there was nothing left but an even greater weariness and the doleful
dumps. They were for ever flaring up to a new leader: and very soon they
became suspicious of him and spurned him. The sad part of it all was
that they were never wrong: one after another their leaders were dazzled
by the bait of wealth, success, or vanity: for one Joussier, who was
kept from temptation by the consumption under which he was wasting away,
a brave crumbling to death, how many leaders were there who betrayed the
people or grew weary of the fight! They were victims of the secret sore
which was devouring the politicians of every party in those days:
demoralization through women and money, women and money,--(the two
scourges are one and the same).--In the Government as in the ministry
there were men of first-rate talent, men who had in them the stuff of
which great statesmen are made--(they, might have been great statesmen
in the days of Richelieu, perhaps);--but they lacked faith and
character: the need, the habit, the weariness of pleasure, had sapped
them: when they were engaged upon vast schemes they fumbled into
incoherent action, or they would suddenly fling up the whole thing,
while important business was in progress, desert their country or their
cause for rest and pleasure. They were brave enough to meet death in
battle: but very few of the leaders were capable of dying in harness, at
their posts, never budging, with their hands upon the rudder and their
eyes unswervingly fixed upon the invisible goal.

The revolution was hamstrung by the consciousness of the fundamental
weakness. The leaders of the working-classes spent part of their time in
blaming each other. Their strikes always failed as a result of the
perpetual dissensions between the leaders and the trades-unions, between
the reformers and the revolutionaries--and of the profound timidity
that underlay their blustering threats--and of the inherited
sheepishness that made the rebels creep once more beneath the yoke upon