"Rafael Sabatini. Scaramouche" - читать интересную книгу автора

"Naturally. But don't waste anger on me on that account. Tell me what
you want me to do."
"I want you to come to M. de Kercadiou with me, and to use your
influence to obtain justice. I suppose I am asking too much."
"My dear Philippe, I exist to serve you. I warn you that it is a futile
quest; but give me leave to finish my breakfast, and I am at your orders."
M. de Vilmorin dropped into a winged armchair by the well-swept hearth,
on which a piled-up fire of pine logs was burning cheerily. And whilst he
waited now he gave his friend the latest news of the events in Rennes.
Young, ardent, enthusiastic, and inspired by Utopian ideals, he passionately
denounced the rebellious attitude of the privileged.
Andre-Louis, already fully aware of the trend of feeling in the ranks
of an order in whose deliberations he took part as the representative of a
nobleman, was not at all surprised by what he heard. M. de Vilmorin found it
exasperating that his friend should apparently decline to share his own
indignation.
"Don't you see what it means?" he cried. "The nobles, by disobeying the
King, are striking at the very foundations of the throne. Don't they
perceive that their very existence depends upon it; that if the throne falls
over, it is they who stand nearest to it who will be crushed? Don't they see
that?"
"Evidently not. They are just governing classes, and I never heard of
governing classes that had eyes for anything but their own profit."
"That is our grievance. That is what we are going to change."
"You are going to abolish governing classes? An interesting experiment.
I believe it was the original plan of creation, and it might have succeeded
but for Cain."
"What we are going to do," said M. de Vilmorin, curbing his
exasperation, "is to transfer the government to other hands."
"And you think that will make a difference?"
"I know it will."
"Ah! I take it that being now in minor orders, you already possess the
confidence of the Almighty. He will have confided to you His intention of
changing the pattern of mankind."
M. de Vilmorin's fine ascetic face grew overcast. "You are profane,
Andre," he reproved his friend.
"I assure you that I am quite serious. To do what you imply would
require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not
systems. Can you and our vapouring friends of the Literary Chamber of
Rennes, or any other learned society of France, devise a system of
government that has never yet been tried? Surely not. And can they say of
any system tried that it proved other than a failure in the end? My dear
Philippe, the future is to be read with certainty only in the past. Ab actu
ad posse valet consecutio. Man never changes. He is always greedy, always
acquisitive, always vile. I am speaking of Man in the bulk."
"Do you pretend that it is impossible to ameliorate the lot of the
people?" M. de Vilmorin challenged him.
"When you say the people you mean, of course, the populace. Will you
abolish it? That is the only way to ameliorate its lot, for as long as it
remains populace its lot will be damnation."