"Talking is thinking aloud. By thinking aloud in this way I advance more quickly than if I thought quietly by myself." This was Numa Roumestan's idea. "As for me," he said, "when I am not talking, I am not thinking." As a matter of fact, Michel, like Numa, was a native of Provence. In Paris there was a repetition of this nocturnal and roving scene. Michel and his friends had come to a standstill on the Saints-Peres bridge. They caught sight of the Tuileries lighted up for a ball. Michel became excited, and, striking the innocent bridge and its parapet with his stick, he exclaimed: "I tell you that if you are to freshen and renew your corrupt society, this beautiful river will first have to be red with blood, that accursed palace will have to be reduced to ashes, and the huge city you are now looking at will have to be a bare strand where the family of the poor man can use the plough and build a cottage home."This was a fine phrase for a public meeting, but perhaps too fine for a conversation between friends on the Saints-Peres bridge.
This was in 1835, at the most brilliant moment of Michel's career.
It was when he was taking part in the trial of the accused men of April. After the insurrections of the preceding year at Lyons and Paris, a great trial had commenced before the Chamber of Peers.
We are told that: "The Republican party was determined to make use of the cross-questioning of the prisoners for accusing the Government and for preaching Republicanism and Socialism.
The idea was to invite a hundred and fifty noted Republicans to Paris from all parts of France. In their quality of defenders, they would be the orators of this great manifestation."Barb'es, Blanqui, Flocon, Marie, Raspail, Trelat and Michel of Bourges were among these Republicans. "On the 11th of May, the revolutionary newspapers published a manifesto in which the committee for the defence congratulated and encouraged the accused men.
One hundred and ten signatures were affixed to this document, which was a forgery. It had been drawn up by a few of the upholders of the scheme, and, in order to make it appear more important, they had affixed the names of their colleagues without their authorization.
Those who had done this then took fright, and attempted to get out of the dangerous adventure by a public avowal. In order to save the situation, two of the guilty party, Trelat and Michel of Bourges, took the responsibility of the drawing up of the manifesto and the apposition of the signatures upon themselves.
They were sentenced by the Court of Peers, Trelat to four years of prison and Michel to a month."[22] This was the most shocking inequality, and Michel could not forgive Trelat for getting such a fine sentence.
[22] Thureau Dangin, _Histoire de la Monarchie de Juillet_, II. 297.
What good was one month of prison? Michel's career certainly had been a very ordinary one. He hesitated and tacked about.
In a word, he was just a politician. George Sand tells us that he was obliged "to accept, in theory, what he called the necessities of pure politics, ruse, charlatani** and even untruth, concessions that were not sincere, alliances in which he did not believe, and vain promises." We should say that he was a radical opportunist.
To be merely an opportunist, though, is not enough for ensuring success.
There are different ways of being an opportunist. Michel had been elected a Deputy, but he had no _role_ to play. In 1848, he could not compete with the brilliancy of Raspail, nor had he the prestige of Flocon. He went into the shade completely after the _coup d'etat_.
For a long time he had really preferred business to politics, and a choice must be made when one is not a member of the Government.
It is easy to see what charmed George Sand in Michel. He was a sectarian, and she took him for an apostle. He was brutal, and she thought him energetic. He had been badly brought up, but she thought him simply austere. He was a tyrant, but she only saw in him a master.
He had told her that he would have her guillotined at the first possible opportunity. This was an incontestable proof of superiority.
She was sincere herself, and was con-sequently not on her guard against vain boasting. He had alarmed her, and she admired him for this, and at once incarnated in him that stoical ideal of which she had been dreaming for years and had not yet been able to attribute to any one else.
This is how she explained to Michel her reasons for loving him.
"I love you," she says, "because whenever I figure to myself grandeur, wisdom, strength and beauty, your image rises up before me.
No other man has ever exercised any moral influence over me.
My mind, which has always been wild and unfettered, has never accepted any guidance. . . . You came, and you have taught me."Then again she says: "It is you whom I love, whom I have loved ever since I was born, and through all the phantoms in whom I thought, for a moment, that I had found you." According to this, it was Michel she loved through Musset. Let us hope that she was mistaken.
A whole correspondence exists between George Sand and Michel of Bourges.
