The appeal was allowed, and Pyrot was brought down from his cage. But the
Anti-Pyrotists did not regard themselves as beaten. The military judges
re-tried Pyrot. Greatauk, in this second affair, surpassed himself. He
obtained a second conviction; he obtained it by declaring that the proofs
communicated to the Supreme Court were worth nothing, and that great care had
been taken to keep back the good ones, since they ought to remain secret. In
the opinion of connoisseurs he had never shown so much address. On leaving the
court, as he passed through the vestibule with a tranquil step, and his hands
behind his back, amidst a crowd of sight-seers, a woman dressed in red and
with her face covered by a black veil rushed at him, brandishing a kitchen
knife.
"Die, scoundrel!" she cried. It was Maniflore. Before those present could
understand what was happening, the general seized her by the wrist, and with
apparent gentleness, squeezed it so forcibly that the knife fell from her
aching hand.
Then he picked it up and handed it to Maniflore.
"Madam," said he with a bow, "you have dropped a household utensil."
He could not prevent the heroine from being taken to the police-station; but
he had her immediately released and afterwards he employed all his influence
to stop the prosecution.
The second conviction of Pyrot was Greatauk's last victory.
Justice Chaussepied, who had formerly liked soldiers so much, and esteemed
their justice so highly,, being now enraged with the military judges, quashed
their judgments as a monkey cracks nuts. He rehabilitated Pyrot a second time;
he would, if necessary, have rehabilitated him five hundred times.
Furious at having been cowards and at having allowed themselves to be deceived
and made game of, the Republicans turned against the monks and clergy. The
deputies passed laws of expulsion, separation, and spoliation against them.
What Father Cornemuse had foreseen took place. That good monk was driven from
the Wood of Conils. Treasury officers confiscated his retorts and his stills,
and the liquidators divided amongst them his bottles of St. Oberosian liqueur.
The pious distiller lost the annual income of three million five hundred
thousand francs that his products procured for him. Father Agaric went into
exile, abandoning his school into the hands of laymen, who soon allowed it to
fall into decay. Separated from its foster-mother, the State, the Church of
Penguinia withered like a plucked flower.
The victorious defenders of the innocent man now abused each other and
overwhelmed each other reciprocally with insults and calumnies. The vehement
Kerdanic hurled himself upon Phoenix as if ready to devour him. The wealthy
Jews and the seven hundred Pyrotists turned away with disdain from the
socialist comrades whose aid they had humbly implored in the past.
"We know you no longer," said they. "To the devil with you and your social
justice. Social justice is the defence of property."
Having been elected a Deputy and chosen to be the leader of the new majority,
comrade Larrivee was appointed by the Chamber and public opinion to the
Premiership. He showed himself an energetic defender of the military tribunals
that had condemned Pyrot. When his former socialist comrades claimed a little
more justice and liberty for the employes of the State as well as for manual
workers, he opposed their proposals in an eloquent speech.
"Liberty," said he, "is not licence. Between order and disorder my choice is
made: revolution is impotence. Progress has no more formidable enemy than
violence. Gentlemen, those who, as I am, are anxious for reform, ought to
apply themselves before everything else to cure this agitation which enfeebles
government just as fever exhausts those who are ill. It is time to reassure
honest people."
This speech was received with applause. The government of the Republic
remained in subjection to the great financial companies, the army was
exclusively devoted to the defence of capital, while the fleet was designed
solely to procure fresh orders for the mine-owners. Since the rich refused to
pay their just share of the taxes, the poor, as in the past, paid for them.
In the mean time from the height of his old steamline, beneath the crowded
stars of night, Bidault-Coquille gazed sadly at the sleeping city. Maniflore
had left him. Consumed with a desire for fresh devotions and fresh sacrifices,
she had gone in company with a young Bulgarian to bear justice and vengeance
to Sofia. He did not regret her, having perceived after the Affair, that she
was less beautiful in form and in thought than he had at first imagined. His
impressions had been modified in the same direction concerning many other
forms and many other thoughts. And what was cruelest of all to him, he
regarded himself as not so great, not so splendid, as he had believed.
And he reflected:
"You considered yourself sublime when you had but candour and good-will. Of
what were you proud, Bidault-Coquille? Of having been one of the first to know
that Pyrot was innocent and Greatauk a scoundrel. But three-fourths of those
who defended Greatauk against the attacks of the seven hundred Pyrotists knew
that better than you. Of what then did you show yourself so proud? Of having
dared to say what you thought? That is civic courage, and, like military
courage, it is a mere result of imprudence. You have been imprudent. So far so
good, but that is no reason for praising yourself beyond measure. Your
imprudence was trifling; it exposed you to trifling perils; you did not risk
your head by it. The Penguins have lost that cruel and sanguinary pride which
formerly gave a tragic grandeur to their revolutions; it is the fatal result
of the weakening of beliefs and character. Ought one to look upon oneself as a
superior spirit for having shown a little more clear-sightedness than the
vulgar? I am very much afraid, on the contrary, Bidault-Coquille, that you
have given proof of a gross misunderstanding of the conditions of the moral
and intellectual development of a people. You imagined that social injustices
were threaded together like pearls and that it would be enough to pull off one
in order to unfasten the whole necklace. That is a very ingenuous conception.
You flattered yourself that at one stroke you were establishing justice in
your own country and in the universe. You were a brave man, an honest
idealist, though without much experimental philosophy. But go home to your own
heart and you will recognise that you had in you a spice of malice and that
our ingenuousness was not without cunning. You believed you were performing a
fine moral action. You said to yourself: 'Here am I, just and courageous once
for all. I can henceforth repose in the public esteem and the praise of
historians.' And now that you have lost your illusions, now that you know how
hard it is to redress wrongs, and that the task must ever be begun afresh, you
are going back to your asteroids. You are right; but go back to them with
modesty, Bidault-Coquille!"
Read next: BOOK VII - MODERN TIMES#CHAPTER I - MADAME CLARENCE'S DRAWING-ROOM
Read previous: BOOK VI - MODERN TIMES#CHAPTER X - MR. JUSTICE CHAUSSEPIED
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