Page 1681 - les-miserables

honest man; the ideal and the absolute do not filch pocket-
handkerchiefs. By whom were the wagons containing the
wealth of the Tuileries escorted in 1848? By the rag-pick-
ers of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Rags mounted guard
over the treasure. Virtue rendered these tatterdemalions
resplendent. In those wagons in chests, hardly closed, and
some, even, half-open, amid a hundred dazzling caskets,
was that ancient crown of France, studded with diamonds,
surmounted by the carbuncle of royalty, by the Regent dia-
mond, which was worth thirty millions. Barefooted, they
guarded that crown.
Hence, no more Jacquerie. I regret it for the sake of the
skilful. The old fear has produced its last effects in that quar-
ter; and henceforth it can no longer be employed in politics.
The principal spring of the red spectre is broken. Every one
knows it now. The scare-crow scares no longer. The birds
take liberties with the mannikin, foul creatures alight upon
it, the bourgeois laugh at it.

1681