There, the royal power violated the right of the people in the person of Manuel, become illustrious in history by this very violation; there appeared, disdaining the past, whose servants they were, two melancholy old men: Royer-Collard, disdainful probity, Chateaubriand, the satirical genius; there, Thiers, skill, wrestled with Guizot, strength; there men have mingled, have grappled, have fought, have brandished evidence like a sword.

There, for more than a quarter of a century, hatred, rage, superstition, egotism, imposture, shrieking, hissing, barking, writhing, screaming always the same calumnies, shaking always the same clenched fist, spitting, since Christ, the same saliva, have whirled like a cloud-storm about thy serene face, O Truth! IV THE ORATORS All this was alive, ardent, fruitful, tumultuous, grand.

And when everything had been pleaded, argued, investigated, searched, gone to the bottom of, said and gainsaid, what came forth from the chaos?
always the spark! What came forth from the cloud?
always light! All that the tempest could do was to agitate the ray of light, and change it into lightning.

There, in that tribune, has been propounded, analyzed, clarified, and almost always determined, every question of the day: questions of finance, questions of credit, questions of labour, questions of circulation, questions of salary, questions of state, questions of the land, questions of peace, questions of war.
There, for the first time, was pronounced that phrase which contained a whole new alignment of society,--the Rights of Man.

There, for fifty years, has been heard the ringing of the anvil upon which supernatural smiths were forging pure ideas,--ideas, those swords of the people, those lances of justice, that armour of law.