The churchwarden had certainly played a decisive part.
It was not, however, that M. Mabeuf had been anything but the calm and impassive agent of Providence in this connection. He had enlightened Marius by chance and without being aware of the fact, as does a candle which someone brings; he had been the candle and not the someone.
As for Marius’ inward political revolution, M. Mabeuf was totally incapable of comprehending it, of willing or of directing it.
As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not be superfluous.
IV
M. Mabeuf
On the day when M. Mabeuf said to Marius: “Certainly I approve of political opinions,” he expressed the real state of his mind. All political opinions were matters of indifference to him, and he approved them all, without distinction, provided they left him in peace, as the Greeks called the Furies “the beautiful, the good, the charming,” the Eumenides. M. Mabeuf’s political opinion consisted in a passionate love for plants, and, above all, for books. Like all the rest of the world, he possessed the termination in “ist,” without which no one could exist at that time, but he was neither a Royalist, a Bonapartist, a Chartist, an Orleanist, nor an Anarchist; he was a bouquinist , a collector of old books. He did not understand how men could busy themselves with hating each other because of silly stuff like the charter, democracy, legitimacy, monarchy, the republic, etc. , when there were in the world all sorts of mosses, grasses, and shrubs which they might be looking at, and heaps of folios, and even of 32mo s, which they might turn over. He took good care not to become useless; having books did not prevent his reading, being a