Page:Georges Sorel, Reflections On Violence (1915).djvu/122

108 is admirable which dispels the idea of violence. Our middle class desire to die in peace—after them the deluge.

Let us now examine the violence of '93 a little more closely, and endeavour to see whether it can be identified with that of contemporary Syndicalism.

Fifteen years ago Drumont, speaking of Socialism and of its future, wrote these sentences, which then appeared exceedingly paradoxical to many people: "The historian, who is always somewhat of a prophet, might say to the Conservatives, 'Salute the working-men leaders of the Commune, you will never see their like again! … Those who are to come will be malicious, wicked, and vindictive in a different way from the men of 1871. Henceforward, a new feeling takes possession of the French proletariat: hatred.'" These were not the airy words of a man of letters: Drumont learned what he knew of the Commune and the Socialist world from Malon, of whom he gave a very appreciative portrait in his book.

This sinister prediction was founded on the idea that the working man was getting farther and farther away from the national tradition, and nearer to the middle class, which is much more accessible than he is to bad feeling. "It was the middle-class element," said Drumont, "which was most ferocious in the Commune, the vicious and bohemian middle class of the Latin Quarter; the popular element, amid this dreadful crisis, remained human, that is French…. Among the internationalists who formed part of the Commune four only pronounced themselves in favour of violent measures." As will be seen, Drumont has got no farther than that naïve