and political economy. Further, it is necessary in accordance
with the principle of indemnity, if not to compensate citizens,
at least to guarantee to them the values which they part with; it
is necessary, in short, to insure them against loss. Now,
outside of the public fortune, the management of which it
demands, where will socialism find security for this same
fortune?

It is impossible, in sound and honest logic, to escape this
circle. Consequently the communists, more open in their dealings
than certain other sectarians of flowing and pacific ideas,
decide the difficulty; and promise, the power once in their
hands, to expropriate all and indemnify and guarantee none. At
bottom, that would be neither unjust nor disloyal.
Unfortunately, to burn is not to reply, as the interesting
Desmoulins said to Robespierre; and such a discussion ends
always in fire and the guillotine. Here, as everywhere, two
rights, equally sacred, stand in the presence of each other, the
right of the citizen and the right of the State; it is enough to
say that there is a superior formula which reconciles the
socialistic utopias and the mutilated theories of political
economy, and that the problem is to discover it. In this
emergency what are the contending parties doing? Nothing. We
might say rather that they raise questions only to get an
opportunity to redress injuries. What do I say? The questions
are not even understood by them; and, while the public is
considering the sublime problems of society and human destiny,
the professors of social science, orthodox and heretics, do not
agree on principles. Witness the question which occasioned these
inquiries, and which its authors certainly understand no better