The Arcades Project - Operi

The Societe des Droits de l'Homme employs, in its
pamphlets, the calendar of the great Revolution. In the month of Pluviose,9 year
42 of the Republican era, it counts 300 branch establishments throughout France,
163 in Paris alone, of which every one had its particular name. The wooing of the
proletarians by the bourgeoisie had the benefit 'that, instead of enlisting them
through humiliation or material services, through the offer of money or other
forms of assistance, it was by various attentions and tokens of respect, by joining
together in balls and fetes, that the leaders of the bourgeoisie worked to form
attachments with the workers." Charles Benoist, "L'Homme de 1848," part 1,
Revue des deux mondes (July 1, 1913), pp. 148-149. [V5,4]
The Societe de Propagande : "To this organization we
owe, in part, the strike at the end of 1833, which extended to typographers, mechanics,
stonecutters, rope makers, hackney drivers, camberers, glovers, sawyers,
wallpaperers, hosiers, and locksmiths, and which involved no less than
1.8,000 tailors, 6,000 shoemakers, 5,000 carpenters, 4,000 jewelers, and 3,000
bakers. " , eh. Benoist, "L'Homme de 1848," part 1, Revue des deux mondes (July
1, 1913), p. 151. [V5,5]
The Comite Invisible -name of a seeret society in Lyons.
[V5,6]
Ouly after 1832, but above all around 1834 and 1835, did revolutionary propaganda
gain a foothold in the proletariat. [V5,7]
In the tightened organization of the secret societies after 1835, the mystagogic
element was intensified. The names of the days of the week and of the months
became codewords for assault detachments and commandos. An initiation ceremony
influenced by freemasonry and reminiscent of the Vehme was introduced. According to de La Hodde, this ceremonial
already includes, among other things, the question: "Must one make a political
revolution, or a social revolution?" lO See Ch. Benoist, "L'Homme de 1848," part
1, Revue des Deux Mandes, 7, no. 1 (1913), pp. 1959-1961. [V5,8]
"It was aU up with the Jacobins by 184,0, just as with the Montagnards, the secret
societies, the conspiracies, the journals, the ceremonial parades, and the raids.
The communists' now held center stage . ... The workers took part in the banquet
in Belleville, at whieh the clockmaker Simard gave a speeeh. The great strike
of 1840 during which, in Paris alone, 30,000 men stopped work, tightened their
federation . ... Heinrich Heine has given us, in ten passages of llis Lutece, a vivid
picture of . .. the powerful hold which communism had on the workers from the
Paris suburbs. Heine had the honor, in his letters to the Augsburg Gazette, of
unveiling communism to the communists . ... But ... there arc communists and
communists. I transcribe, from L'Almanach leaden of 184,3 , this notice . . . :
'Today, the eommunists can be divided into two main categories: communists pure