第14章

The first act of the Constituent National Assembly was to set up a commission of inquiry into the events of June and of May 15, and into the part played by the socialist and democratic party leaders during these days.The inquiry was directly aimed at Louis Blanc, Ledru-Rollin, and Caussidière.The bourgeois republicans burned with impatience to rid themselves of these rivals.They could have entrusted the venting of their spleen to no more suitable object than M.Odilon Barrot, the former chief of the dynastic opposition, the incarnation of liberalism, the nullite grave , the thoroughly shallow person who not only had a dynasty to revenge, but even had to settle accounts with the revolutionists for thwarting his premiership.A sure guarantee of his relentlessness.This Barrot was therefore appointed chairman of the commission of inquiry, and he constructed a complete legal process against the February Revolution which may be summarized thus: March 17, demonstration; April 16, conspiracy; May 15, attempt; June 23, civil war! Why did he not stretch his erudite criminologist's researches as far back as February 24? the journal des Dibats inquired -- that is, to the foundation of Rome.The origin of states gets lost in a myth that one may believe but may not discuss.Louis Blanc and Caussidiére were handed over to the courts.The National Assembly completed the work of purging itself which it had begun on May 15.

The plan formed by the Provisional Government, and again taken up by Goudchaux, of taxing capital -- in the form of a mortgage tax was rejected by the Constituent Assembly; the law that limited the working day to ten hours was repealed; imprisonment for debt was once more introduced;the large section of the French population that can neither read nor write was excluded from jury service.Why not from the franchise also? Journals again had to deposit caution money.The right of association was restricted.

No one had fought more fanatically in the June days for the salvation of property and the restoration of credit than the Parisian petty bourgeois -- keepers of cafes and restaurants, marchands de vins, small traders, shopkeepers, handicraftsman, etc.The shopkeeper had pulled himself together and marched against the barricades in order to restore the traffic which leads from the streets into the shop.But behind the barricade stood the customers and the debtors; before it the creditors of the shop.And when the barricades were thrown down and the workers were crushed and the shopkeepers, drunk with victory, rushed back to their shops, they found the entrance barred by a savior of property, an official agent of credit, who presented them with threatening notices: Overdue promissory note! Overdue house rent!

Overdue bond! Doomed shop! Doomed shopkeeper!

Salvation of property! But the house they lived in was not their property; the shop they kept was not their property; the commodities they dealt in were not their property.Neither their business, nor the plate they ate from, nor the bed they slept on belonged to them any longer.It was precisely from them that this property had to be saved -- for the houseowner who let the house, for the banker who discounted the promissory note, for the capitalist who made the advances in cash, for the manufacturer who entrusted the sale of his commodities to these retailers, for the wholesale dealer who had credited the raw materials to these handicraftsman.Restoration of credit! But credit, having regained strength, proved itself a vigorous and jealous god; it turned the debtor who could not pay out of his four walls, together with wife and child, surrendered his sham property to capital, and threw the man himself into the debtors prison, which had once more reared its head threateningly over the corpses of the June insurgents.

The petty bourgeois saw with horror that by striking down the workers they had delivered themselves without resistance into the hands of their creditors.Their bankruptcy, which since February had been dragging on in chronic fashion and had apparently been ignored, was openly declared after June.

Their nominal property had been left unassailed as long as it was of consequence to drive them to the battlefield in the name of property.

Now that the great issue with the proletariat had been settled, the small matter of the épicier could in turn be settled.In Paris the mass of overdue paper amounted to over 21,000,000 francs; in the provinces to over 1,000,000.The proprietors of more than 7,000 Paris firms had not paid their rent since February.

While the National Assembly had instituted an inquiry into political guilt, going as far back as the end of February, the petty bourgeois on their part now demanded an inquiry into civil debts up to February 24.

They assembled en masse in the Bourse hall and threateningly demanded, on behalf of every businessman who could prove that his insolvency was due solely to the stagnation caused by the revolution and that his business had been in good condition on February 24, an extension of the term of payment by order of a commerce court and the compulsory liquidation of creditors claims in consideration of a moderate percentage payment.As a legislative proposal, this question was dealt with in the National Assembly in the form of concordats d I'amiable [amicable agreements].The Assembly vacillated; then it suddenly learned that at the same time, at the Porte St.Denis, thousands of wives and children of the insurgents had prepared an amnesty petition.

In the presence of the resurrected specter of June, the petty bourgeoisie trembled and the National Assembly retrieved its implacability.

The concordats d I'amiable , the amicable settlements between debtor and creditor, were rejected in their most essential points.