interest, but, as against the great mass of the people, they work together like thieves at a fair.
On their right and on their left are the cabinet ministers, the great officials of all the state services, civil, religious and military, not forgetting the paymaster-generals, at salaries of thirty, forty, or sixty thousand francs a year; a little farther away, the Council of the Order of Advocates (that glorious interpreter of the "Universal Conscience") and the gentlemen of the courts of law, including their precious auxiliaries, the solicitors, notaries and bailiffs.
And then there are the big shareholders of the mines, factories, railways and shipping companies, and the big stores, great squires and great landed proprietors, they are all at that table; all those who have only a few sous are there also, at the end of the table; they are the small fry, who have, however, all the prejudices and all the conservative instincts of the big capitalists.
Ah! gentlemen of the jury, I trust that you are among those privileged ones seated at that table. One is not badly off there, in truth. In return for one's work—when one does work—work which is often of an intellectual character, frequently pleasant, and which always leaves plenty of leisure; directorial work which flatters a man's pride and vanity, one enjoys a full, rich life, embellished by all the comfort and luxury that the progress of science places at the service of the privileged ones of the earth.
Far away from that table I perceive a herd of beasts of burden, condemned to forbidding, dirty, dangerous and mindless toil, without respite or repose, and, above all, without security for the morrow; small tradesmen, nailed to their counters on Sundays and holidays, and more and more crushed out every day by the competition of the big stores; small industrial employers, ground out of existence by the competition of the big factory owners; small peasant proprietors, brutalized by long hours of labor, 16 to 18 hours a day, and only working to enrich
