to pay, and the gold — that is, the blood — will be wanting.
“There will be a struggle, no doubt; but who can combat against the people? Not the army — that daughter of the people — which eats the bread of the laborer, and drinks the wine of the vine-grower. There remain then the king’s household, the privileged classes, the guards, the Swiss, the musketeers — in all, scarce five or six thousand men. What can this handful of pigmies do when the nation shall rise like a giant?”
“Let them rise, then — let them rise!” cried several voices.
“Yes, yes! to the work!” exclaimed Marat.
“Young man, I have not yet consulted you!” said Balsamo, coldly. “This sedition of the masses,” continued he, “this revolt of the weak, become strong by their number, against the powerful single-handed — less thoughtful, less ripened, less experienced minds would stimulate immediately, and would succeed with a facility which terrifies me; but I have reflected and studied — I have mixed with the people, and, under their dress, with their perseverance, even their coarseness, I have viewed them so closely, that I have made myself, as it were, one of themselves. I know them now; I cannot be deceived in them. They are strong, but ignorant; irritable, but not revengeful. In a word, they are not yet ripe for sedition such as I mean and wish for. They want the instruction which will make them see events in the double light of example and utility; they want the memory of their past experience.
“They resemble those daring young men whom I have seen in Germany, at the public festivals, eagerly climb a vessel’s mast, at the top of which hung a ham and a silver cup. They started at first burning with eagerness, and mounted with surprising rapidity; but when they had almost reached the goal — when they had only to extend the arm to seize their prize — their strength abandoned them, and they slipped to the bottom amid the hootings of the crowd.
“The first time it happened as I told you; the second time they husbanded their strength and their breath; but, taking more time, they failed by their slowness as they had before failed from too great haste. At last — the third time — they took a middle course between precipitation and delay, and this time they succeeded. This is the plan I propose; efforts — never ceasing efforts — which gradually approach the goal, until the day arrives when infallible success will crown our attempts.”
Balsamo ceased and looked around upon his audience, among whom the passions of youth and inexperience were boiling over.
“Speak, brother,” said he to Marat, who was more agitated than the others.
“I will be brief,” said he. “Efforts soothe the people when they do not discourage them. Efforts! that is the theory of M. Rousseau, citizen of Geneva, a great poet, but a slow and timid genius — a useless citizen, whom Plato would have driven from his republic! Wait! Ever wait! Since the emancipation of the commons, since the revolt of the muillotins — for seven centuries we have waited! Count the generations which have died in the meantime, and then dare to pronounce the fatal word wait! as your motto of the future! M. Rousseau speaks to us of opposition, as it was practiced in the reign of the Grand Monarque — as Moliere practiced it in his comedies, Boileau in his satires, and La Fontaine in his fables — whispering it in the ears of marchionesses, and prostrating it at the feet of kings. Poor and feeble opposition, which has not advanced the cause of humanity one jot! Lisping children recite these hidden theories without understanding them, and go to sleep while they recite. Rabelais also was a politician in your sense of the word; but at such politics people laugh, and correct nothing. Have you seen one single abuse redressed for the last three hundred years? Enough of poets and theoreticians! Let us have deeds, not words. We have given France up to the care of physicians for three hundred years, and it is time now that surgery should enter in its turn, scalpel and saw in hand. Society is gangrened; let us stop the gangrene with the steel. He may wait who rises from his table to recline upon a couch of roses, from which the ruffled leaves are blown by the breath of his slaves; for the satisfied stomach exhales grateful vapors which mount into the brain, and recreate and vivify it. But hunger, misery, despair, are not satiated nor consoled with verses, with sentences and fables. They cry out loudly in their sufferings; deaf, indeed, must he be who does not hear their lamentations — accursed he who does not reply to them! A revolt, even should it be crushed, will enlighten the minds more than a thousand years of precepts, more than three centuries of examples. It will enlighten the kings, if it do not overthrow them. That is much! — that is enough!”
A murmur of admiration rose from several lips.
“Where are our enemies?” pursued Marat. “Above us! Above us! They guard the doors of the palaces, they surround the steps of the throne. Upon this throne is their palladium, which they guard with more care and with more fear than the Trojans did theirs. This palladium, which makes them all-powerful, rich and insolent, is royalty. This royalty cannot be reached, save by passing over the bodies of those who guard it, as one can only reach the general by overthrowing the battalion by which he is surrounded. Well! History tells us of many battalions which have been captured — many generals who have been overthrown — from Darius to King John, from Regulus down to Duguesclin.
“If we overthrow the guard, we reach the idol. Let us begin by striking down the sentinels — we can afterward strike down the chief. Let the first attack be on the courtiers, the nobility, the aristocracy; the last will be upon the kings. Count the privileged heads; there are scarcely two hundred thousand. Walk through this beautiful garden called France, with a sharp switch in your hand, and cut down these two hundred thousand heads as Tarquin did the poppies of Latium, and all will be done. There will then be only two powers opposed to each other, the people and the kingship. Then let this kingship, the emblem, try to struggle with the people, this giant — and you will see! Where dwarfs wish to overthrow a colossus, they commence with the pedestal. When the woodmen wish to cut down the oak, they attack it at the foot. Woodmen! woodmen! seize the hatchet — attack the oak at its roots — and the ancient tree with its proud branches will soon bite the dust!”
“And will crush you like pigmies in its fall, unfortunate wretches that you are!” exclaimed Balsamo, in a voice of thunder. “Ah! you rail against the poets, and you speak in metaphors even more poetical and more imaginative than theirs! Brother! brother!” continued he, addressing Marat, “I tell you, you have quoted these sentences from some romance which you are composing in your garret!” Marat reddened.
“Do you know what a revolution is?” continued Balsamo; “I have seen two hundred, and can tell you. I have seen that of ancient Egypt, that of Assyria, those of Rome and Greece, and that of the Netherlands. I have seen those of the Middle Ages, when the nations rushed one against the other — East against West, West against East — and murdered without knowing why. From the Shepherd Kings to our own time there have been perhaps a hundred revolutions, and yet now you complain of being slaves. Revolutions, then, have done no good. And why? Because those who caused the revolution were all struck with the same vertigo — they were too hasty. Does God, who presides over the revolutions of the world, as genius presides over the revolutions of men — does He hasten?
“‘Cut down the oak!’ you cry. And you do not calculate that the oak, which needs but a second to fall, covers as much ground when it falls as a horse at a gallop would cross in thirty seconds. Now, those who throw down the oak, not having time to avoid the unforeseen fall, would be lost, crushed, killed, beneath its immense trunk. That is what you want, is it not? You will never get that from me. I shall be patient. I carry my fate — yours — the world’s — in the hollow of this hand. No one can make me open this hand, full of overwhelming truth, unless I wish to open it. There is thunder in it, I know. Well! the thunderbolt shall remain in it, as if hidden in the murky cloud. Brethren! brethren! descend from these sublime heights, and let us once more walk upon the earth.
“Sirs, I tell you plainly, and from my inmost soul, that the time has not yet come. The king who is on the throne is the last reflection of the great monarch whom the people still venerate; and in this fading monarchy there is yet something dazzling enough to outweigh the lightning shafts of your petty anger. This man was born a king and will die a king. His race is insolent but pure. You can read his origin on his brow, in his gestures, in his words — he will always be king. Overthrow him, and the same will happen to him as happened to Charles the First — his executioners will kneel before him, and the courtiers who accompanied him in his misfortune, like Lord Capel, will kiss the ax which struck off the head of their master.
“Now, sirs, you all know that England was too hasty. King Charles the First died upon the scaffold, indeed; but King Charles the Second, his son, died upon the throne.
“Wait, wait, brethren! for the time will soon be propitious. You wish to destroy the lilies. That is our motto—’Lilia pedibus destrue.’ But not a single root must leave the flower of Saint Louis the hope of blooming again. You wish to destroy royalty! to destroy royalty forever! You must first weaken her prestige as well as her essence. You wish to destroy royalty! Wait till royalty is no longer a sacred office, but merely a trade — till it is practiced in a shop, not in a temple. Now, what is most sacred in royalty — viz., the legitimate transmission of the throne, authorized for centuries by God and the people — is about to be lost forever. Listen, listen! This invincible, this impervious barrier between us nothings and these quasi-divine creatures — this limit which the people have never dared to cross, and which is called legitimacy — this word, brilliant as a lighted watch-tower, and which until now has saved the royal family from shipwreck — this word will be extinguished by the breath of a mysterious fatality!
“The dauphiness — called to France to perpetuate the race of kings by the admixture of imperial blood — the dauphiness, married now for a year to the heir of the French crown — approach, brethren, for I fear to let the sound of my words pass beyond your circle—”
“Well?” asked the six chiefs, with anxiety.
“Well, brethren, the dauphiness will never have an heir, or if one be born to her, he will die early!”
A sinister murmur, which would have frozen the monarchs of the world with terror had they heard it — such deep hatred, such revengeful joy, did it breathe — escaped like a deadly vapor from the little circle of six heads, which almost touched each other, Balsamo’s being bent over them from his rostrum.
“Now, gentlemen, you know this year’s work; you see the progress of our mines. Be assured that we shall only succeed by the genius and the courage of some, who will serve as the eyes and the brain — by the perseverance and labor of others, who will represent the arms — by the faith and the devotion of others again, who will be the heart.
“Above all, remember the necessity of a blind submission, which ordains that even your chief must sacrifice himself to the will of the statutes of the order, whenever those statutes require it.
“After this, gentlemen and beloved brothers, I would dissolve the meeting, if there were not still a good act to perform, an evil to point out.
“The great writer who came among us this evening, and who would have been one of us but for the stormy zeal of one of our brothers who alarmed his timid soul — this great author proved himself in the right before our assembly, and I deplore it as a misfortune that a stranger should be victorious before a majority of brothers who are imperfectly acquainted with our rules, and utterly ignorant of our aim.
“Rousseau, triumphing over the truths of our association with the sophisms of his books, represents a fundamental vice which I would extirpate by steel and fire, if I had not the hope of curing it by persuasion. The self-love of one of our brothers has developed itself most unfortunately. He has given us the worst in the discussion. No similar fact, I trust, will again present itself, or else I shall have recourse to the laws of discipline.
“In the meantime, gentlemen, propagate the faith by gentleness and persuasion. Insinuate it, do not impose it — do not force it into rebellious minds with wedges and blows, as the inquisitors tortured their victims. Remember that we cannot be great until after we have been acknowledged good; and that we cannot be acknowledged good but by appearing better than those who surround us. Remember, too, that among us the great, the good, the best, are nothing without science, art, and faith; nothing, in short, compared with those whom God has marked with a peculiar stamp, as if giving them an authority to govern over men and rule empires.
“Gentlemen, the meeting is dissolved.” After pronouncing these words. Balsamo put on his hat and folded himself in his cloak.
Each of the initiated left in his turn, alone and silently, in order not to awaken suspicion.