The Arcades Project - Operi

Audiganne, is the air of ceremony with which the investigators carry out their
visits to the homes of the workers: 'If not a single special inquest undertaken
during the Second Empire yielded concrete results of any kind, the blame for this
rests, in large part, on the pomp with which the investigators paraded around'
(p. 93). Engels and Marx describe further the methods by which the workers were
induced to express themselves on the occasion of these recherches sociales and
even to present petitions against the reduction of their work time." Hilde Weiss,
"Die Enquete ouvriere' von Karl Marx" [Zeitschrift fur Sozialforschung, ed.
Max Horkheimer, 5, no. 1 (Paris, 1936), pp. 83-84]. The passages from Audigmme
are taken from his book Mfmwires d'un ouvrier de Paris < Paris, 1873>.
[aI5a,2J
In 1854, the affair of the carpenters took place. When the carpenters of Paris
decided to strike, proceedings were instituted against the leaders of the carpenters
for violation of the ban on coalitions. They were defended, in the first instance and
in the appeal, by Berryer. From his arguments before the court of appeals: 'It
cannot be this sacred resolve, this voluntary decision to abandon one's work
rather than not derive a just income from it, that has been marked out for punishment
by the law. No, it is the determination, instead, to restrain the freedom of
others; it is the interdiction of work, the hindering of others from going to their
place of work. ... In order, then, for there to be a coalition, in the proper sense,
there must be some sort of restraint on the liberty of persons, a violence done to
the freedom of others. And, in fact, if this is not the true construction of' articles
415 and 416, would there not be, in our law, a monstrous inequality between the
condition of the workers and that of the entrepreneurs? The latter can take counsel
together to decide that the cost of labor is too high . ... The law . .. punishes
the coalition of entrepreneurs only when their concerted action is unjust and
abusive . ... Without reproducing the same set of words, the law reproduces the
same idea with respect to workers. It is by the sound interpretation of these articles
that you will consecrate the equality of condition that ought to exist between
these two elasses ofindividuals." Berryer, Oeuvres: Plaidoyers,
vol. 2, 1836-1856 (Paris, 1876), pp. 245-246. [aI6,IJ
Affair of the carpenters: "M. Berryer concludes his plea by rising to considerations
. .. of the current situation, in France, of the lower classes-condemned, he
says, to see two-fifths of' their members dying in the hospital or laid out in the
morgue." Berryer, Oeuvres: Plaidoyers, vol. 2, 1836-.1856 (Paris, 1876), p. 250
(The principals accused in the trial were sentenced to three years in prison-a
judgment that was upheld on appeal.) [aI6,2J
"Our worker-poets of late have been imitating the rhythms of Lamartine, . .. too
often sacrificing whatever folk originality they might have . ... When they write,
t.hey wear a suit and put on gloves, thus losing the superiority that strong hands
and powerful arms give to the people when they know how to use them."
J. Michelet, Le Peuple, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1846), 1'. 195. At another point (p. 107),