Page 1442 - les-miserables

The Society of the Rights of Man engendered the Society
of Action. These were impatient individuals who broke away
and hastened ahead. Other associations sought to recruit
themselves from the great mother societies. The members
of sections complained that they were torn asunder. Thus,
the Gallic Society, and the committee of organization of the
Municipalities. Thus the associations for the liberty of the
press, for individual liberty, for the instruction of the people
against indirect taxes. Then the Society of Equal Working-
men which was divided into three fractions, the levellers,
the communists, the reformers. Then the Army of the Bas-
tilles, a sort of cohort organized on a military footing, four
men commanded by a corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty
by a sub-lieutenant, forty by a lieutenant; there were never
more than five men who knew each other. Creation where
precaution is combined with audacity and which seemed
stamped with the genius of Venice.
The central committee, which was at the head, had two
arms, the Society of Action, and the Army of the Bastilles.
A legitimist association, the Chevaliers of Fidelity,
stirred about among these the republican affiliations. It was
denounced and repudiated there.
The Parisian societies had ramifications in the principal
cities, Lyons, Nantes, Lille, Marseilles, and each had its So-
ciety of the Rights of Man, the Charbonniere, and The Free
Men. All had a revolutionary society which was called the
Cougourde. We have already mentioned this word.
In Paris, the Faubourg Saint-Marceau kept up an equal
buzzing with the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the schools

1442 Les Miserables