It is a painful
thing to say, but I look upon the following declaration as a
duty, because it is the truth: one of the first reforms to be
effected among the laboring classes will be the reduction of the
wages of some at the same time that we raise those of others.
Monopoly does not gain in respectability by belonging to the
lowest classes of people, especially when it serves to maintain
only the grossest individualism. The revolt of the silk-workers
met with no sympathy, but rather hostility, from the porters and
the river population generally. Nothing that happens off the
wharves has any power to move them. Beasts of burden fashioned
in advance for despotism, they will not mingle with politics as
long as their privilege is maintained. Nevertheless, I ought to
say in their defence that, some time ago, the necessities of
competition having brought their prices down, more social
sentiments began to awaken in these gross natures: a few more
reductions seasoned with a little poverty, and the Rigues of
Lyons will be chosen as the storming-party when the time comes
for assaulting the bastilles.
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