streets. Those of the first degree continue to meet after having
nominated those of the second: the nation must needs watch its
mandatories and maintain its imprescriptible rights. If this
exercise of their rights has been delegated to them, they still
belong to the nation, and it reserves to itself the privilege of
interposing when it pleases. A pretension of this kind travels
fast; immediately after the Third-Estate of the Assemblies it
reaches the Third-Estate of the streets. Nothing is more natural
than the desire to lead one's leaders: the first time any
dissatisfaction occurs, they lay hands on those who halt and make
them march on as directed. On a Saturday, April 25th,[11] a rumor
is current that Réveillon, an elector and manufacturer of wall-
paper, Rue Saint-Antoine, and Lerat, a commissioner, have "spoken
badly" at the Electoral Assembly of Sainte-Marguerite. To speak
badly means to speak badly of the people. What has Réveillon said?
Nobody knows, but popular imagination with its terrible powers of
invention and precision, readily fabricates or welcomes a murderous
phrase. He said that "a working-man with a wife and children could
live on fifteen sous a day." Such a man is a traitor, and must be
disposed of at once; "all his belongings must be put to fire and
sword." The rumor, it must be noted, is false.[12] Réveillon pays
his poorest workman twenty-five sous a day, he provides work for
three hundred and fifty, and, in spite of a dull season the previous
winter, he kept all on at the same rate of wages. He himself was
once a workman, and obtained a medal for his inventions, and is
benevolent and respected by all respectable persons. -- All this
avails nothing; bands of vagabonds and foreigners, who have just
passed through the barriers, do not look so closely into matters,
while the Journeymen, the carters, the cobblers, the masons, the
braziers, and the stone-cutters whom they go to solicit in their