the first legal sentence,--and of the cowardly egoism and the baseness
of those who profited by the revolt of others to creep a little nearer
the masters, to curry favor and win a rich reward for their
disinterested devotion. Not to speak of the disorder inherent in all
crowds, the anarchy of the people. They tried hard to create corporate
strikes which should assume a revolutionary character: but they were not
willing to be treated as revolutionaries. They had no liking for
bayonets. They fancied that it was possible to make an omelette without
eggs. In any case, they preferred the eggs to be broken by other people.

Olivier watched, observed, and was not surprised. From the very outset
he had recognized the great inferiority of these men to the work which
they were supposed to be accomplishing: but he had also recognized the
inevitable force that swept them on: and he saw that Christophe, unknown
to himself, was being carried on by the stream. But the current would
have nothing to do with himself, who would have asked nothing better
than to let himself be carried away.

It was a strong current: it was sweeping along an enormous mass of
passions, interest, and faith, all jostling, pushing, merging into each
other, boiling and frothing and eddying this way and that. The leaders
were in the van; they were the least free of all, for they were pushed
forward, and perhaps they had the least faith of all: there had been a
time when they believed: they were like the priests against whom they
had so loudly railed, imprisoned by their vows, by the faith they once
had had, and were forced to profess to the bitter end. Behind them the
common herd was brutal, vacillating, and short-sighted. The great
majority had a sort of random faith, because the current had now set in
the direction of Utopia: but a little while, and they would cease to
believe because the current had changed. Many believed from a need of