There is such a thing as an uprising, and there is such a thing as insurrection; these are two separate phases of wrath; one is in the wrong, the other is in the right. In democratic states, the only ones which are founded on justice, it sometimes happens that the fraction usurps; then the whole rises and the necessary claim of its rights may proceed as far as resort to arms. In all questions which result from collective sovereignty, the war of the whole against the fraction is insurrection; the attack of the fraction against the whole is revolt; according as the Tuileries contain a king or the Convention, they are justly or unjustly attacked. The same cannon, pointed against the populace, is wrong on the 10th of August, and right on the 14th of Vendemiaire. Alike in appearance, fundamentally different in reality; the Swiss defend the false, Bonaparte defends the true. That which universal suffrage has effected in its liberty and in its sovereignty cannot be undone by the street. It is the same in things pertaining purely to civilization; the instinct of the masses, clear-sighted to-day, may be troubled to-morrow. The same fury legitimate when directed against Terray and absurd when directed against Turgot. The destruction of machines, the pillage of warehouses, the breaking of rails, the demolition of docks, the false routes of multitudes, the refusal by the people of justice to progress, Ramus assassinated by students, Rousseau driven out of Switzerland and stoned,--that is revolt. Israel against Moses, Athens against Phocian, Rome against Cicero,--that is an uprising; Paris against the Bastille,--that is insurrection. The soldiers against Alexander, the sailors against Christopher Columbus,-- this is the same revolt; impious revolt; why? Because Alexander is doing for Asia with the sword that which Christopher Columbus is doing for America with the compass; Alexander like Columbus, is finding a world. These gifts of a world to civilization are such augmentations of light, that all resistance in that case is culpable. Sometimes the populace counterfeits fidelity to itself. The masses are traitors to the people. Is there, for example, anything stranger than that long and bloody protest of dealers in contraband salt, a legitimate chronic revolt, which, at the decisive moment, on the day of salvation, at the very hour of popular victory, espouses the throne, turns into chouannerie, and, from having been an insurrection against, becomes an uprising for, sombre masterpieces of ignorance! The contraband salt dealer escapes the royal gibbets, and with a rope's end round his neck, mounts the white cockade. "Death to the salt duties," brings forth, "Long live the King!" The assassins of Saint-Barthelemy, the cut-throats of September, the manslaughterers of Avignon, the assassins of Coligny, the assassins of Madam Lamballe, the assassins of Brune, Miquelets, Verdets, Cadenettes, the companions of Jehu, the chevaliers of Brassard,-- behold an uprising. La Vendee is a grand, catholic uprising. The sound of right in movement is recognizable, it does not always proceed from the trembling of excited masses; there are mad rages, there are cracked bells, all tocsins do not give out the sound of bronze. The brawl of passions and ignorances is quite another thing from the shock of progress. Show me in what direction you are going. Rise, if you will, but let it be that you may grow great. There is no insurrection except in a forward direction. Any other sort of rising is bad; every violent step towards the rear is a revolt; to retreat is to commit a deed of violence against the human race. Insurrection is a fit of rage on the part of truth; the pavements which the uprising disturbs give forth the spark of right. These pavements bequeath to the uprising only their mud. Danton against Louis XIV. is insurrection; Hebert against Danton is revolt.
Hence it results that if insurrection in given cases may be, as Lafayette says, the most holy of duties, an uprising may be the most fatal of crimes.
There is also a difference in the intensity of heat; insurrection is often a volcano, revolt is often only a fire of straw.
Revolt, as we have said, is sometimes found among those in power. Polignac is a rioter; Camille Desmoulins is one of the governing powers.
Insurrection is sometimes resurrection.
The solution of everything by universal suffrage being an absolutely modern fact, and all history anterior to this fact being, for the space of four thousand years, filled with violated right, and the suffering of peoples, each epoch of history brings with it that protest of which it is capable. Under the Caesars, there was no insurrection, but there was Juvenal.
The facit indignatio replaces the Gracchi.
Under the Caesars, there is the exile to Syene; there is also the man of the Annales. We do not speak of the immense exile of Patmos who, on his part also, overwhelms the real world with a protest in the name of the ideal world, who makes of his vision an enormous satire and casts on Rome-Nineveh, on Rome-Babylon, on Rome-Sodom, the flaming reflection of the Apocalypse. John on his rock is the sphinx on its pedestal; we may understand him, he is a Jew, and it is Hebrew; but the man who writes the Annales is of the Latin race, let us rather say he is a Roman.
As the Neros reign in a black way, they should be painted to match. The work of the graving-tool alone would be too pale; there must be poured into the channel a concentrated prose which bites.
Despots count for something in the question of philosophers. A word that is chained is a terrible word. The writer doubles and trebles his style when silence is imposed on a nation by its master. From this silence there arises a certain mysterious plenitude which filters into thought and there congeals into bronze. The compression of history produces conciseness in the historian. The granite solidity of such and such a celebrated prose is nothing but the accumulation effected by the tyrant.
Tyranny constrains the writer to conditions of diameter which are augmentations of force. The Ciceronian period, which hardly sufficed for Verres, would be blunted on Caligula. The less spread of sail in the phrase, the more intensity in the blow. Tacitus thinks with all his might.
The honesty of a great heart, condensed in justice and truth, overwhelms as with lightning.
Be it remarked, in passing, that Tacitus is not historically superposed upon Caesar. The Tiberii were reserved for him. Caesar and Tacitus are two successive phenomena, a meeting between whom seems to be mysteriously avoided, by the One who, when He sets the centuries on the stage, regulates the entrances and the exits. Caesar is great, Tacitus is great; God spares these two greatnesses by not allowing them to clash with one another. The guardian of justice, in striking Caesar, might strike too hard and be unjust. God does not will it. The great wars of Africa and Spain, the pirates of Sicily destroyed, civilization introduced into Gaul, into Britanny, into Germany,--all this glory covers the Rubicon. There is here a sort of delicacy of the divine justice, hesitating to let loose upon the illustrious usurper the formidable historian, sparing Caesar Tacitus, and according extenuating circumstances to genius.
Certainly, despotism remains despotism, even under the despot of genius. There is corruption under all illustrious tyrants, but the moral pest is still more hideous under infamous tyrants. In such reigns, nothing veils the shame; and those who make examples, Tacitus as well as Juvenal, slap this ignominy which cannot reply, in the face, more usefully in the presence of all humanity.
Rome smells worse under Vitellius than under Sylla. Under Claudius and under Domitian, there is a deformity of baseness corresponding to the repulsiveness of the tyrant. The villainy of slaves is a direct product of the despot; a miasma exhales from these cowering consciences wherein the master is reflected; public powers are unclean; hearts are small; consciences are dull, souls are like vermin; thus it is under Caracalla, thus it is under Commodus, thus it is under Heliogabalus, while, from the Roman Senate, under Caesar,there comes nothing but the odor of the dung which is peculiar to the eyries of the eagles.
Hence the advent, apparently tardy, of the Tacituses and the Juvenals; it is in the hour for evidence, that the demonstrator makes his appearance.
But Juvenal and Tacitus, like Isaiah in Biblical times, like Dante in the Middle Ages, is man; riot and insurrection are the multitude, which is sometimes right and sometimes wrong.
In the majority of cases, riot proceeds from a material fact; insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Riot is Masaniello; insurrection, Spartacus.Insurrection borders on mind, riot on the stomach; Gaster grows irritated; but Gaster, assuredly, is not always in the wrong. In questions of famine, riot, Buzancais, for example, holds a true, pathetic, and just point of departure. Nevertheless, it remains a riot. Why? It is because, right at bottom, it was wrong in form. Shy although in the right, violent although strong, it struck at random; it walked like a blind elephant; it left behind it the corpses of old men, of women, and of children; it wished the blood of inoffensive and innocent persons without knowing why. The nourishment of the people is a good object; to massacre them is a bad means.
All armed protests, even the most legitimate, even that of the 10th of August, even that of July 14th, begin with the same troubles. Before the right gets set free, there is foam and tumult. In the beginning, the insurrection is a riot, just as a river is a torrent. Ordinarily it ends in that ocean: revolution. Sometimes, however, coming from those lofty mountains which dominate the moral horizon, justice, wisdom, reason, right, formed of the pure snow of the ideal, after a long fall from rock to rock, after having reflected the sky in its transparency and increased by a hundred affluents in the majestic mien of triumph, insurrection is suddenly lost in some quagmire, as the Rhine is in a swamp.
All this is of the past, the future is another thing. Universal suffrage has this admirable property, that it dissolves riot in its inception, and, by giving the vote to insurrection, it deprives it of its arms. The disappearance of wars, of street wars as well as of wars on the frontiers, such is the inevitable progression. Whatever To-day may be, To-morrow will be peace.
However, insurrection, riot, and points of difference between the former and the latter,--the bourgeois, properly speaking, knows nothing of such shades. In his mind, all is sedition, rebellion pure and simple, the revolt of the dog against his master, an attempt to bite whom must be punished by the chain and the kennel, barking, snapping, until such day as the head of the dog, suddenly enlarged, is outlined vaguely in the gloom face to face with the lion.
Then the bourgeois shouts: "Long live the people!"
This explanation given, what does the movement of June, 1832, signify, so far as history is concerned? Is it a revolt? Is it an insurrection?
It may happen to us, in placing this formidable event on the stage, to say revolt now and then, but merely to distinguish superficial facts, and always preserving the distinction between revolt, the form, and insurrection, the foundation.
This movement of 1832 had, in its rapid outbreak and in its melancholy extinction, so much grandeur, that even those who see in it only an uprising, never refer to it otherwise than with respect. For them, it is like a relic of 1830. Excited imaginations, say they, are not to be calmed in a day. A revolution cannot be cut off short. It must needs undergo some undulations before it returns to a state of rest, like a mountain sinking into the plain. There are no Alps without their Jura, nor Pyrenees without the Asturias.
This pathetic crisis of contemporary history which the memory of Parisians calls "the epoch of the riots," is certainly a characteristic hour amid the stormy hours of this century. A last word, before we enter on the recital.
The facts which we are about to relate belong to that d ramatic
and living reality, which the historian sometimes neglects for lack of time and space. There, nevertheless, we insist upon it, is life, palpitation, human tremor. Petty details, as we think we have already said, are, so to speak, the foliage of great events, and are lost in the distance of history. The epoch, surnamed "of the riots," abounds in details of this nature. Judicial inquiries have not revealed, and perhaps have not soundedthe depths, for another reason than history. We shall therefore bring to light, among the known and published peculiarities,things which have not heretofore been known, about facts over which have passed the forgetfulness of some, and the death of others. The majority of the actors in these gigantic scenes have disappeared; beginning with the very next day they held their peace; but of what we shall relate, we shall be able to say: "We have seen this." We alter a few names, for history relates and does not inform against, but the deed which we shall paint will be genuine. In accordance with the conditions of the book which we are now writing, we shall show only one side and one episode, and certainly, the least known at that, of the two days, the 5th and the 6th of June, 1832, but we shall do it in such wise that the reader may catch a glimpse, beneath the gloomy veil which we are about to lift, of the real form of this frightful public adventure.
有暴动也有起义，这是两种不同性质的愤怒，一种是错误，而另一种是权利。在唯一公平合理的民主政体中，一小部分人有时会篡取政权，于是全体人民站起来，为了恢复自身的权利，可以走上武装反抗的道路。在所有一切涉及集体的主权问题上，全体反对部分的战争是起义，部分反对全体的进攻是暴动；要看杜伊勒里宫接纳的是什么人，如果它接纳的是国王，对它进攻便是正义的，如果它接纳的是国民公会，对它进攻便是非正义的。同一架瞄准民众的大炮，在八月十日是错的，在葡月十四日②却是对的。外表相似，本质不同，瑞士雇佣军保护的是错误的，波拿巴保护的是正确的。
①这里葡月十四日应为葡月十三日（公元一七九五年十月五日）。这天，保王党人在巴黎暴动，向国民公会所在地杜伊勒里宫武装进攻。拿破仑指挥军队击溃了保王党人。
普选在自由和自主的情况下所作的一切，不能由街道来改变。在纯属文明的事物中也是这样，群众的本能，昨天清晰，明天又可能糊涂。同一种狂怒，用以反对泰雷①是合法的，用以反对杜尔哥却是谬误的。破坏机器，抢劫仓库，掘起铁轨，拆毁船坞，聚众横行，不按照法律规定对待进步人士，学生杀害拉米斯②，用石头把卢梭赶出瑞士③，这些都是暴动。以色列反对摩西，雅典反对伏西翁，罗马反对西庇阿④，是暴动，巴黎反对巴士底，是起义。士兵反对亚历山大，海员反对哥伦布，是同样的反抗，狂妄的反抗。
①泰雷（Terray），法王路易十五的财政总监，操纵全国粮食买卖，增加盐税，为人贪狠。
②拉米斯（Ramus），十六世纪法国学者，唯理论的倡导者，参加宗教改革运动，在巴托罗缪节大屠杀中被天主教徒杀害。
③一七六五年，卢梭在瑞士居住时，曾有一群反动青年，在教士的唆使下向他的住宅投掷石块。
④西庇阿（Scipion．又译齐比奥），罗马统帅，执政官，后为西班牙总督。
为什么？因为亚历山大用剑为亚洲所做的事，也就是哥伦布用指南针为美洲所做的事，亚历山大和哥伦布一样，发现了一个大陆。向文明赠送一个大陆，这是光明的极大增长，因而对此的任何抗拒都是有罪的。有时人民对自己也变得不忠诚。群众成为人民的叛徒。比如私盐商贩的长期流血斗争，这一合法的慢性反抗，一旦到了关键时刻，到了安全的日子，人民胜利的日子，却忽然归附王朝，一变而为朱安暴乱，使反抗王室的起义，转为拥护王室的暴动！无知的悲惨杰作！私盐商贩们逃脱了王室的绞刑架，颈子上的绞索还没有解下来，便又戴上白帽微。“打倒食盐专卖政①策”，忽又变成“国王万岁”。真是咄咄怪事！圣巴托罗缪节的杀人者、九月的扼杀者②、杀害科里尼的凶手、杀害德·朗巴尔夫人③的凶手、杀害布律纳的凶手、米克雷④、绿徽党⑤、辫子兵⑥、热胡帮⑦、铁臂骑士⑧，这些都是暴动。旺代是天主教的一次大暴动。人权发动的声音是可以辨别的，它不一定出自群众奔突冲撞的杂沓声，有失去理智的暴怒，有坼裂的铜钟，号召武装反抗的钟不一定全发出青铜声。狂热和无知的骚乱不同于前进中的动荡。站起来，可以，但只应当是为了向上。请把你选择的方向指给我看。起义只能是向前的。其他一切的“起来”都不好。一切向后的强烈步伐都是暴动，倒退对人类是一种暴行。起义是真理的怒火的突发。为起义而掘起的铺路石迸发着人权的火花。这些石块留给暴动的只是它们的泥渣。丹东反对路易十六是起义，阿贝尔反对丹东是暴动。
①圣巴托罗缪节的杀人者，一五七二年八月二十四日夜，亨利二世之妻，太后卡特琳，利用纳瓦尔的亨利与国王姐姐的婚礼，在首都集会之际，突然对胡格诺派教徒进行大屠杀，海军上将科里尼（胡格诺派）等均遭害。
②九月的扼杀者，即本书第三部856页所指的“九月暴徒”。
③德·朗巴尔夫人（deLamballe，1749?792），路易十六王后安东尼特的密友，一七九二年九月被处死。
④米克雷（Miqeulets），原为受招安的西班牙匪帮，参加西班牙军队。拿破仑在一八○八年创建法国的米克雷军团，用以镇压西班牙。
⑤绿徽党（Verdets），在王朝复辟的恐怖时期，保王分子佩带绿色帽徽。
⑥辫子兵（cadenettes），原系掷弹兵及轻骑兵之发式，两颊旁垂小辫，后成为一七九四年热月政变后年轻保王派的发式。
⑦热胡帮（compagnonsdejéhu），热月政变时法国南方的热月派。
⑧铁臂骑士，这里是雨果对昂古莱姆公爵的党徒讽刺性的称呼，因他们在左臂佩带绿色袖章。
因此，正如拉斐德所说，在某种情况下，如果起义能是最神圣的义务，暴动也可以是无可挽回的罪行。
在热能的强度方面也有所区别，起义是火山，暴动是草火。
我们说过，反抗有时发生在政权的内部。波林尼雅克搞的是暴动，卡米尔·德穆兰治理国家。
有时，起义就是起死回生。
用普选来解决一切问题还是个崭新的方法，以前的四千年历史充满了人权被蹂躏和人民遭灾难的事实，每个历史时期都带来了适用于当时的抗议形式。在恺撒的统治时期，不曾有过起义，但有尤维纳利斯。
愤怒代替了格拉古兄弟的悲剧。
在恺撒时代有流放赛伊尼①的犯人，也有历史年表里的人物。
我们在这里不谈论巴特莫斯②的巨大放逐，这件事也引起理想世界对现实世界的强烈抗议，使成为大规模的讽刺，使尼尼微的罗马、巴比伦的罗马和所多玛的罗马作出《启示录》的光辉启示。
约翰③站在山石上就象斯芬克司蹲在底座上，人们可能不理解他，他是犹太人，写的是希伯来语④，但写《编年史》的是拉丁人，说得更恰当一些，他是罗马人。
①赛伊尼（Syène），埃及地名，即今阿斯旺地区。
②巴特莫斯（Patmos），爱琴海斯波拉泽斯群岛之一。
③约翰（Jean），耶稣十二门徒中四大门徒之一，晚年被流放。
④希伯来语，指难懂的文字。
那些尼禄们的黑暗统治，应同样被描绘出来，仅以刻刀雕琢是平淡无味的，应使刻痕具有简练而辛辣的文风。
暴君有助于思想家的观察，接二连三的言论是猛烈的言论。当某一主宰剥夺群众的言论自由时，作者就要再三加强他的语气。沉默会产生神秘的威力，使思想经过筛滤如青铜般坚硬，历史上的压制造成了历史家的精确性。某些文章象花岗石一样坚固，实际上是暴君的压力形成的。
暴君制度迫使作者把叙述的范围缩小了，也就增添了力最，在罗马的西塞罗时代，对韦雷斯①的评论多少有些力量，可是对卡利古拉就逊色了。词句简练而加强了打击力，塔西佗的思想是强有力的。
①韦雷斯（Verrès），古罗马地方总督，在西西里岛贪污，为当时政治家西塞罗所批判。
一个伟人的正义感是由公正和真理凝合而成的，遇事给予雷霆般的打击。
顺便谈一谈，应当注意到塔西佗不是在历史上压倒了恺撒。罗马王族是保留给他的。恺撒和塔西佗是相继出现的两个非凡人物。他们的相遇是神秘地不予安排，在世纪的舞台上规定了他们的入场和出场。恺撒是伟大的，塔西佗是伟大的，上帝免去了这两个伟人相遇。裁判官在打击恺撒时可能过火了，因而成为不公正。上帝并不愿意如此。非洲和西班牙的战争，西西里岛上的海盗被消灭，把文化引进到高卢、布列塔尼以及日耳曼地区，这些光荣遮蔽了鲁比肯①事变。这正是神圣正义的微妙表示，不批判著名篡位者的令人生畏的历史学家在犹豫不决，于是使恺撒得到塔西佗的宽恕，这样就给予英才一些可减轻罪行的情况。
当然，专制政治总是专制政治，就是在有才能的专制君主统治之下，在有名的暴君之下，也有腐化和堕落，但是在一些丧失廉耻的暴君的统治之下道义方面的灾害是更丑恶的。在这些朝代里耻辱是不加遮盖的，塔西佗和尤维纳利斯这些表率人物，在人类面前有益地批颊痛斥这些无可辩解的耻辱。
罗马在维特利乌斯②统治时期比西拉时代更坏。在克劳狄乌斯和多米齐安时代，其卑劣畸形是符合暴君的丑恶面貌的。奴隶们的卑鄙是由专制君主直接造成的，在这些沉沦的内心中散发出来的浊气反映了他们的主人。社会的权力是污浊的，人心狭窄，天良平凡，精神如臭虫。卡拉卡拉③时代是这样，康莫德④时代是这样，海利奥加巴尔⑤时代也是这样。可是在恺撒时代，在罗马元老院内只散发出一些鹰巢内本身的臭味。
①鲁比肯（Rubicon），意大利和高卢边界的一条小河，为了避免冲突，双方相约不准越过此河，但恺撒没有遵守。
②维特利乌斯（Aulus Vitellius，15?9），罗马国家活动家，六十年代为日耳曼行省总督，六九年一月被推为皇帝，在同年年底绵延不断的内战中战败被杀。
③卡拉卡拉（Caracalla，188?17），罗马皇帝（211?17），以夺权开始，以被刺结束，在位时扩大罗马民法。
④康莫德（Commode，161?92），罗马皇帝，马可·奥里略之子，以残酷著名，后被毒死。
⑤海利奥加巴尔或埃拉加巴尔（Héliogabale，204?22），罗马皇帝（218?22），他的名字成为挥霍、独裁和淫乱的代名词。
从这时起出现了塔西佗和尤维纳利斯等人，看来似乎迟了一点，这时期明显地产生了示威运动者。
如尤维纳利斯和塔西佗，同样如《圣经》时代的以赛亚以及中古时代的但丁，都是个人，可是暴动和起义是群众，有时是错误的，有时是正义的。
一般的情况，暴动由物质现实所引起，而起义总是一种精神的现象，暴动就如马赞尼洛①，而起义是斯巴达克。起义是局限在思想领域里，而暴动属于饥饿方面。加斯特②冒火了，加斯特未必总是缺理的。在饥荒问题上，暴动，例如比尚赛③事件，出发点是正确的，悲壮和正确，为什么还只是暴动呢？因为它实质上虽然有理，但在形式上是错误的。虽有权力，但行动横蛮，虽然强大，但残暴不堪，乱打一阵，象一只瞎了眼的象，在前进中摧残一切，在后面留下一批老幼妇女的尸体，他们不知不觉牺牲了那些天真无辜者的鲜血。哺养人民是一个好愿望，而残杀他们是一个坏方法。
①马赞尼洛（Masaniello，1620?647），托马佐·安尼洛（Tomaso Aniello）的绰号，渔民，一六四七年那不勒斯反对西班牙统治的人民起义领袖。
②加斯特（Gaster），法国古小说中人物，此词的意义是肚子或胃。
③比尚赛（Buzānsais）事件是指法国国王路易十五的一个情妇，挑动国王去领导军队。
一切武装起义，包括合法的，如八月十日和七月十四日，在开始时都有同样的混乱。在法定权力被解放以前总有些骚动和糟粕，起义的前奏是暴动，同样一条河流是由急流开始的，通常起义是归纳到革命的海洋中。有时起义从高山出发，那里是正义、明智、公理，民权的天地，理想纯洁如白雪，经过岩石到岩石的长距离倾泻，并在它明镜似的流水中反映了蔚蓝的天空之后，就成为壮大的百条巨川，具有胜利的雄壮气概，突然，起义事业迷失在资产阶级的洼地中，象莱茵河那样流入了沼泽。
这些都是往事，未来则又不同。普选有这样可钦佩之处，它原则上消除暴动，当你给起义者以选举权，你就解除了他们的武装。战争就此消灭了，不论是街垒战或是国境战。这就是必然的进步。不问今天的情况如何，和平是明天的事。
总之，起义不同于暴动，可是真正的资产阶级，不能理解这种细微的差别。在他们看来，这一切都是民变，纯粹是叛乱，是看门狗的反抗，想咬主人；想咬人就得用铁链锁起来关在笼子里，狗用大声或小声狂吠着，直到狗头的形象突然变大的一天，暗中隐约出现了一只狮子的脸。
于是资产阶级就喊起来：“人民万岁！”
经过这样的解释，根据历史的观点，一八三二年六月的运动是什么？是暴动？还是起义？
这是一场起义。
从这场可怕事变的舞台布置，我们可能把它说成暴动，但这仅是表面现象，同时我们要具有区分暴动的形式和起义的实质的能力。
这次一八三二年的事变，在它爆发的速度和它悲惨的熄灭中都表现出无限伟大，就是那些只认为它是暴动的人也不能不以尊重的态度来谈论它。在他们看来这仅是一八三○年事件的余波。他们说，被激动的思想不会在一日之内平静下去。一切革命不能一刀把它垂直地切断。在回到平静时期之前必须经过一段波折，好象高山慢慢达到平原一样，好比没有汝拉山区就没有阿尔卑斯山脉，没有阿斯图里亚斯，就没有比利牛斯山脉。
在近代史中，这次感动人心的危局，在巴黎人的记忆中称之谓“暴动时期”，这肯定是本世纪风暴中最突出的一个时期。
在言归正传之前再来谈件事。
下面我要谈的是件活生生的戏剧性的事，历史家由于缺少时间和机会而把它忽略了，可是，我们要特别指出，在这件事里有生活，使人忐忑不安和发颤，我们好象以前曾讲过，有些细节，好象巨大事变中的一些小枝叶，已在遥远的历史里消失了。在所谓的暴动时期有许多这类琐事。有些司法部门的调查，由于其他原因而不是为了历史，没有把一切都揭发出来，也可能没有深入了解。在已经公布的众所周知的一些特殊情况里，还有些事，或是因为遗忘，或因当事人已死，没有流传下来，我们因而来揭露一些。这些宏伟场景中的大多数演员已经不在了，相隔一日，他们已经沉默。而我们在下面要讲的，可以说是我们亲眼见到的。我们更改了一些人名，因为历史是叙述而不是揭发，但是我们描写的是真实的情节。我们写这本书时的条件只能显示某一事件的某一方面，当然是一八三二年六月五、六两天中最没有被人注意到的情节。我们要做到使读者在我们揭起暗淡的帷幕后，能约略见到这次可怕的群众事变的真实面貌。