quite safe to believe; but that they had any fixed ideas about seizing
property, or of providing labor at high wages for workmen, it would be
impossible to believe, even if Albert, _ouvrier_, that most mythical
of revolutionists, were to make solemn affidavit of it on the works of
Aurora Dudevant. Some vague ideas about relieving the wants of the poor,
Louis Blanc and his associates had, just as all men have them who have
heads to see and hearts to feel the existence of social evils. Had they
obtained possession of the French government, immediately after Louis
Philippe, to use his own words, had played the part of Charles X., they
would have failed utterly, as Lamartine and his friends failed, and much
sooner too. Lamartine failed as a statesman,--he lacked that power
to govern which far less able men than he have exhibited under
circumstances even more trying than those into which he so unguardedly
plunged,--and Louis Blanc would have been no more successful than the
poet. The failure of the "Reds" would have been the more complete,
if they had had an opportunity to attempt the realization of the
Socialistic theories attributed to them, but which few of their number
could ever have entertained. They sought political power for the usual
purposes; but as they stood in the way of several other parties, those
parties united to crush them, which was done in "the Days of June." It
is easy to give a fallen enemy a bad name, and the conquered party on
that occasion were stigmatized as the enemies of everything that men
hold dear, particular emphasis being laid on their enmity to property,
which men hold dearer than all other things combined. The belief seems
to have been all but universal throughout Europe, and to have been
shared by many Americans, that the party which was conquered in the
streets of Paris by Cavaignac was really an organization against
property, which it meant to steal, and so afford a lively illustration
of the doctrine attributed to it, that property is theft. To this
belief, absurd as it was, must we look for the whole course of European