Unit 13: Age of Nationalism / Revolution
Letter from a Worker in the National Workshops
From Letter to the editor of the newspaper L'Aimable Fabourien, appearing in the issue of 4 June 1. As reproduced in 1848 in France, ed. Roger Price (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975), 104.
I live in the faubourg; by trade I am a cabinet-maker and I am enrolled in the national workshops, waiting for trade to pick up again.

I went into the workshops when I could no longer find bread elsewhere. Since then people have said we were given charity there. But when I went in I did not think that I was becoming a beggar. I believed that my brothers who were rich were giving me a little of what they had to spare simply because I was their brother.

I admit that I have not worked very hard in the national workshops, but then I have done what I could. I am too old now to change my trade easily--that is one explanation. But there is another: the fact is that, in the national workshops, there was absolutely nothing to do.

Reprinted by permission of Thames and Hudson, Ltd.

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