The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
{"WorkMasterId":6480,"WpPageId":282471,"ParentWpPageId":189644,"Slug":"marx-eighteenth-brumaire-louis-bonaparte","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/marx-eighteenth-brumaire-louis-bonaparte/","RelativeUrl":"theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/marx-eighteenth-brumaire-louis-bonaparte/","HasFullText":true,"RawHtmlLength":334062,"CleanHtmlLength":277952,"Kicker":"Philosophy Work","Title":"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte","Deck":"Marx explains the 1851 coup through class fractions, representation, state power, ideology, repetition, and historical agency.","BackLink":{"Text":"Back to Karl Marx","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/"},"AuthorCard":{"Label":"Author","Title":"Karl Marx","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/","MediaHref":"","ImageSrc":"https://chrisdeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/karl-marx-01-mayall-1875-standard-portrait.jpg","ImageAlt":"Karl Marx, Mayall portrait, 1875","FilterTerra":"Western Europe","ClickText":"Karl Marx","ClickHref":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/","Copies":["1818 CE – 1883 CE","Trier, Rhine Province, Kingdom of Prussia","German philosopher of historical materialism, alienation, class struggle, ideology critique, political economy, capitalism, communism, religion critique, and social transformation."]},"ContextCards":[{"Label":"Period","Key":"Period:4","Title":"Modern History","DateText":"1800 CE – 1944 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-modern-history/"},{"Label":"Era","Key":"Era:11","Title":"Long 19th Century","DateText":"1870 CE – 1913 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-modern-history/philosophers-of-the-long-19th-century/"},{"Label":"Composition","Title":"1852 CE","Url":"","DateText":""}],"DateNote":"Displayed as 1852 CE for publication.","GeoCards":[{"Label":"Region","Key":"Region:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita","Key":"TerraAvita:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita Region","Key":"TerraAvitaRegion:3"},{"Label":"Modern Country","Key":"Country:DEU:1"}],"OriginalTitle":"Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte","Language":"German / French / English","DisciplineCards":[{"Label":"Primary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:political-philosophy"},{"Label":"Secondary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:metaphysics"}],"Tradition":"Historical materialism / critique of political economy","FullText":{"Title":"Full Text","Copy":"Public-domain full text from Project Gutenberg eBook #1346 .","Url":"","Label":"","Kicker":"","Cards":[]},"CoreThesis":["Marx explains the 1851 coup through class fractions, representation, state power, ideology, repetition, and historical agency."],"Classification":{"AlternateTitles":"18th Brumaire; Eighteenth Brumaire","KeyConcepts":"Louis Bonaparte; coup; class fractions; state; representation; ideology; history; repetition","Methodology":"Historical-materialist analysis, critique of political economy, dialectical critique, philosophical polemic, archival manuscript work, journalism, and social theory.","Structure":"The page records an approved Marx work with explicit year, source evidence, and visible coauthorship, manuscript, posthumous, or Engels-edited status where needed."},"Arguments":["Marx explains the 1851 coup through class fractions, representation, state power, ideology, repetition, and historical agency."],"Influence":{"InfluencedBy":"Hegel, Feuerbach, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Aristotle, Epicurus, French socialism, British political economy, and nineteenth-century revolutionary politics.","InfluenceOn":""},"Significance":["Included as one of the twenty-seven direct Karl Marx work pages approved for the Karl Marx full-process repair.","The work anchors Marx\u0027s continuing relevance for capitalism, labor, alienation, class, ideology, religion critique, political economy, state power, social transformation, and historical explanation."],"EvidenceNote":["Accepted through Marxists archive, Gutenberg, catalog, and scholarship evidence; 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coup; class fractions; state; representation; ideology; history; repetition"},{"Label":"Methodology","Value":"Historical-materialist analysis, critique of political economy, dialectical critique, philosophical polemic, archival manuscript work, journalism, and social theory."},{"Label":"Structure","Value":"The page records an approved Marx work with explicit year, source evidence, and visible coauthorship, manuscript, posthumous, or Engels-edited status where needed."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Arguments","Paragraphs":["Marx explains the 1851 coup through class fractions, representation, state power, ideology, repetition, and historical agency."]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Influence","Fields":[{"Label":"Influenced By","Value":"Hegel, Feuerbach, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Aristotle, Epicurus, French socialism, British political economy, and nineteenth-century revolutionary politics."},{"Label":"Influence On","Value":"Marxism, socialism, communism, critical theory, labor movements, political economy, sociology, social philosophy, philosophy of history, and twentieth-century continental thought."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Significance","Paragraphs":["Included as one of the twenty-seven direct Karl Marx work pages approved for the Karl Marx full-process repair.","The work anchors Marx\u0027s continuing relevance for capitalism, labor, alienation, class, ideology, religion critique, political economy, state power, social transformation, and historical explanation."]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Evidence Note","Paragraphs":["Accepted through Marxists archive, Gutenberg, catalog, and scholarship evidence; HasFullText remains false."]},{"Kind":"RawSection","Title":"Full Text","BodyHtml":"\u003cp class=\"dz-philo__section-copy dz-philo__full-text-source\"\u003ePublic-domain full text from \u003ca href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1346\"\u003eProject Gutenberg eBook #1346\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003carticle class=\"dz-philo__full-text-body\"\u003e\r\n\u003ch1\u003eThe Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte\u003c/h1\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2 class=\"no-break\"\u003eby Karl Marx\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003chr /\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2\u003eContents\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ctable summary=\"\" style=\"\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ctr\u003e\r\n\u003ctd\u003e \u003ca href=\"#pref01\"\u003eTranslator\u0026rsquo;s Preface\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\r\n\u003c/tr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ctr\u003e\r\n\u003ctd\u003e \u003ca href=\"#chap01\"\u003eI.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\r\n\u003c/tr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ctr\u003e\r\n\u003ctd\u003e \u003ca href=\"#chap02\"\u003eII.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\r\n\u003c/tr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ctr\u003e\r\n\u003ctd\u003e \u003ca href=\"#chap03\"\u003eIII.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\r\n\u003c/tr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ctr\u003e\r\n\u003ctd\u003e \u003ca href=\"#chap04\"\u003eIV.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\r\n\u003c/tr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ctr\u003e\r\n\u003ctd\u003e \u003ca href=\"#chap05\"\u003eV.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\r\n\u003c/tr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ctr\u003e\r\n\u003ctd\u003e \u003ca href=\"#chap06\"\u003eVI.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\r\n\u003c/tr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ctr\u003e\r\n\u003ctd\u003e \u003ca href=\"#chap07\"\u003eVII.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\r\n\u003c/tr\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c/table\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv class=\"chapter\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003ca name=\"pref01\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eTranslator\u0026rsquo;s Preface\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte\u0026rdquo; is one of Karl\r\nMarx\u0026rsquo; most profound and most brilliant monographs. It may be considered\r\nthe best work extant on the philosophy of history, with an eye especially upon\r\nthe history of the Movement of the Proletariat, together with the bourgeois and\r\nother manifestations that accompany the same, and the tactics that such\r\nconditions dictate.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe recent populist uprising; the more recent \u0026ldquo;Debs Movement\u0026rdquo;; the\r\nthousand and one utopian and chimerical notions that are flaring up; the\r\ncapitalist maneuvers; the hopeless, helpless grasping after straws, that\r\ncharacterize the conduct of the bulk of the working class; all of these,\r\ntogether with the empty-headed, ominous figures that are springing into\r\nnotoriety for a time and have their day, mark the present period of the Labor\r\nMovement in the nation a critical one. The best information acquirable, the\r\nbest mental training obtainable are requisite to steer through the existing\r\nchaos that the death-tainted social system of today creates all around us. To\r\naid in this needed information and mental training, this instructive work is\r\nnow made accessible to English readers, and is commended to the serious study\r\nof the serious.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe teachings contained in this work are hung on an episode in recent French\r\nhistory. With some this fact may detract of its value. A pedantic, supercilious\r\nnotion is extensively abroad among us that we are an \u0026ldquo;Anglo Saxon\u0026rdquo;\r\nnation; and an equally pedantic, supercilious habit causes many to look to\r\nEngland for inspiration, as from a racial birthplace. Nevertheless, for weal or\r\nfor woe, there is no such thing extant as \u0026ldquo;Anglo-Saxon\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;of\r\nall nations, said to be \u0026ldquo;Anglo-Saxon,\u0026rdquo; in the United States least.\r\nWhat we still have from England, much as appearances may seem to point the\r\nother way, is not of our bone-and-marrow, so to speak, but rather partakes of\r\nthe nature of \u0026ldquo;importations.\u0026rdquo; We are no more English on account of\r\nthem than we are Chinese because we all drink tea.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOf all European nations, France is the on to which we come nearest. Besides its\r\nrepublican form of government\u0026mdash;the directness of its history, the unity of\r\nits actions, the sharpness that marks its internal development, are all\r\ncharacteristics that find their parallel her best, and vice versa. In all\r\nessentials the study of modern French history, particularly when sketched by\r\nsuch a master hand as Marx\u0026rsquo;, is the most valuable one for the acquisition\r\nof that historic, social and biologic insight that our country stands\r\nparticularly in need of, and that will be inestimable during the approaching\r\ncritical days.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFor the assistance of those who, unfamiliar with the history of France, may be\r\nconfused by some of the terms used by Marx, the following explanations may\r\nprove aidful:\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOn the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9th), the post-revolutionary development of affairs\r\nin France enabled the first Napoleon to take a step that led with inevitable\r\ncertainty to the imperial throne. The circumstance that fifty and odd years\r\nlater similar events aided his nephew, Louis Bonaparte, to take a similar step\r\nwith a similar result, gives the name to this work\u0026mdash;\u0026ldquo;The Eighteenth\r\nBrumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAs to the other terms and allusions that occur, the following sketch will\r\nsuffice:\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nUpon the overthrow of the first Napoleon came the restoration of the Bourbon\r\nthrone (Louis XVIII, succeeded by Charles X). In July, 1830, an uprising of the\r\nupper tier of the bourgeoisie, or capitalist class\u0026mdash;the aristocracy of\r\nfinance\u0026mdash;overthrew the Bourbon throne, or landed aristocracy, and set up\r\nthe throne of Orleans, a younger branch of the house of Bourbon, with Louis\r\nPhilippe as king. From the month in which this revolution occurred, Louis\r\nPhilippe\u0026rsquo;s monarchy is called the \u0026ldquo;July Monarchy.\u0026rdquo; In\r\nFebruary, 1848, a revolt of a lower tier of the capitalist class\u0026mdash;the\r\nindustrial bourgeoisie\u0026mdash;against the aristocracy of finance, in turn\r\ndethroned Louis Philippe. The affair, also named from the month in which it\r\ntook place, is the \u0026ldquo;February Revolution\u0026rdquo;. \u0026ldquo;The Eighteenth\r\nBrumaire\u0026rdquo; starts with that event.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nDespite the inapplicableness to our affairs of the political names and\r\npolitical leadership herein described, both these names and leaderships are to\r\nsuch an extent the products of an economic-social development that has here too\r\ntaken place with even greater sharpens, and they have their present or\r\nthreatened counterparts here so completely, that, by the light of this work of\r\nMarx\u0026rsquo;, we are best enabled to understand our own history, to know whence\r\nwe came, and whither we are going and how to conduct ourselves.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nD.D.L. New York, Sept. 12, 1897\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c/div\u003e\u003c!–end chapter–\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv class=\"chapter\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2\u003eTHE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE OF LOUIS BONAPARTE\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c/div\u003e\u003c!–end chapter–\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv class=\"chapter\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003ca name=\"chap01\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eI.\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nHegel says somewhere that that great historic facts and personages recur twice.\r\nHe forgot to add: \u0026ldquo;Once as tragedy, and again as farce.\u0026rdquo;\r\nCaussidiere for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the \u0026ldquo;Mountain\u0026rdquo;\r\nof 1848-51 for the \u0026ldquo;Mountain\u0026rdquo; of 1793-05, the Nephew for the Uncle.\r\nThe identical caricature marks also the conditions under which the second\r\nedition of the eighteenth Brumaire is issued.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nMan makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he\r\ndoes not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he\r\nfinds close at hand. The tradition of all past generations weighs like an alp\r\nupon the brain of the living. At the very time when men appear engaged in\r\nrevolutionizing things and themselves, in bringing about what never was before,\r\nat such very epochs of revolutionary crisis do they anxiously conjure up into\r\ntheir service the spirits of the past, assume their names, their battle cries,\r\ntheir costumes to enact a new historic scene in such time-honored disguise and\r\nwith such borrowed language Thus did Luther masquerade as the Apostle Paul;\r\nthus did the revolution of 1789-1814 drape itself alternately as Roman Republic\r\nand as Roman Empire; nor did the revolution of 1818 know what better to do than\r\nto parody at one time the year 1789, at another the revolutionary traditions of\r\n1793-95. Thus does the beginner, who has acquired a new language, keep on\r\ntranslating it back into his own mother tongue; only then has he grasped the\r\nspirit of the new language and is able freely to express himself therewith when\r\nhe moves in it without recollections of the old, and has forgotten in its use\r\nhis own hereditary tongue.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhen these historic configurations of the dead past are closely observed a\r\nstriking difference is forthwith noticeable. Camille Desmoulins, Danton,\r\nRobespierre, St. Juste, Napoleon, the heroes as well as the parties and the\r\nmasses of the old French revolution, achieved in Roman costumes and with Roman\r\nphrases the task of their time: the emancipation and the establishment of\r\nmodern bourgeois society. One set knocked to pieces the old feudal groundwork\r\nand mowed down the feudal heads that had grown upon it; Napoleon brought about,\r\nwithin France, the conditions under which alone free competition could develop,\r\nthe partitioned lands be exploited, the nation\u0026rsquo;s unshackled powers of\r\nindustrial production be utilized; while, beyond the French frontier, he swept\r\naway everywhere the establishments of feudality, so far as requisite, to\r\nfurnish the bourgeois social system of France with fit surroundings of the\r\nEuropean continent, and such as were in keeping with the times. Once the new\r\nsocial establishment was set on foot, the antediluvian giants vanished, and,\r\nalong with them, the resuscitated Roman world\u0026mdash;the Brutuses, Gracchi,\r\nPublicolas, the Tribunes, the Senators, and Caesar himself. In its sober\r\nreality, bourgeois society had produced its own true interpretation in the\r\nSays, Cousins, Royer-Collards, Benjamin Constants and Guizots; its real\r\ngenerals sat behind the office desks; and the mutton-head of Louis XVIII was\r\nits political lead. Wholly absorbed in the production of wealth and in the\r\npeaceful fight of competition, this society could no longer understand that the\r\nghosts of the days of Rome had watched over its cradle. And yet, lacking in\r\nheroism as bourgeois society is, it nevertheless had stood in need of heroism,\r\nof self-sacrifice, of terror, of civil war, and of bloody battle fields to\r\nbring it into the world. Its gladiators found in the stern classic traditions\r\nof the Roman republic the ideals and the form, the self-deceptions, that they\r\nneeded in order to conceal from themselves the narrow bourgeois substance of\r\ntheir own struggles, and to keep their passion up to the height of a great\r\nhistoric tragedy. Thus, at another stage of development a century before, did\r\nCromwell and the English people draw from the Old Testament the language,\r\npassions and illusions for their own bourgeois revolution. When the real goal\r\nwas reached, when the remodeling of English society was accomplished, Locke\r\nsupplanted Habakuk.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAccordingly, the reviving of the dead in those revolutions served the purpose\r\nof glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; it served the\r\npurpose of exaggerating to the imagination the given task, not to recoil before\r\nits practical solution; it served the purpose of rekindling the revolutionary\r\nspirit, not to trot out its ghost.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn 1848-51 only the ghost of the old revolution wandered about, from Marrast\r\nthe \u0026ldquo;Republicain en gaunts jaunes,\u0026rdquo; [#1 Silk-stocking republican]\r\nwho disguised himself in old Bailly, down to the adventurer, who hid his\r\nrepulsively trivial features under the iron death mask of Napoleon. A whole\r\npeople, that imagines it has imparted to itself accelerated powers of motion\r\nthrough a revolution, suddenly finds itself transferred back to a dead epoch,\r\nand, lest there be any mistake possible on this head, the old dates turn up\r\nagain; the old calendars; the old names; the old edicts, which long since had\r\nsunk to the level of the antiquarian\u0026rsquo;s learning; even the old bailiffs,\r\nwho had long seemed mouldering with decay. The nation takes on the appearance\r\nof that crazy Englishman in Bedlam, who imagines he is living in the days of\r\nthe Pharaohs, and daily laments the hard work that he must do in the Ethiopian\r\nmines as gold digger, immured in a subterranean prison, with a dim lamp\r\nfastened on his head, behind him the slave overseer with a long whip, and, at\r\nthe mouths of the mine a mob of barbarous camp servants who understand neither\r\nthe convicts in the mines nor one another, because they do not speak a common\r\nlanguage. \u0026ldquo;And all this,\u0026rdquo; cries the crazy Englishman, \u0026ldquo;is\r\ndemanded of me, the free-born Englishman, in order to make gold for old\r\nPharaoh.\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;In order to pay off the debts of the Bonaparte\r\nfamily\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;sobs the French nation. The Englishman, so long as he was\r\nin his senses, could not rid himself of the rooted thought making gold. The\r\nFrenchmen, so long as they were busy with a revolution, could not rid then\r\nselves of the Napoleonic memory, as the election of December 10th proved. They\r\nlonged to escape from the dangers of revolution back to the flesh pots of\r\nEgypt; the 2d of December, 1851 was the answer. They have not merely the\r\ncharacter of the old Napoleon, but the old Napoleon himself\u0026mdash;caricatured\r\nas he needs must appear in the middle of the nineteenth century.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe social revolution of the nineteenth century can not draw its poetry from\r\nthe past, it can draw that only from the future. It cannot start upon its work\r\nbefore it has stricken off all superstition concerning the past. Former\r\nrevolutions require historic reminiscences in order to intoxicate themselves\r\nwith their own issues. The revolution of the nineteenth century must let the\r\ndead bury their dead in order to reach its issue. With the former, the phrase\r\nsurpasses the substance; with this one, the substance surpasses the phrase.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe February revolution was a surprisal; old society was taken unawares; and\r\nthe people proclaimed this political stroke a great historic act whereby the\r\nnew era was opened. On the 2d of December, the February revolution is jockeyed\r\nby the trick of a false player, and what seems to be overthrown is no longer\r\nthe monarchy, but the liberal concessions which had been wrung from it by\r\ncenturies of struggles. Instead of society itself having conquered a new point,\r\nonly the State appears to have returned to its oldest form, to the simply\r\nbrazen rule of the sword and the club. Thus, upon the \u0026ldquo;coup de\r\nmain\u0026rdquo; of February, 1848, comes the response of the \u0026ldquo;coup de\r\ntete\u0026rdquo; December, 1851. So won, so lost. Meanwhile, the interval did not go\r\nby unutilized. During the years 1848-1851, French society retrieved in\r\nabbreviated, because revolutionary, method the lessons and teachings,\r\nwhich\u0026mdash;if it was to be more than a disturbance of the surface\u0026mdash;should\r\nhave preceded the February revolution, had it developed in regular order, by\r\nrule, so to say. Now French society seems to have receded behind its point of\r\ndeparture; in fact, however, it was compelled to first produce its own\r\nrevolutionary point of departure, the situation, circumstances, conditions,\r\nunder which alone the modern revolution is in earnest.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBourgeois revolutions, like those of the eighteenth century, rush onward\r\nrapidly from success to success, their stage effects outbid one another, men\r\nand things seem to be set in flaming brilliants, ecstasy is the prevailing\r\nspirit; but they are short-lived, they reach their climax speedily, then\r\nsociety relapses into a long fit of nervous reaction before it learns how to\r\nappropriate the fruits of its period of feverish excitement. Proletarian\r\nrevolutions, on the contrary, such as those of the nineteenth century,\r\ncriticize themselves constantly; constantly interrupt themselves in their own\r\ncourse; come back to what seems to have been accomplished, in order to start\r\nover anew; scorn with cruel thoroughness the half measures, weaknesses and\r\nmeannesses of their first attempts; seem to throw down their adversary only in\r\norder to enable him to draw fresh strength from the earth, and again, to rise\r\nup against them in more gigantic stature; constantly recoil in fear before the\r\nundefined monster magnitude of their own objects\u0026mdash;until finally that\r\nsituation is created which renders all retreat impossible, and the conditions\r\nthemselves cry out:\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp class=\"poem\"\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;Hic Rhodus, hic salta!\u0026rdquo;\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n[#2 Here is Rhodes, leap here! An allusion to Aesop\u0026rsquo;s Fables.]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nEvery observer of average intelligence; even if he failed to follow step by\r\nstep the course of French development, must have anticipated that an unheard of\r\nfiasco was in store for the revolution. It was enough to hear the\r\nself-satisfied yelpings of victory wherewith the Messieurs Democrats mutually\r\ncongratulated one another upon the pardons of May 2d, 1852. Indeed, May 2d had\r\nbecome a fixed idea in their heads; it had become a dogma with\r\nthem\u0026mdash;something like the day on which Christ was to reappear and the\r\nMillennium to begin had formed in the heads of the Chiliasts. Weakness had, as\r\nit ever does, taken refuge in the wonderful; it believed the enemy was overcome\r\nif, in its imagination, it hocus-pocused him away; and it lost all sense of the\r\npresent in the imaginary apotheosis of the future, that was at hand, and of the\r\ndeeds, that it had \u0026ldquo;in petto,\u0026rdquo; but which it did not yet want to\r\nbring to the scratch. The heroes, who ever seek to refute their established\r\nincompetence by mutually bestowing their sympathy upon one another and by\r\npulling together, had packed their satchels, taken their laurels in advance\r\npayments and were just engaged in the work of getting discounted \u0026ldquo;in\r\npartibus,\u0026rdquo; on the stock exchange, the republics for which, in the silence\r\nof their unassuming dispositions, they had carefully organized the government\r\npersonnel. The 2d of December struck them like a bolt from a clear sky; and the\r\npeoples, who, in periods of timid despondency, gladly allow their hidden fears\r\nto be drowned by the loudest screamers, will perhaps have become convinced that\r\nthe days are gone by when the cackling of geese could save the Capitol.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe constitution, the national assembly, the dynastic parties, the blue and the\r\nred republicans, the heroes from Africa, the thunder from the tribune, the\r\nflash-lightnings from the daily press, the whole literature, the political\r\nnames and the intellectual celebrities, the civil and the criminal law, the\r\n\u0026ldquo;liberte\u0026rsquo;, egalite\u0026rsquo;, fraternite\u0026rsquo;,\u0026rdquo; together with\r\nthe 2d of May 1852\u0026mdash;all vanished like a phantasmagoria before the ban of\r\none man, whom his enemies themselves do not pronounce an adept at witchcraft.\r\nUniversal suffrage seems to have survived only for a moment, to the end that,\r\nbefore the eyes of the whole world, it should make its own testament with its\r\nown hands, and, in the name of the people, declare: \u0026ldquo;All that exists\r\ndeserves to perish.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIt is not enough to say, as the Frenchmen do, that their nation was taken by\r\nsurprise. A nation, no more than a woman, is excused for the unguarded hour\r\nwhen the first adventurer who comes along can do violence to her. The riddle is\r\nnot solved by such shifts, it is only formulated in other words. There remains\r\nto be explained how a nation of thirty-six millions can be surprised by three\r\nswindlers, and taken to prison without resistance.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nLet us recapitulate in general outlines the phases which the French revolution\r\nof February 24th, 1848, to December, 1851, ran through.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThree main periods are unmistakable:\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFirst\u0026mdash;The February period;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nSecond\u0026mdash;The period of constituting the republic, or of the constitutive\r\nnational assembly (May 4, 1848, to May 29th, 1849);\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThird\u0026mdash;The period of the constitutional republic, or of the legislative\r\nnational assembly (May 29, 1849, to December 2, 1851).\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe first period, from February 24, or the downfall of Louis Philippe, to May\r\n4, 1848, the date of the assembling of the constitutive assembly\u0026mdash;the\r\nFebruary period proper\u0026mdash;may be designated as the prologue of the\r\nrevolution. It officially expressed its own character in this, that the\r\ngovernment which it improvised declared itself \u0026ldquo;provisional;\u0026rdquo; and,\r\nlike the government, everything that was broached, attempted, or uttered,\r\npronounced itself provisional. Nobody and nothing dared to assume the right of\r\npermanent existence and of an actual fact. All the elements that had prepared\r\nor determined the revolution\u0026mdash;dynastic opposition, republican bourgeoisie,\r\ndemocratic-republican small traders\u0026rsquo; class, social-democratic labor\r\nelement\u0026mdash;all found \u0026ldquo;provisionally\u0026rdquo; their place in the February\r\ngovernment.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIt could not be otherwise. The February days contemplated originally a reform\r\nof the suffrage laws, whereby the area of the politically privileged among the\r\nproperty-holding class was to be extended, while the exclusive rule of the\r\naristocracy of finance was to be overthrown. When however, it came to a real\r\nconflict, when the people mounted the barricades, when the National Guard stood\r\npassive, when the army offered no serious resistance, and the kingdom ran away,\r\nthen the republic seemed self-understood. Each party interpreted it in its own\r\nsense. Won, arms in hand, by the proletariat, they put upon it the stamp of\r\ntheir own class, and proclaimed the social republic. Thus the general purpose\r\nof modern revolutions was indicated, a purpose, however, that stood in most\r\nsingular contradiction to every thing that, with the material at hand, with the\r\nstage of enlightenment that the masses had reached, and under existing\r\ncircumstances and conditions, could be immediately used. On the other hand, the\r\nclaims of all the other elements, that had cooperated in the revolution of\r\nFebruary, were recognized by the lion\u0026rsquo;s share that they received in the\r\ngovernment. Hence, in no period do we find a more motley mixture of\r\nhigh-sounding phrases together with actual doubt and helplessness; of more\r\nenthusiastic reform aspirations, together with a more slavish adherence to the\r\nold routine; more seeming harmony permeating the whole of society together with\r\na deeper alienation of its several elements. While the Parisian proletariat was\r\nstill gloating over the sight of the great perspective that had disclosed\r\nitself to their view, and was indulging in seriously meant discussions over the\r\nsocial problems, the old powers of society had groomed themselves, had gathered\r\ntogether, had deliberated and found an unexpected support in the mass of the\r\nnation\u0026mdash;the peasants and small traders\u0026mdash;all of whom threw themselves\r\non a sudden upon the political stage, after the barriers of the July monarchy\r\nhad fallen down.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe second period, from May 4, 1848, to the end of May, 1849, is the period of\r\nthe constitution, of the founding of the bourgeois republic immediately after\r\nthe February days, not only was the dynastic opposition surprised by the\r\nrepublicans, and the republicans by the Socialists, but all France was\r\nsurprised by Paris. The national assembly, that met on May 4, 1848, to frame a\r\nconstitution, was the outcome of the national elections; it represented the\r\nnation. It was a living protest against the assumption of the February days,\r\nand it was intended to bring the results of the revolution back to the\r\nbourgeois measure. In vain did the proletariat of Paris, which forthwith\r\nunderstood the character of this national assembly, endeavor, a few days after\r\nits meeting; on May 15, to deny its existence by force, to dissolve it, to\r\ndisperse the organic apparition, in which the reacting spirit of the nation was\r\nthreatening them, and thus reduce it back to its separate component parts. As\r\nis known, the 15th of May had no other result than that of removing Blanqui and\r\nhis associates, i.e. the real leaders of the proletarian party, from the public\r\nscene for the whole period of the cycle which we are here considering.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nUpon the bourgeois monarchy of Louis Philippe, only the bourgeois republic\r\ncould follow; that is to say, a limited portion of the bourgeoisie having ruled\r\nunder the name of the king, now the whole bourgeoisie was to rule under the\r\nname of the people. The demands of the Parisian proletariat are utopian\r\ntom-fooleries that have to be done away with. To this declaration of the\r\nconstitutional national assembly, the Paris proletariat answers with the June\r\ninsurrection, the most colossal event in the history of European civil wars.\r\nThe bourgeois republic won. On its side stood the aristocracy of finance, the\r\nindustrial bourgeoisie; the middle class; the small traders\u0026rsquo; class; the\r\narmy; the slums, organized as Guarde Mobile; the intellectual celebrities, the\r\nparsons\u0026rsquo; class, and the rural population. On the side of the Parisian\r\nproletariat stood none but itself. Over 3,000 insurgents were massacred, after\r\nthe victory 15,000 were transported without trial. With this defeat, the\r\nproletariat steps to the background on the revolutionary stage. It always seeks\r\nto crowd forward, so soon as the movement seems to acquire new impetus, but\r\nwith ever weaker effort and ever smaller results; So soon as any of the above\r\nlying layers of society gets into revolutionary fermentation, it enters into\r\nalliance therewith and thus shares all the defeats which the several parties\r\nsuccessively suffer. But these succeeding blows become ever weaker the more\r\ngenerally they are distributed over the whole surface of society. The more\r\nimportant leaders of the Proletariat, in its councils, and the press, fall one\r\nafter another victims of the courts, and ever more questionable figures step to\r\nthe front. It partly throws itself it upon doctrinaire experiments,\r\n\u0026ldquo;co-operative banking\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;labor exchange\u0026rdquo; schemes; in\r\nother words, movements, in which it goes into movements in which it gives up\r\nthe task of revolutionizing the old world with its own large collective weapons\r\nand on the contrary, seeks to bring about its emancipation, behind the back of\r\nsociety, in private ways, within the narrow bounds of its own class conditions,\r\nand, consequently, inevitably fails. The proletariat seems to be able neither\r\nto find again the revolutionary magnitude within itself nor to draw new energy\r\nfrom the newly formed alliances until all the classes, with whom it contended\r\nin June, shall lie prostrate along with itself. But in all these defeats, the\r\nproletariat succumbs at least with the honor that attaches to great historic\r\nstruggles; not France alone, all Europe trembles before the June earthquake,\r\nwhile the successive defeats inflicted upon the higher classes are bought so\r\neasily that they need the brazen exaggeration of the victorious party itself to\r\nbe at all able to pass muster as an event; and these defeats become more\r\ndisgraceful the further removed the defeated party stands from the proletariat.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nTrue enough, the defeat of the June insurgents prepared, leveled the ground,\r\nupon which the bourgeois republic could be founded and erected; but it, at the\r\nsame time, showed that there are in Europe other issues besides that of\r\n\u0026ldquo;Republic or Monarchy.\u0026rdquo; It revealed the fact that here the\r\nBourgeois Republic meant the unbridled despotism of one class over another. It\r\nproved that, with nations enjoying an older civilization, having developed\r\nclass distinctions, modern conditions of production, an intellectual\r\nconsciousness, wherein all traditions of old have been dissolved through the\r\nwork of centuries, that with such countries the republic means only the\r\npolitical revolutionary form of bourgeois society, not its conservative form of\r\nexistence, as is the case in the United States of America, where, true enough,\r\nthe classes already exist, but have not yet acquired permanent character, are\r\nin constant flux and reflux, constantly changing their elements and yielding\r\nthem up to one another where the modern means of production, instead of\r\ncoinciding with a stagnant population, rather compensate for the relative\r\nscarcity of heads and hands; and, finally, where the feverishly youthful life\r\nof material production, which has to appropriate a new world to itself, has so\r\nfar left neither time nor opportunity to abolish the illusions of old. [#3 This\r\nwas written at the beginning of 1852.]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAll classes and parties joined hands in the June days in a \u0026ldquo;Party of\r\nOrder\u0026rdquo; against the class of the proletariat, which was designated as the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Party of Anarchy,\u0026rdquo; of Socialism, of Communism. They claimed to\r\nhave \u0026ldquo;saved\u0026rdquo; society against the \u0026ldquo;enemies of society.\u0026rdquo;\r\nThey gave out the slogans of the old social order\u0026mdash;\u0026ldquo;Property,\r\nFamily, Religion, Order\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;as the passwords for their army, and cried\r\nout to the counter-revolutionary crusaders: \u0026ldquo;In this sign thou wilt\r\nconquer!\u0026rdquo; From that moment on, so soon as any of the numerous parties,\r\nwhich had marshaled themselves under this sign against the June insurgents,\r\ntries, in turn, to take the revolutionary field in the interest of its own\r\nclass, it goes down in its turn before the cry: \u0026ldquo;Property, Family,\r\nReligion, Order.\u0026rdquo; Thus it happens that \u0026ldquo;society is saved\u0026rdquo; as\r\noften as the circle of its ruling class is narrowed, as often as a more\r\nexclusive interest asserts itself over the general. Every demand for the most\r\nsimple bourgeois financial reform, for the most ordinary liberalism, for the\r\nmost commonplace republicanism, for the flattest democracy, is forthwith\r\npunished as an \u0026ldquo;assault upon society,\u0026rdquo; and is branded as\r\n\u0026ldquo;Socialism.\u0026rdquo; Finally the High Priests of \u0026ldquo;Religion and\r\nOrder\u0026rdquo; themselves are kicked off their tripods; are fetched out of their\r\nbeds in the dark; hurried into patrol wagons, thrust into jail or sent into\r\nexile; their temple is razed to the ground, their mouths are sealed, their pen\r\nis broken, their law torn to pieces in the name of Religion, of Family, of\r\nProperty, and of Order. Bourgeois, fanatic on the point of \u0026ldquo;Order,\u0026rdquo;\r\nare shot down on their own balconies by drunken soldiers, forfeit their family\r\nproperty, and their houses are bombarded for pastime\u0026mdash;all in the name of\r\nProperty, of Family, of Religion, and of Order. Finally, the refuse of\r\nbourgeois society constitutes the \u0026ldquo;holy phalanx of Order,\u0026rdquo; and the\r\nhero Crapulinsky makes his entry into the Tuileries as the \u0026ldquo;Savior of\r\nSociety.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c/div\u003e\u003c!–end chapter–\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv class=\"chapter\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003ca name=\"chap02\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eII.\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nLet us resume the thread of events.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe history of the Constitutional National Assembly from the June days on, is\r\nthe history of the supremacy and dissolution of the republican bourgeois party,\r\nthe party which is known under several names of \u0026ldquo;Tricolor\r\nRepublican,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;True Republican,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Political\r\nRepublican,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Formal Republican,\u0026rdquo; etc., etc. Under the\r\nbourgeois monarchy of Louis Philippe, this party had constituted the Official\r\nRepublican Opposition, and consequently had been a recognized element in the\r\nthen political world. It had its representatives in the Chambers, and commanded\r\nconsiderable influence in the press. Its Parisian organ, the\r\n\u0026ldquo;National,\u0026rdquo; passed, in its way, for as respectable a paper as the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Journal des Debats.\u0026rdquo; This position in the constitutional monarchy\r\ncorresponded to its character. The party was not a fraction of the bourgeoisie,\r\nheld together by great and common interests, and marked by special business\r\nrequirements. It was a coterie of bourgeois with republican\r\nideas\u0026mdash;writers, lawyers, officers and civil employees, whose influence\r\nrested upon the personal antipathies of the country for Louis Philippe, upon\r\nreminiscences of the old Republic, upon the republican faith of a number of\r\nenthusiasts, and, above all, upon the spirit of French patriotism, whose hatred\r\nof the treaties of Vienna and of the alliance with England kept them\r\nperpetually on the alert. The \u0026ldquo;National\u0026rdquo; owed a large portion of\r\nits following under Louis Philippe to this covert imperialism, that, later\r\nunder the republic, could stand up against it as a deadly competitor in the\r\nperson of Louis Bonaparte. The paper fought the aristocracy of finance just the\r\nsame as did the rest of the bourgeois opposition. The polemic against the\r\nbudget, which in France, was closely connected with the opposition to the\r\naristocracy of finance, furnished too cheap a popularity and too rich a\r\nmaterial for Puritanical leading articles, not to be exploited. The industrial\r\nbourgeoisie was thankful to it for its servile defense of the French tariff\r\nsystem, which, however, the paper had taken up, more out of patriotic than\r\neconomic reasons; the whole bourgeois class was thankful to it for its vicious\r\ndenunciations of Communism and Socialism. For the rest, the party of the\r\n\u0026ldquo;National\u0026rdquo; was purely republican, i.e. it demanded a republican\r\ninstead of a monarchic form of bourgeois government; above all, it demanded for\r\nthe bourgeoisie the lion\u0026rsquo;s share of the government. As to how this\r\ntransformation was to be accomplished, the party was far from being clear.\r\nWhat, however, was clear as day to it and was openly declared at the reform\r\nbanquets during the last days of Louis Philippe\u0026rsquo;s reign, was its\r\nunpopularity with the democratic middle class, especially with the\r\nrevolutionary proletariat. These pure republicans, as pure republicans go, were\r\nat first on the very point of contenting themselves with the regency of the\r\nDuchess of Orleans, when the February revolution broke out, and when it gave\r\ntheir best known representatives a place in the provisional government. Of\r\ncourse, they enjoyed from the start the confidence of the bourgeoisie and of\r\nthe majority of the Constitutional National Assembly. The Socialist elements of\r\nthe Provisional Government were promptly excluded from the Executive Committee\r\nwhich the Assembly had elected upon its convening, and the party of the\r\n\u0026ldquo;National\u0026rdquo; subsequently utilized the outbreak of the June\r\ninsurrection to dismiss this Executive Committee also, and thus rid itself of\r\nits nearest rivals\u0026mdash;the small traders\u0026rsquo; class or democratic\r\nrepublicans (Ledru-Rollin, etc.). Cavaignac, the General of the bourgeois\r\nrepublican party, who commanded at the battle of June, stepped into the place\r\nof the Executive Committee with a sort of dictatorial power. Marrast, former\r\neditor-in-chief of the \u0026ldquo;National\u0026rdquo;, became permanent President of\r\nthe Constitutional National Assembly, and the Secretaryship of State, together\r\nwith all the other important posts, devolved upon the pure republicans.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe republican bourgeois party, which since long had looked upon itself as the\r\nlegitimate heir of the July monarchy, thus found itself surpassed in its own\r\nideal; but it came to power, not as it had dreamed under Louis Philippe,\r\nthrough a liberal revolt of the bourgeoisie against the throne, but through a\r\ngrape-shot-and-canistered mutiny of the proletariat against Capital. That which\r\nit imagined to be the most revolutionary, came about as the most\r\ncounter-revolutionary event. The fruit fell into its lap, but it fell from the\r\nTree of Knowledge, not from the Tree of Life.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe exclusive power of the bourgeois republic lasted only from June 24 to the\r\n10th of December, 1848. It is summed up in the framing of a republican\r\nconstitution and in the state of siege of Paris.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe new Constitution was in substance only a republicanized edition of the\r\nconstitutional charter of 1830. The limited suffrage of the July monarchy,\r\nwhich excluded even a large portion of the bourgeoisie from political power,\r\nwas irreconcilable with the existence of the bourgeois republic. The February\r\nrevolution had forthwith proclaimed direct and universal suffrage in place of\r\nthe old law. The bourgeois republic could not annul this act. They had to\r\ncontent themselves with tacking to it the limitation a six months\u0026rsquo;\r\nresidence. The old organization of the administrative law, of municipal\r\ngovernment, of court procedures of the army, etc., remained untouched, or,\r\nwhere the constitution did change them, the change affected their index, not\r\ntheir subject; their name, not their substance.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe inevitable \u0026ldquo;General Staff\u0026rdquo; of the \u0026ldquo;freedoms\u0026rdquo; of\r\n1848\u0026mdash;personal freedom, freedom of the press, of speech, of association\r\nand of assemblage, freedom of instruction, of religion, etc.\u0026mdash;received a\r\nconstitutional uniform that rendered them invulnerable. Each of these freedoms\r\nis proclaimed the absolute right of the French citizen, but always with the\r\ngloss that it is unlimited in so far only as it be not curtailed by the\r\n\u0026ldquo;equal rights of others,\u0026rdquo; and by the \u0026ldquo;public safety,\u0026rdquo;\r\nor by the \u0026ldquo;laws,\u0026rdquo; which are intended to effect this harmony. For\r\ninstance:\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;Citizens have the right of association, of peaceful and unarmed\r\nassemblage, of petitioning, and of expressing their opinions through the press\r\nor otherwise. The enjoyment of these rights has no limitation other than the\r\nequal rights of others and the public safety.\u0026rdquo; (Chap. II. of the French\r\nConstitution, Section 8.)\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;Education is free. The freedom of education shall be enjoyed under the\r\nconditions provided by law, and under the supervision of the State.\u0026rdquo;\r\n(Section 9.)\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;The domicile of the citizen is inviolable, except under the forms\r\nprescribed by law.\u0026rdquo; (Chap. I., Section 3), etc., etc.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe Constitution, it will be noticed, constantly alludes to future organic\r\nlaws, that are to carry out the glosses, and are intended to regulate the\r\nenjoyment of these unabridged freedoms, to the end that they collide neither\r\nwith one another nor with the public safety. Later on, the organic laws are\r\ncalled into existence by the \u0026ldquo;Friends of Order,\u0026rdquo; and all the above\r\nnamed freedoms are so regulated that, in their enjoyment, the bourgeoisie\r\nencounter no opposition from the like rights of the other classes. Wherever the\r\nbourgeoisie wholly interdicted these rights to \u0026ldquo;others,\u0026rdquo; or allowed\r\nthem their enjoyment under conditions that were but so many police snares, it\r\nwas always done only in the interest of the \u0026ldquo;public safety,\u0026rdquo; i. e.,\r\nof the bourgeoisie, as required by the Constitution.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nHence it comes that both sides\u0026mdash;the \u0026ldquo;Friends of Order,\u0026rdquo; who\r\nabolished all those freedoms, as, well as the democrats, who had demanded them\r\nall\u0026mdash;appeal with full right to the Constitution: Each paragraph of the\r\nConstitution contains its own antithesis, its own Upper and Lower\r\nHouse\u0026mdash;freedom as a generalization, the abolition of freedom as a\r\nspecification. Accordingly, so long as the name of freedom was respected, and\r\nonly its real enforcement was prevented in a legal way, of course the\r\nconstitutional existence of freedom remained uninjured, untouched, however\r\ncompletely its common existence might be extinguished.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThis Constitution, so ingeniously made invulnerable, was, however, like\r\nAchilles, vulnerable at one point: not in its heel, but in its head, or rather,\r\nin the two heads into which it ran out\u0026mdash;the Legislative Assembly, on the\r\none hand, and the President on the other. Run through the Constitution and it\r\nwill be found that only those paragraphs wherein the relation of the President\r\nto the Legislative Assembly is defined, are absolute, positive,\r\nuncontradictory, undistortable.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nHere the bourgeois republicans were concerned in securing their own position.\r\nArticles 45-70 of the Constitution are so framed that the National Assembly can\r\nconstitutionally remove the President, but the President can set aside the\r\nNational Assembly only unconstitutionally, he can set it aside only by setting\r\naside the Constitution itself. Accordingly, by these provisions, the National\r\nAssembly challenges its own violent destruction. It not only consecrates, like\r\nthe character of 1830, the division of powers, but it extends this feature to\r\nan unbearably contradictory extreme. The \u0026ldquo;play of constitutional\r\npowers,\u0026rdquo; as Guizot styled the clapper-clawings between the legislative\r\nand the executive powers, plays permanent \u0026ldquo;vabanque\u0026rdquo; in the\r\nConstitution of 1848. On the one side, 750 representatives of the people,\r\nelected and qualified for re-election by universal suffrage, who constitute an\r\nuncontrollable, indissoluble, indivisible National Assembly, a National\r\nAssembly that enjoys legislative omnipotence, that decides in the last instance\r\nover war, peace and commercial treaties, that alone has the power to grant\r\namnesties, and that, through its perpetuity, continually maintains the\r\nforeground on the stage; on the other, a President, clad with all the\r\nattributes of royalty, with the right to appoint and remove his ministers\r\nindependently from the national assembly, holding in his hands all the means of\r\nexecutive power, the dispenser of all posts, and thereby the arbiter of at\r\nleast one and a half million existences in France, so many being dependent upon\r\nthe 500,000 civil employees and upon the officers of all grades. He has the\r\nwhole armed power behind him. He enjoys the privilege of granting pardons to\r\nindividual criminals; suspending the National Guards; of removing with the\r\nconsent of the Council of State the general, cantonal and municipal Councilmen,\r\nelected by the citizens themselves. The initiative and direction of all\r\nnegotiations with foreign countries are reserved to him. While the Assembly\r\nitself is constantly acting upon the stage, and is exposed to the critically\r\nvulgar light of day, he leads a hidden life in the Elysian fields, only with\r\nArticle 45 of the Constitution before his eyes and in his heart daily calling\r\nout to him, \u0026ldquo;Frere, il faut mourir!\u0026rdquo; [#1 Brother, you must die!]\r\nYour power expires on the second Sunday of the beautiful month of May, in the\r\nfourth year after your election! The glory is then at an end; the play is not\r\nperformed twice; and, if you have any debts, see to it betimes that you pay\r\nthem off with the 600,000 francs that the Constitution has set aside for you,\r\nunless, perchance, you should prefer traveling to Clichy [#2 The debtors\u0026rsquo;\r\nprison.] on the second Monday of the beautiful month of May.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhile the Constitution thus clothes the President with actual power, it seeks\r\nto secure the moral power to the National Assembly. Apart from the circumstance\r\nthat it is impossible to create a moral power through legislative paragraphs,\r\nthe Constitution again neutralizes itself in that it causes the President to be\r\nchosen by all the Frenchmen through direct suffrage. While the votes of France\r\nare splintered to pieces upon the 750 members of the National Assembly they are\r\nhere, on the contrary, concentrated upon one individual. While each separate\r\nRepresentative represents only this or that party, this or that city, this or\r\nthat dunghill, or possibly only the necessity of electing some one\r\nSeven-hundred-and-fiftieth or other, with whom neither the issue nor the man is\r\nclosely considered, that one, the President, on the contrary, is the elect of\r\nthe nation, and the act of his election is the trump card, that, the sovereign\r\npeople plays out once every four years. The elected National Assembly stands in\r\na metaphysical, but the elected President in a personal, relation to the\r\nnation. True enough, the National Assembly presents in its several\r\nRepresentatives the various sides of the national spirit, but, in the\r\nPresident, this spirit is incarnated. As against the National Assembly, the\r\nPresident possesses a sort of divine right, he is by the grace of the people.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThetis, the sea-goddess, had prophesied to Achilles that he would die in the\r\nbloom of youth. The Constitution, which had its weak spot, like Achilles, had\r\nalso, like Achilles, the presentiment that it would depart by premature death.\r\nIt was enough for the pure republicans, engaged at the work of framing a\r\nconstitution, to cast a glance from the misty heights of their ideal republic\r\ndown upon the profane world in order to realize how the arrogance of the\r\nroyalists, of the Bonapartists, of the democrats, of the Communists, rose\r\ndaily, together with their own discredit, and in the same measure as they\r\napproached the completion of their legislative work of art, without Thetis\r\nhaving for this purpose to leave the sea and impart the secret to them. They\r\nought to outwit fate by means of constitutional artifice, through Section 111\r\nof the Constitution, according to which every motion to revise the Constitution\r\nhad to be discussed three successive times between each of which a full month\r\nwas to elapse and required at least a three-fourths majority, with the\r\nadditional proviso that not less than 500 members of the National Assembly\r\nvoted. They thereby only made the impotent attempt, still to exercise as a\r\nparliamentary minority, to which in their mind\u0026rsquo;s eye they prophetically\r\nsaw themselves reduced, a power, that, at this very time, when they still\r\ndisposed over the parliamentary majority and over all the machinery of\r\ngovernment, was daily slipping from their weak hands.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFinally, the Constitution entrusts itself for safe keeping, in a melodramatic\r\nparagraph, \u0026ldquo;to the watchfulness and patriotism of the whole French\r\npeople, and of each individual Frenchman,\u0026rdquo; after having just before, in\r\nanother paragraph entrusted the \u0026ldquo;watchful\u0026rdquo; and the\r\n\u0026ldquo;patriotic\u0026rdquo; themselves to the tender, inquisitorial attention of\r\nthe High Court, instituted by itself.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThat was the Constitution of 1848, which on, the 2d of December, 1851, was not\r\noverthrown by one head, but tumbled down at the touch of a mere hat; though,\r\ntrue enough, that hat was a three-cornered Napoleon hat.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhile the bourgeois\u0026rsquo; republicans were engaged in the Assembly with the\r\nwork of splicing this Constitution, of discussing and voting, Cavaignac, on the\r\noutside, maintained the state of siege of Paris. The state of siege of Paris\r\nwas the midwife of the constitutional assembly, during its republican pains of\r\ntravail. When the Constitution is later on swept off the earth by the bayonet,\r\nit should not be forgotten that it was by the bayonet, likewise\u0026mdash;and the\r\nbayonet turned against the people, at that\u0026mdash;that it had to be protected in\r\nits mother\u0026rsquo;s womb, and that by the bayonet it had to be planted on earth.\r\nThe ancestors of these \u0026ldquo;honest republicans\u0026rdquo; had caused their\r\nsymbol, the tricolor, to make the tour of Europe. These, in their turn also\r\nmade a discovery, which all of itself, found its way over the whole continent,\r\nbut, with ever renewed love, came back to France, until, by this time, if had\r\nacquired the right of citizenship in one-half of her Departments\u0026mdash;the\r\nstate of siege. A wondrous discovery this was, periodically applied at each\r\nsucceeding crisis in the course of the French revolution. But the barrack and\r\nthe bivouac, thus periodically laid on the head of French society, to compress\r\nher brain and reduce her to quiet; the sabre and the musket, periodically made\r\nto perform the functions of judges and of administrators, of guardians and of\r\ncensors, of police officers and of watchmen; the military moustache and the\r\nsoldier\u0026rsquo;s jacket, periodically heralded as the highest wisdom and guiding\r\nstars of society;\u0026mdash;were not all of these, the barrack and the bivouac, the\r\nsabre and the musket, the moustache and the soldier\u0026rsquo;s jacket bound, in\r\nthe end, to hit upon the idea that they might as well save society once for\r\nall, by proclaiming their own regime as supreme, and relieve bourgeois society\r\nwholly of the care of ruling itself? The barrack and the bivouac, the sabre and\r\nthe musket, the moustache and the soldier\u0026rsquo;s jacket were all the more\r\nbound to hit upon this idea, seeing that they could then also expect better\r\ncash payment for their increased deserts, while at the merely periodic states\r\nof siege and the transitory savings of society at the behest of this or that\r\nbourgeois faction, very little solid matter fell to them except some dead and\r\nwounded, besides some friendly bourgeois grimaces. Should not the military,\r\nfinally, in and for its own interest, play the game of \u0026ldquo;state of\r\nsiege,\u0026rdquo; and simultaneously besiege the bourgeois exchanges? Moreover, it\r\nmust not be forgotten, and be it observed in passing, that Col. Bernard, the\r\nsame President of the Military Committee, who, under Cavaignac, helped to\r\ndeport 15,000 insurgents without trial, moves at this period again at the head\r\nof the Military Committees now active in Paris.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAlthough the honest, the pure republicans built with the state of siege the\r\nnursery in which the Praetorian guards of December 2, 1851, were to be reared,\r\nthey, on the other hand, deserve praise in that, instead of exaggerating the\r\nfeeling of patriotism, as under Louis Philippe, now; they themselves are in\r\ncommand of the national power, they crawl before foreign powers; instead of\r\nmaking Italy free, they allow her to be reconquered by Austrians and\r\nNeapolitans. The election of Louis Bonaparte for President on December 10,\r\n1848, put an end to the dictatorship of Cavaignac and to the constitutional\r\nassembly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn Article 44 of the Constitution it is said \u0026ldquo;The President of the French\r\nRepublic must never have lost his status as a French citizen.\u0026rdquo; The first\r\nPresident of the French Republic, L. N. Bonaparte, had not only lost his status\r\nas a French citizen, had not only been an English special constable, but was\r\neven a naturalized Swiss citizen.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn the previous chapter I have explained the meaning of the election of\r\nDecember 10. I shall not here return to it. Suffice it here to say that it was\r\na reaction of the farmers\u0026rsquo; class, who had been expected to pay the costs\r\nof the February revolution, against the other classes of the nation: it was a\r\nreaction of the country against the city. It met with great favor among the\r\nsoldiers, to whom the republicans of the \u0026ldquo;National\u0026rdquo; had brought\r\nneither fame nor funds; among the great bourgeoisie, who hailed Bonaparte as a\r\nbridge to the monarchy; and among the proletarians and small traders, who\r\nhailed him as a scourge to Cavaignac. I shall later have occasion to enter\r\ncloser into the relation of the farmers to the French revolution.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe epoch between December 20, 1848, and the dissolution of the constitutional\r\nassembly in May, 1849, embraces the history of the downfall of the bourgeois\r\nrepublicans. After they had founded a republic for the bourgeoisie, had driven\r\nthe revolutionary proletariat from the field and had meanwhile silenced the\r\ndemocratic middle class, they are themselves shoved aside by the mass of the\r\nbourgeoisie who justly appropriate this republic as their property. This\r\nbourgeois mass was Royalist, however. A part thereof, the large landed\r\nproprietors, had ruled under the restoration, hence, was Legitimist; the other\r\npart, the aristocrats of finance and the large industrial capitalists, had\r\nruled under the July monarchy, hence, was Orleanist. The high functionaries of\r\nthe Army, of the University, of the Church, in the civil service, of the\r\nAcademy and of the press, divided themselves on both sides, although in unequal\r\nparts. Here, in the bourgeois republic, that bore neither the name of Bourbon,\r\nnor of Orleans, but the name of Capital, they had found the form of government\r\nunder which they could all rule in common. Already the June insurrection had\r\nunited them all into a \u0026ldquo;Party of Order.\u0026rdquo; The next thing to do was\r\nto remove the bourgeois republicans who still held the seats in the National\r\nAssembly. As brutally as these pure republicans had abused their own physical\r\npower against the people, so cowardly, low-spirited, disheartened, broken,\r\npowerless did they yield, now when the issue was the maintenance of their own\r\nrepublicanism and their own legislative rights against the Executive power and\r\nthe royalists I need not here narrate the shameful history of their\r\ndissolution. It was not a downfall, it was extinction. Their history is at an\r\nend for all time. In the period that follows, they figure, whether within or\r\nwithout the Assembly, only as memories\u0026mdash;memories that seem again to come\r\nto life so soon as the question is again only the word \u0026ldquo;Republic,\u0026rdquo;\r\nand as often as the revolutionary conflict threatens to sink down to the lowest\r\nlevel. In passing, I might observe that the journal which gave to this party\r\nits name, the \u0026ldquo;National,\u0026rdquo; goes over to Socialism during the\r\nfollowing period.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBefore we close this period, we must look back upon the two powers, one of\r\ndestroys the other on December 2, 1851, while, from December 20, 1848, down to\r\nthe departure of the constitutional assembly, they live marital relations. We\r\nmean Louis Bonaparte, on the-one hand, on the other, the party of the allied\r\nroyalists; of Order, and of the large bourgeoisie.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAt the inauguration of his presidency, Bonaparte forthwith framed a ministry\r\nout of the party of Order, at whose head he placed Odillon Barrot, be it noted,\r\nthe old leader of the liberal wing of the parliamentary bourgeoisie. Mr. Barrot\r\nhad finally hunted down a seat in the ministry, the spook of which had been\r\npursuing him since 1830; and what is more, he had the chairmanship in this\r\nministry, although not, as he had imagined under Louis Philippe, the promoted\r\nleader of the parliamentary opposition, but with the commission to kill a\r\nparliament, and, moreover, as an ally of all his arch enemies, the Jesuits and\r\nthe Legitimists. Finally he leads the bride home, but only after she has been\r\nprostituted. As to Bonaparte, he seemed to eclipse himself completely. The\r\nparty of Order acted for him.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nImmediately at the first session of the ministry the expedition to Rome was\r\ndecided upon, which it was there agreed, was to be carried out behind I the\r\nback of the National Assembly, and the funds for which, it was equally agreed,\r\nwere to be wrung from the Assembly under false pretences. Thus the start was\r\nmade with a swindle on the National Assembly, together with a secret conspiracy\r\nwith the absolute foreign powers against the revolutionary Roman republic. In\r\nthe same way, and with a similar maneuver, did Bonaparte prepare his stroke of\r\nDecember 2 against the royalist legislature and its constitutional republic.\r\nLet it not be forgotten that the same party, which, on December 20, 1848,\r\nconstituted Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s ministry, constituted also, on December 2, 1851,\r\nthe majority of the legislative National Assembly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn August the constitutive assembly decided not to dissolve until it had\r\nprepared and promulgated a whole series of organic laws, intended to supplement\r\nthe Constitution. The party of Order proposed to the assembly, through\r\nRepresentative Rateau, on January 6, 1849, to let the Organic laws go, and\r\nrather to order its own dissolution. Not the ministry alone, with Mr. Odillon\r\nBarrot at its head, but all the royalist members of the National Assembly were\r\nalso at this time hectoring to it that its dissolution was necessary for the\r\nrestoration of the public credit, for the consolidation of order, to put an end\r\nto the existing uncertain and provisional, and establish a definite state of\r\nthings; they claimed that its continued existence hindered the effectiveness of\r\nthe new Government, that it sought to prolong its life out of pure malice, and\r\nthat the country was tired of it. Bonaparte took notice of all these invectives\r\nhurled at the legislative power, he learned them by heart, and, on December 21,\r\n1851, he showed the parliamentary royalists that he had learned from them. He\r\nrepeated their own slogans against themselves.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe Barrot ministry and the party of Order went further. They called all over\r\nFrance for petitions to the National Assembly in which that body was politely\r\nrequested to disappear. Thus they led the people\u0026rsquo;s unorganic masses to\r\nthe fray against the National Assembly, i.e., the constitutionally organized\r\nexpression of people itself. They taught Bonaparte, to appeal from the\r\nparliamentary body to the people. Finally, on January 29, 1849, the day arrived\r\nwhen the constitutional assembly was to decide about its own dissolution. On\r\nthat day the body found its building occupied by the military; Changarnier, the\r\nGeneral of the party of Order, in whose hands was joined the supreme command of\r\nboth the National Guards and the regulars, held that day a great military\r\nreview, as though a battle were imminent; and the coalized royalists declared\r\nthreateningly to the constitutional assembly that force would be applied if it\r\ndid not act willingly. It was willing, and chaffered only for a very short\r\nrespite. What else was the 29th of January, 1849, than the \u0026ldquo;coup\r\nd\u0026rsquo;etat\u0026rdquo; of December 2, 1851, only executed by the royalists with\r\nNapoleon\u0026rsquo;s aid against the republican National Assembly? These gentlemen\r\ndid not notice, or did not want to notice, that Napoleon utilized the 29th of\r\nJanuary, 1849, to cause a part of the troops to file before him in front of the\r\nTuileries, and that he seized with avidity this very first open exercise of the\r\nmilitary against the parliamentary power in order to hint at Caligula. The\r\nallied royalists saw only their own Changarnier.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnother reason that particularly moved the party of Order forcibly to shorten\r\nthe term of the constitutional assembly were the organic laws, the laws that\r\nwere to supplement the Constitution, as, for instance, the laws on education,\r\non religion, etc. The allied royalists had every interest in framing these laws\r\nthemselves, and not allowing them to be framed by the already suspicious\r\nrepublicans. Among these organic laws, there was, however, one on the\r\nresponsibility of the President of the republic. In 1851 the Legislature was\r\njust engaged in framing such a law when Bonaparte forestalled that political\r\nstroke by his own of December 2. What all would not the coalized royalists have\r\ngiven in their winter parliamentary campaign of 1851, had they but found this\r\n\u0026ldquo;Responsibility law\u0026rdquo; ready made, and framed at that, by the\r\nsuspicious, the vicious republican Assembly!\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAfter, on January 29, 1849, the constitutive assembly had itself broken its\r\nlast weapon, the Barrot ministry and the \u0026ldquo;Friends of Order\u0026rdquo;\r\nharassed it to death, left nothing undone to humiliate it, and wrung from its\r\nweakness, despairing of itself, laws that cost it the last vestige of respect\r\nwith the public. Bonaparte, occupied with his own fixed Napoleonic idea, was\r\naudacious enough openly to exploit this degradation of the parliamentary power:\r\nWhen the National Assembly, on May 8, 1849, passed a vote of censure upon the\r\nMinistry on account of the occupation of Civita-Vecchia by Oudinot, and ordered\r\nthat the Roman expedition be brought back to its alleged purpose, Bonaparte\r\npublished that same evening in the \u0026ldquo;Moniteur\u0026rdquo; a letter to Oudinot,\r\nin which he congratulated him on his heroic feats, and already, in contrast\r\nwith the quill-pushing parliamentarians, posed as the generous protector of the\r\nArmy. The royalists smiled at this. They took him simply for their dupe.\r\nFinally, as Marrast, the President of the constitutional assembly, believed on\r\na certain occasion the safety of the body to be in danger, and, resting on the\r\nConstitution, made a requisition upon a Colonel, together with his regiment,\r\nthe Colonel refused obedience, took refuge behind the \u0026ldquo;discipline,\u0026rdquo;\r\nand referred Marrast to Changarnier, who scornfully sent him off with the\r\nremark that he did not like \u0026ldquo;bayonettes intelligentes.\u0026rdquo; [#1\r\nIntelligent bayonets] In November, 1851, as the coalized royalists wanted to\r\nbegin the decisive struggle with Bonaparte, they sought, by means of their\r\nnotorious \u0026ldquo;Questors Bill,\u0026rdquo; to enforce the principle of the right of\r\nthe President of the National Assembly to issue direct requisitions for troops.\r\nOne of their Generals, Leflo, supported the motion. In vain did Changarnier\r\nvote for it, or did Thiers render homage to the cautious wisdom of the late\r\nconstitutional assembly. The Minister of War, St. Arnaud, answered him as\r\nChangarnier had answered Marrast\u0026mdash;and he did so amidst the plaudits of the\r\nMountain.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThus did the party of Order itself, when as yet it was not the National\r\nAssembly, when as yet it was only a Ministry, brand the parliamentary regime.\r\nAnd yet this party objects vociferously when the 2d of December, 1851, banishes\r\nthat regime from France!\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWe wish it a happy journey.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c/div\u003e\u003c!–end chapter–\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv class=\"chapter\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003ca name=\"chap03\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eIII.\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOn May 29, 1849, the legislative National Assembly convened. On December 2,\r\n1851, it was broken up. This period embraces the term of the Constitutional or\r\nParliamentary public.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn the first French revolution, upon the reign of the Constitutionalists\r\nsucceeds that of the Girondins; and upon the reign of the Girondins follows\r\nthat of the Jacobins. Each of these parties in succession rests upon its more\r\nadvanced element. So soon as it has carried the revolution far enough not to be\r\nable to keep pace with, much less march ahead of it, it is shoved aside by its\r\nmore daring allies, who stand behind it, and it is sent to the guillotine. Thus\r\nthe revolution moves along an upward line.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nJust the reverse in 1848. The proletarian party appears as an appendage to the\r\nsmall traders\u0026rsquo; or democratic party; it is betrayed by the latter and\r\nallowed to fall on April 16, May 15, and in the June days. In its turn, the\r\ndemocratic party leans upon the shoulders of the bourgeois republicans; barely\r\ndo the bourgeois republicans believe themselves firmly in power, than they\r\nshake off these troublesome associates for the purpose of themselves leaning\r\nupon the shoulders of the party of Order. The party of Order draws in its\r\nshoulders, lets the bourgeois republicans tumble down heels over head, and\r\nthrows itself upon the shoulders of the armed power. Finally, still of the mind\r\nthat it is sustained by the shoulders of the armed power, the party of Order\r\nnotices one fine morning that these shoulders have turned into bayonets. Each\r\nparty kicks backward at those that are pushing forward, and leans forward upon\r\nthose that are crowding backward; no wonder that, in this ludicrous posture,\r\neach loses its balance, and, after having cut the unavoidable grimaces, breaks\r\ndown amid singular somersaults. Accordingly, the revolution moves along a\r\ndownward line. It finds itself in this retreating motion before the last\r\nFebruary-barricade is cleared away, and the first governmental authority of the\r\nrevolution has been constituted.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe period we now have before us embraces the motliest jumble of crying\r\ncontradictions: constitutionalists, who openly conspire against the\r\nConstitution; revolutionists, who admittedly are constitutional; a National\r\nAssembly that wishes to be omnipotent yet remains parliamentary; a Mountain,\r\nthat finds its occupation in submission, that parries its present defeats with\r\nprophecies of future victories; royalists, who constitute the \u0026ldquo;patres\r\nconscripti\u0026rdquo; of the republic, and are compelled by the situation to uphold\r\nabroad the hostile monarchic houses, whose adherents they are, while in France\r\nthey support the republic that they hate; an Executive power that finds its\r\nstrength in its very weakness, and its dignity in the contempt that it\r\ninspires; a republic, that is nothing else than the combined infamy of two\r\nmonarchies\u0026mdash;the Restoration and the July Monarchy\u0026mdash;with an imperial\r\nlabel; unions, whose first clause is disunion; struggles, whose first law is\r\nin-decision; in the name of peace, barren and hollow agitation; in the name of\r\nthe revolution, solemn sermonizings on peace; passions without truth; truths\r\nwithout passion; heroes without heroism; history without events; development,\r\nwhose only moving force seems to be the calendar, and tiresome by the constant\r\nreiteration of the same tensions and relaxes; contrasts, that seem to intensify\r\nthemselves periodically, only in order to wear themselves off and collapse\r\nwithout a solution; pretentious efforts made for show, and bourgeois frights at\r\nthe danger of the destruction of the world, simultaneous with the carrying on\r\nof the pettiest intrigues and the performance of court comedies by the\r\nworld\u0026rsquo;s saviours, who, in their \u0026ldquo;laisser aller,\u0026rdquo; recall the\r\nDay of Judgment not so much as the days of the Fronde; the official collective\r\ngenius of France brought to shame by the artful stupidity of a single\r\nindividual; the collective will of the nation, as often as it speaks through\r\nthe general suffrage, seeking its true expression in the prescriptive enemies\r\nof the public interests until it finally finds it in the arbitrary will of a\r\nfilibuster. If ever a slice from history is drawn black upon black, it is this.\r\nMen and events appear as reversed \u0026ldquo;Schlemihls,\u0026rdquo; [#1 The hero In\r\nChamisso\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Peter Schiemihi,\u0026rdquo; who loses his own shadow.] as\r\nshadows, the bodies of which have been lost. The revolution itself paralyzes\r\nits own apostles, and equips only its adversaries with passionate violence.\r\nWhen the \u0026ldquo;Red Spectre,\u0026rdquo; constantly conjured up and exorcised by the\r\ncounter-revolutionists finally does appear, it does not appear with the\r\nAnarchist Phrygian cap on its head, but in the uniform of Order, in the Red\r\nBreeches of the French Soldier.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWe saw that the Ministry, which Bonaparte installed on December 20, 1849, the\r\nday of his \u0026ldquo;Ascension,\u0026rdquo; was a ministry of the party of Order, of\r\nthe Legitimist and Orleanist coalition. The Barrot-Falloux ministry had\r\nweathered the republican constitutive convention, whose term of life it had\r\nshortened with more or less violence, and found itself still at the helm.\r\nChangamier, the General of the allied royalists continued to unite in his\r\nperson the command-in-chief of the First Military Division and of the Parisian\r\nNational Guard. Finally, the general elections had secured the large majority\r\nin the National Assembly to the party of Order. Here the Deputies and Peers of\r\nLouis Phillipe met a saintly crowd of Legitimists, for whose benefit numerous\r\nballots of the nation had been converted into admission tickets to the\r\npolitical stage. The Bonapartist representatives were too thinly sowed to be\r\nable to build an independent parliamentary party. They appeared only as\r\n\u0026ldquo;mauvaise queue\u0026rdquo; [#2 Practical joke] played upon the party of\r\nOrder. Thus the party of Order was in possession of the Government, of the\r\nArmy, and of the legislative body, in short, of the total power of the State,\r\nmorally strengthened by the general elections, that caused their sovereignty to\r\nappear as the will of the people, and by the simultaneous victory of the\r\ncounter-revolution on the whole continent of Europe.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNever did party open its campaign with larger means at its disposal and under\r\nmore favorable auspices.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe shipwrecked pure republicans found themselves in the legislative National\r\nAssembly melted down to a clique of fifty men, with the African Generals\r\nCavaignac, Lamorciere and Bedeau at its head. The great Opposition party was,\r\nhowever, formed by the Mountain. This parliamentary baptismal name was given to\r\nitself by the Social Democratic party. It disposed of more than two hundred\r\nvotes out of the seven hundred and fifty in the National Assembly, and, hence,\r\nwas at least just as powerful as any one of the three factions of the party of\r\nOrder. Its relative minority to the total royalist coalition seemed\r\ncounterbalanced by special circumstances. Not only did the Departmental\r\nelection returns show that it had gained a considerable following among the\r\nrural population, but, furthermore, it numbered almost all the Paris Deputies\r\nin its camp; the Army had, by the election of three under-officers, made a\r\nconfession of democratic faith; and the leader of the Mountain, Ledru-Rollin\r\nhad in contrast to all the representatives of the party of Order, been raised\r\nto the rank of the \u0026ldquo;parliamentary nobility\u0026rdquo; by five Departments,\r\nwho combined their suffrages upon him. Accordingly, in view of the inevitable\r\ncollisions of the royalists among themselves, on the one hand, and of the whole\r\nparty of Order with Bonaparte, on the other, the Mountain seemed on May\r\n29,1849, to have before it all the elements of success. A fortnight later, it\r\nhad lost everything, its honor included.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBefore we follow this parliamentary history any further, a few observations are\r\nnecessary, in order to avoid certain common deceptions concerning the whole\r\ncharacter of the epoch that lies before us. According to the view of the\r\ndemocrats, the issue, during the period of the legislative National Assembly,\r\nwas, the same as during the period of the constitutive assembly, simply the\r\nstruggle between republicans and royalists; the movement itself was summed up\r\nby them in the catch-word Reaction\u0026mdash;night, in which all cats are grey, and\r\nallows them to drawl out their drowsy commonplaces. Indeed, at first sight, the\r\nparty of Order presents the appearance of a tangle of royalist factions, that,\r\nnot only intrigue against each other, each aiming to raise its own Pretender to\r\nthe throne, and exclude the Pretender of the Opposite party, but also are all\r\nunited in a common hatred for and common attacks against the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Republic.\u0026rdquo; On its side, the Mountain appears, in\r\ncounter-distinction to the royalist conspiracy, as the representative of the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Republic.\u0026rdquo; The party of Order seems constantly engaged in a\r\n\u0026ldquo;Reaction,\u0026rdquo; which, neither more nor less than in Prussia, is\r\ndirected against the press, the right of association and the like, and is\r\nenforced by brutal police interventions on the part of the bureaucracy, the\r\npolice and the public prosecutor\u0026mdash;just as in Prussia; the Mountain on the\r\ncontrary, is engaged with equal assiduity in parrying these attacks, and thus\r\nin defending the \u0026ldquo;eternal rights of man\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;as every so-called\r\npeople\u0026rsquo;s party has more or less done for the last hundred and fifty\r\nyears. At a closer inspection, however, of the situation and of the parties,\r\nthis superficial appearance, which veils the Class Struggle, together with the\r\npeculiar physiognomy of this period, vanishes wholly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nLegitimists and Orleanists constituted, as said before, the two large factions\r\nof the party of Order. What held these two factions to their respective\r\nPretenders, and inversely kept them apart from each other, what else was it but\r\nthe lily and the tricolor, the House of Bourbon and the house of Orleans,\r\ndifferent shades of royalty? Under the Bourbons, Large Landed Property ruled\r\ntogether with its parsons and lackeys; under the Orleanist, it was the high\r\nfinance, large industry, large commerce, i.e., Capital, with its retinue of\r\nlawyers, professors and orators. The Legitimate kingdom was but the political\r\nexpression for the hereditary rule of the landlords, as the July monarchy was\r\nbur the political expression for the usurped rule of the bourgeois upstarts.\r\nWhat, accordingly, kept these two factions apart was no so-called set of\r\nprinciples, it was their material conditions for life\u0026mdash;two different sorts\r\nof property\u0026mdash;; it was the old antagonism of the City and the Country, the\r\nrivalry between Capital and Landed property. That simultaneously old\r\nrecollections; personal animosities, fears and hopes; prejudices and illusions;\r\nsympathies and antipathies; convictions, faith and principles bound these\r\nfactions to one House or the other, who denies it? Upon the several forms of\r\nproperty, upon the social conditions of existence, a whole superstructure is\r\nreared of various and peculiarly shaped feelings, illusions, habits of thought\r\nand conceptions of life. The whole class produces and shapes these out of its\r\nmaterial foundation and out of the corresponding social conditions. The\r\nindividual unit to whom they flow through tradition and education, may fancy\r\nthat they constitute the true reasons for and premises of his conduct. Although\r\nOrleanists and Legitimists, each of these factions, sought to make itself and\r\nthe other believe that what kept the two apart was the attachment of each to\r\nits respective royal House; nevertheless, facts proved later that it rather was\r\ntheir divided interest that forbade the union of the two royal Houses. As, in\r\nprivate life, the distinction is made between what a man thinks of himself and\r\nsays, and that which he really is and does, so, all the more, must the phrases\r\nand notions of parties in historic struggles be distinguished from the real\r\norganism, and their real interests, their notions and their reality. Orleanists\r\nand Legitimists found themselves in the republic beside each other with equal\r\nclaims. Each side wishing, in opposition to the other, to carry out the\r\nrestoration of its own royal House, meant nothing else than that each of the\r\ntwo great Interests into which the bourgeoisie is divided\u0026mdash;Land and\r\nCapital\u0026mdash;sought to restore its own supremacy and the subordinacy of the\r\nother. We speak of two bourgeois interests because large landed property,\r\ndespite its feudal coquetry and pride of race, has become completely bourgeois\r\nthrough the development of modern society. Thus did the Tories of England long\r\nfancy that they were enthusiastic for the Kingdom, the Church and the beauties\r\nof the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the\r\nadmission that their enthusiasm was only for Ground Rent.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe coalized royalists carried on their intrigues against each other in the\r\npress, in Ems, in Clarmont\u0026mdash;outside of the parliament. Behind the scenes,\r\nthey don again their old Orleanist and Legitimist liveries, and conduct their\r\nold tourneys; on the public stage, however, in their public acts, as a great\r\nparliamentary party, they dispose of their respective royal houses with mere\r\ncourtesies, adjourn \u0026ldquo;in infinitum\u0026rdquo; the restoration of the monarchy.\r\nTheir real business is transacted as Party of Order, i. e., under a Social, not\r\na Political title; as representatives of the bourgeois social system; not as\r\nknights of traveling princesses, but as the bourgeois class against the other\r\nclasses; not as royalists against republicans. Indeed, as party of Order they\r\nexercised a more unlimited and harder dominion over the other classes of\r\nsociety than ever before either under the restoration or the July monarchy-a\r\nthing possible only under the form of a parliamentary republic, because under\r\nthis form alone could the two large divisions of the French bourgeoisie be\r\nunited; in other words, only under this form could they place on the order of\r\nbusiness the sovereignty of their class, in lieu of the regime of a privileged\r\nfaction of the same. If, this notwithstanding, they are seen as the party of\r\nOrder to insult the republic and express their antipathy for it, it happened\r\nnot out of royalist traditions only: Instinct taught them that while, indeed,\r\nthe republic completes their authority, it at the same time undermined their\r\nsocial foundation, in that, without intermediary, without the mask of the\r\ncrown, without being able to turn aside the national interest by means of its\r\nsubordinate struggles among its own conflicting elements and with the crown,\r\nthe republic is compelled to stand up sharp against the subjugated classes, and\r\nwrestle with them. It was a sense of weakness that caused them to recoil before\r\nthe unqualified demands of their own class rule, and to retreat to the less\r\ncomplete, less developed, and, for that very reason, less dangerous forms of\r\nthe same. As often, on the contrary, as the allied royalists come into conflict\r\nwith the Pretender who stands before them\u0026mdash;with Bonaparte\u0026mdash;, as often\r\nas they believe their parliamentary omnipotence to be endangered by the\r\nExecutive, in other words, as often as they must trot out the political title\r\nof their authority, they step up as Republicans, not as Royalists\u0026mdash;and\r\nthis is done from the Orleanist Thiers, who warns the National Assembly that\r\nthe republic divides them least, down to Legitimist Berryer, who, on December\r\n2, 1851, the scarf of the tricolor around him, harangues the people assembled\r\nbefore the Mayor\u0026rsquo;s building of the Tenth Arrondissement, as a tribune in\r\nthe name of the Republic; the echo, however, derisively answering back to him:\r\n\u0026ldquo;Henry V.! Henry V!\u0026rdquo; [#3 The candidate of the Bourbons, or\r\nLegitimists, for the throne.]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nHowever, against the allied bourgeois, a coalition was made between the small\r\ntraders and the workingmen\u0026mdash;the so-called Social Democratic party. The\r\nsmall traders found themselves ill rewarded after the June days of 1848; they\r\nsaw their material interests endangered, and the democratic guarantees, that\r\nwere to uphold their interests, made doubtful. Hence, they drew closer to the\r\nworkingmen. On the other hand, their parliamentary representatives\u0026mdash;the\r\nMountain\u0026mdash;, after being shoved aside during the dictatorship of the\r\nbourgeois republicans, had, during the last half of the term of the\r\nconstitutive convention, regained their lost popularity through the struggle\r\nwith Bonaparte and the royalist ministers. They had made an alliance with the\r\nSocialist leaders. During February, 1849, reconciliation banquets were held. A\r\ncommon program was drafted, joint election committees were empanelled, and\r\nfusion candidates were set up. The revolutionary point was thereby broken off\r\nfrom the social demands of the proletariat and a democratic turn given to them;\r\nwhile, from the democratic claims of the small traders\u0026rsquo; class, the mere\r\npolitical form was rubbed off and the Socialist point was pushed forward. Thus\r\ncame the Social Democracy about. The new Mountain, the result of this\r\ncombination, contained, with the exception of some figures from the working\r\nclass and some Socialist sectarians, the identical elements of the old\r\nMountain, only numerically stronger. In the course of events it had, however,\r\nchanged, together with the class that it represented. The peculiar character of\r\nthe Social Democracy is summed up in this that democratic-republican\r\ninstitutions are demanded as the means, not to remove the two\r\nextremes\u0026mdash;Capital and Wage-slavery\u0026mdash;, but in order to weaken their\r\nantagonism and transform them into a harmonious whole. However different the\r\nmethods may be that are proposed for the accomplishment of this object, however\r\nmuch the object itself may be festooned with more or less revolutionary\r\nfancies, the substance remains the same. This substance is the transformation\r\nof society upon democratic lines, but a transformation within the boundaries of\r\nthe small traders\u0026rsquo; class. No one must run away with the narrow notion\r\nthat the small traders\u0026rsquo; class means on principle to enforce a selfish\r\nclass interest. It believes rather that the special conditions for its own\r\nemancipation are the general conditions under which alone modern society can be\r\nsaved and the class struggle avoided. Likewise must we avoid running away with\r\nthe notion that the Democratic Representatives are all\r\n\u0026ldquo;shopkeepers,\u0026rdquo; or enthuse for these. They may\u0026mdash;by education\r\nand individual standing\u0026mdash;be as distant from them as heaven is from earth.\r\nThat which makes them representatives of the small traders\u0026rsquo; class is that\r\nthey do not intellectually leap the bounds which that class itself does not\r\nleap in practical life; that, consequently, they are theoretically driven to\r\nthe same problems and solutions, to which material interests and social\r\nstanding practically drive the latter. Such, in fact, is at all times the\r\nrelation of the \u0026ldquo;political\u0026rdquo; and the \u0026ldquo;literary\u0026rdquo;\r\nrepresentatives of a class to the class they represent.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAfter the foregoing explanations, it goes with-out saying that, while the\r\nMountain is constantly wrestling for the republic and the so-called\r\n\u0026ldquo;rights of man,\u0026rdquo; neither the republic nor the \u0026ldquo;rights of\r\nman\u0026rdquo; is its real goal, as little as an army, whose weapons it is sought\r\nto deprive it of and that defends itself, steps on the field of battle simply\r\nin order to remain in possession of implements of warfare.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe party of Order provoked the Mountain immediately upon the convening of the\r\nassembly. The bourgeoisie now felt the necessity of disposing of the democratic\r\nsmall traders\u0026rsquo; class, just as a year before it had understood the\r\nnecessity of putting an end to the revolutionary proletariat.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut the position of the foe had changed. The strength of the proletarian party\r\nwas on the streets; that of the small traders\u0026rsquo; class was in the National\r\nAssembly itself. The point was, accordingly, to wheedle them out of the\r\nNational Assembly into the street, and to have them break their parliamentary\r\npower themselves, before time and opportunity could consolidate them. The\r\nMountain jumped with loose reins into the trap.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe bombardment of Rome by the French troops was the bait thrown at the\r\nMountain. It violated Article V. of the Constitution, which forbade the French\r\nrepublic to use its forces against the liberties of other nations; besides,\r\nArticle IV. forbade all declaration of war by the Executive without the consent\r\nof the National Assembly; furthermore, the constitutive assembly had censured\r\nthe Roman expedition by its resolution of May 8. Upon these grounds,\r\nLedru-Rollin submitted on June 11, 1849, a motion impeaching Bonaparte and his\r\nMinisters. Instigated by the wasp-stings of Thiers, he even allowed himself to\r\nbe carried away to the point of threatening to defend the Constitution by all\r\nmeans, even arms in hand. The Mountain rose as one man, and repeated the\r\nchallenge. On June 12, the National Assembly rejected the notion to impeach,\r\nand the Mountain left the parliament. The events of June 13 are known: the\r\nproclamation by a part of the Mountain pronouncing Napoleon and his Ministers\r\n\u0026ldquo;outside the pale of the Constitution\u0026rdquo;; the street parades of the\r\ndemocratic National Guards, who, unarmed as they were, flew apart at contact\r\nwith the troops of Changarnier; etc., etc. Part of the Mountain fled abroad,\r\nanother part was assigned to the High Court of Bourges, and a parliamentary\r\nregulation placed the rest under the school-master supervision of the President\r\nof the National Assembly. Paris was again put under a state of siege; and the\r\ndemocratic portion of the National Guards was disbanded. Thus the influence of\r\nthe Mountain in parliament was broken, together with the power; of the small\r\ntraders\u0026rsquo; class in Paris.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nLyons, where the 13th of June had given the signal to a bloody labor uprising,\r\nwas, together with the five surrounding Departments, likewise pronounced in\r\nstate of siege, a condition that continues down to this moment. [#4 January,\r\n1852]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe bulk of the Mountain had left its vanguard in the lurch by refusing their\r\nsignatures to the proclamation; the press had deserted: only two papers dared\r\nto publish the pronunciamento; the small traders had betrayed their\r\nRepresentatives: the National Guards stayed away, or, where they did turn up,\r\nhindered the raising of barricades; the Representatives had duped the small\r\ntraders: nowhere were the alleged affiliated members from the Army to be seen;\r\nfinally, instead of gathering strength from them, the democratic party had\r\ninfected the proletariat with its own weakness, and, as usual with democratic\r\nfeats, the leaders had the satisfaction of charging \u0026ldquo;their people\u0026rdquo;\r\nwith desertion, and the people had the satisfaction of charging their leaders\r\nwith fraud.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nSeldom was an act announced with greater noise than the campaign contemplated\r\nby the Mountain; seldom was an event trumpeted ahead with more certainty and\r\nlonger beforehand than the \u0026ldquo;inevitable victory of the democracy.\u0026rdquo;\r\nThis is evident: the democrats believe in the trombones before whose blasts the\r\nwalls of Jericho fall together; as often as they stand before the walls of\r\ndespotism, they seek to imitate the miracle. If the Mountain wished to win in\r\nparliament, it should not appeal to arms; if it called to arms in parliament,\r\nit should not conduct itself parliamentarily on the street; if the friendly\r\ndemonstration was meant seriously, it was silly not to foresee that it would\r\nmeet with a warlike reception; if it was intended for actual war, it was rather\r\noriginal to lay aside the weapons with which war had to be conducted. But the\r\nrevolutionary threats of the middle class and of their democratic\r\nrepresentatives are mere attempts to frighten an adversary; when they have run\r\nthemselves into a blind alley, when they have sufficiently compromised\r\nthemselves and are compelled to execute their threats, the thing is done in a\r\nhesitating manner that avoids nothing so much as the means to the end, and\r\ncatches at pretexts to succumb. The bray of the overture, that announces the\r\nfray, is lost in a timid growl so soon as this is to start; the actors cease to\r\ntake themselves seriously, and the performance falls flat like an inflated\r\nballoon that is pricked with a needle.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNo party exaggerates to itself the means at its disposal more than the\r\ndemocratic, none deceives itself with greater heedlessness on the situation. A\r\npart of the Army voted for it, thereupon the Mountain is of the opinion that\r\nthe Army would revolt in its favor. And by what occasion? By an occasion, that,\r\nfrom the standpoint of the troops, meant nothing else than that the\r\nrevolutionary soldiers should take the part of the soldiers of Rome against\r\nFrench soldiers. On the other hand, the memory of June, 1848, was still too\r\nfresh not to keep alive a deep aversion on the part of the proletariat towards\r\nthe National Guard, and a strong feeling of mistrust on the part of the leaders\r\nof the secret societies for the democratic leaders. In order to balance these\r\ndifferences, great common interests at stake were needed. The violation of an\r\nabstract constitutional paragraph could not supply such interests. Had not the\r\nconstitution been repeatedly violated, according to the assurances of the\r\ndemocrats themselves? Had not the most popular papers branded them as a\r\ncounter-revolutionary artifice? But the democrat\u0026mdash;by reason of his\r\nrepresenting the middle class, that is to say, a Transition Class, in which the\r\ninterests of two other classes are mutually dulled\u0026mdash;, imagines himself\r\nabove all class contrast. The democrats grant that opposed to them stands a\r\nprivileged class, but they, together with the whole remaining mass of the\r\nnation, constitute the \u0026ldquo;PEOPLE.\u0026rdquo; What they represent is the\r\n\u0026ldquo;people\u0026rsquo;s rights\u0026rdquo;; their interests are the\r\n\u0026ldquo;people\u0026rsquo;s interests.\u0026rdquo; Hence, they do not consider that, at an\r\nimpending struggle, they need to examine the interests and attitude of the\r\ndifferent classes. They need not too seriously weigh their own means. All they\r\nhave to do is to give the signal in order to have the \u0026ldquo;people\u0026rdquo; fall\r\nupon the \u0026ldquo;oppressors\u0026rdquo; with all its inexhaustible resources. If,\r\nthereupon, in the execution, their interests turn out to be uninteresting, and\r\ntheir power to be impotence, it is ascribed either to depraved sophists, who\r\nsplit up the \u0026ldquo;undivisible people\u0026rdquo; into several hostile camps; or to\r\nthe army being too far brutalized and blinded to appreciate the pure aims of\r\nthe democracy as its own best; or to some detail in the execution that wrecks\r\nthe whole plan; or, finally, to an unforeseen accident that spoiled the game\r\nthis time. At all events, the democrat comes out of the disgraceful defeat as\r\nimmaculate as he went innocently into it, and with the refreshed conviction\r\nthat he must win; not that he himself and his party must give up their old\r\nstandpoint, but that, on the contrary, conditions must come to his aid.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFor all this, one must not picture to himself the decimated, broken, and, by\r\nthe new parliamentary regulation, humbled Mountain altogether too unhappy. If\r\nJune 13 removed its leaders, it, on the other hand, made room for new ones of\r\ninferior capacity, who are flattered by their new position. If their impotence\r\nin parliament could no longer be doubted, they were now justified to limit\r\ntheir activity to outbursts of moral indignation. If the party of Order\r\npretended to see in them, as the last official representatives of the\r\nrevolution, all the horrors of anarchy incarnated, they were free to appear all\r\nthe more flat and modest in reality. Over June 13 they consoled themselves with\r\nthe profound expression: \u0026ldquo;If they but dare to assail universal suffrage .\r\n. . then . . . then we will show who we are!\u0026rdquo; Nous verrons. [#5 We shall\r\nsee.]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAs to the \u0026ldquo;Mountaineers,\u0026rdquo; who had fled abroad, it suffices here to\r\nsay that Ledru-Rollin\u0026mdash;he having accomplished the feat of hopelessly\r\nruining, in barely a fortnight, the powerful party at whose head he\r\nstood\u0026mdash;, found himself called upon to build up a French government\r\n\u0026ldquo;in partibus;\u0026rdquo; that his figure, at a distance, removed from the\r\nfield of action, seemed to gain in size in the measure that the level of the\r\nrevolution sank and the official prominences of official France became more and\r\nmore dwarfish; that he could figure as republican Pretender for 1852, and\r\nperiodically issued to the Wallachians and other peoples circulars in which\r\n\u0026ldquo;despot of the continent\u0026rdquo; is threatened with the feats that he and\r\nhis allies had in contemplation. Was Proudhon wholly wrong when he cried out to\r\nthese gentlemen: \u0026ldquo;Vous n\u0026rsquo;êtes que des blaqueurs\u0026rdquo;? [#6 You are\r\nnothing but fakirs.]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe party of Order had, on June 13, not only broken up the Mountain, it had\r\nalso established the Subordination of the Constitution to the Majority\r\nDecisions of the National Assembly. So, indeed, did the republic understand it,\r\nto\u0026mdash;wit, that the bourgeois ruled here in parliamentary form, without, as\r\nin the monarchy, finding a check in the veto of the Executive power, or the\r\nliability of parliament to dissolution. It was a \u0026ldquo;parliamentary\r\nrepublic,\u0026rdquo; as Thiers styled it. But if, on June 13, the bourgeoisie\r\nsecured its omnipotence within the parliament building, did it not also strike\r\nthe parliament itself, as against the Executive and the people, with incurable\r\nweakness by excluding its most popular part? By giving up numerous Deputies,\r\nwithout further ceremony to the mercies of the public prosecutor, it abolished\r\nits own parliamentary inviolability. The humiliating regulation, that it\r\nsubjected the Mountain to, raised the President of the republic in the same\r\nmeasure that it lowered the individual Representatives of the people. By\r\nbranding an insurrection in defense of the Constitution as anarchy, and as a\r\ndeed looking to the overthrow of society, it interdicted to itself all appeal\r\nto insurrection whenever the Executive should violate the Constitution against\r\nit. And, indeed, the irony of history wills it that the very General, who by\r\norder of Bonaparte bombarded Rome, and thus gave the immediate occasion to the\r\nconstitutional riot of June 13, that Oudinot, on December 22, 1851, is the one\r\nimploringly and vainly to be offered to the people by the party of Order as the\r\nGeneral of the Constitution. Another hero of June 13, Vieyra, who earned praise\r\nfrom the tribune of the National Assembly for the brutalities that he had\r\ncommitted in the democratic newspaper offices at the head of a gang of National\r\nGuards in the hire of the high finance\u0026mdash;this identical Vieyra was\r\ninitiated in the conspiracy of Bonaparte, and contributed materially in cutting\r\noff all protection that could come to the National Assembly, in the hour of its\r\nagony, from the side of the National Guard.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nJune 13 had still another meaning. The Mountain had wanted to place Bonaparte\r\nunder charges. Their defeat was, accordingly, a direct victory of Bonaparte; it\r\nwas his personal triumph over his democratic enemies. The party of Order fought\r\nfor the victory, Bonaparte needed only to pocket it. He did so. On June 14, a\r\nproclamation was to be read on the walls of Paris wherein the President, as it\r\nwere, without his connivance, against his will, driven by the mere force of\r\ncircumstances, steps forward from his cloisterly seclusion like misjudged\r\nvirtue, complains of the calumnies of his antagonists, and, while seeming to\r\nidentify his own person with the cause of order, rather identifies the cause of\r\norder with his own person. Besides this, the National Assembly had subsequently\r\napproved the expedition against Rome; Bonaparte, however, had taken the\r\ninitiative in the affair. After he had led the High Priest Samuel back into the\r\nVatican, he could hope as King David to occupy the Tuileries. He had won the\r\nparson-interests over to himself.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe riot of June 13 limited itself, as we have seen, to a peaceful street\r\nprocession. There were, consequently, no laurels to be won from it.\r\nNevertheless, in these days, poor in heroes and events, the party of Order\r\nconverted this bloodless battle into a second Austerlitz. Tribune and press\r\nlauded the army as the power of order against the popular multitude, and the\r\nimpotence of anarchy; and Changarnier as the \u0026ldquo;bulwark of\r\nsociety\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;a mystification that he finally believed in himself.\r\nUnderhand, however, the corps that seemed doubtful were removed from Paris; the\r\nregiments whose suffrage had turned out most democratic were banished from\r\nFrance to Algiers the restless heads among the troops were consigned to penal\r\nquarters; finally, the shutting out of the press from the barracks, and of the\r\nbarracks from contact with the citizens was systematically carried out.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWe stand here at the critical turning point in the history of the French\r\nNational Guard. In 1830, it had decided the downfall of the restoration. Under\r\nLouis Philippe, every riot failed, at which the National Guard stood on the\r\nside of the troops. When, in the February days of 1848, it showed itself\r\npassive against the uprising and doubtful toward Louis Philippe himself, he\r\ngave himself up for lost. Thus the conviction cast root that a revolution could\r\nnot win without, nor the Army against the National Guard. This was the\r\nsuperstitious faith of the Army in bourgeois omnipotence. The June days of\r\n1548, when the whole National Guard, jointly with the regular troops, threw\r\ndown the insurrection, had confirmed the superstition. After the inauguration\r\nof Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s administration, the position of the National Guard sank\r\nsomewhat through the unconstitutional joining of their command with the command\r\nof the First Military Division in the person of Changarnier.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAs the command of the National Guard appeared here merely an attribute of the\r\nmilitary commander-in-chief, so did the Guard itself appear only as an\r\nappendage of the regular troops. Finally, on June 13, the National Guard was\r\nbroken up, not through its partial dissolution only, that from that date\r\nforward was periodically repeated at all points of France, leaving only wrecks\r\nof its former self behind. The demonstration of June 13 was, above all, a\r\ndemonstration of the National Guards. True, they had not carried their arms,\r\nbut they had carried their uniforms against the Army\u0026mdash;and the talisman lay\r\njust in these uniforms. The Army then learned that this uniform was but a\r\nwoolen rag, like any other. The spell was broken. In the June days of 1848,\r\nbourgeoisie and small traders were united as National Guard with the Army\r\nagainst the proletariat; on June 13, 1849, the bourgeoisie had the small\r\ntraders\u0026rsquo; National Guard broken up; on December 2, 1851, the National\r\nGuard of the bourgeoisie itself vanished, and Bonaparte attested the fact when\r\nhe subsequently signed the decree for its disbandment. Thus the bourgeoisie had\r\nitself broken its last weapon against the army, from the moment when the small\r\ntraders\u0026rsquo; class no longer stood as a vassal behind, but as a rebel before\r\nit; indeed, it was bound to do so, as it was bound to destroy with its own hand\r\nall its means of defence against absolutism, so soon as itself was absolute.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn the meantime, the party of Order celebrated the recovery of a power that\r\nseemed lost in 1848 only in order that, freed from its trammels in 1849, it be\r\nfound again through invectives against the republic and the Constitution;\r\nthrough the malediction of all future, present and past revolutions, that one\r\nincluded which its own leaders had made; and, finally, in laws by which the\r\npress was gagged, the right of association destroyed, and the stage of siege\r\nregulated as an organic institution. The National Assembly then adjourned from\r\nthe middle of August to the middle of October, after it had appointed a\r\nPermanent Committee for the period of its absence. During these vacations, the\r\nLegitimists intrigued with Ems; the Orleanists with Claremont; Bonaparte\r\nthrough princely excursions; the Departmental Councilmen in conferences over\r\nthe revision of the Constitution;\u0026mdash;occurrences, all of which recurred\r\nregularly at the periodical vacations of the National Assembly, and upon which\r\nI shall not enter until they have matured into events. Be it here only observed\r\nthat the National Assembly was impolitic in vanishing from the stage for long\r\nintervals, and leaving in view, at the head of the republic, only one, however\r\nsorry, figure\u0026mdash;Louis Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s\u0026mdash;, while, to the public\r\nscandal, the party of Order broke up into its own royalist component parts,\r\nthat pursued their conflicting aspirations after the restoration. As often as,\r\nduring these vacations the confusing noise of the parliament was hushed, and\r\nits body was dissolved in the nation, it was unmistakably shown that only one\r\nthing was still wanting to complete the true figure of the republic: to make\r\nthe vacation of the National Assembly permanent, and substitute its\r\ninscription\u0026mdash;\u0026ldquo;Liberty, Equality, Fraternity\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;by the\r\nunequivocal words, \u0026ldquo;Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery\u0026rdquo;.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c/div\u003e\u003c!–end chapter–\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv class=\"chapter\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003ca name=\"chap04\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eIV.\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe National Assembly reconvened in the middle of October. On November 1,\r\nBonaparte surprised it with a message, in which he announced the dismissal of\r\nthe Barrot-Falloux Ministry, and the framing of a new. Never have lackeys been\r\nchased from service with less ceremony than Bonaparte did his ministers. The\r\nkicks, that were eventually destined for the National Assembly, Barrot \u0026amp;\r\nCompany received in the meantime.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe Barrot Ministry was, as we have seen, composed of Legitimists and\r\nOrleanists; it was a Ministry of the party of Order. Bonaparte needed that\r\nMinistry in order to dissolve the republican constituent assembly, to effect\r\nthe expedition against Rome, and to break up the democratic party. He had\r\nseemingly eclipsed himself behind this Ministry, yielded the reins to the hands\r\nof the party of Order, and assumed the modest mask, which, under Louis\r\nPhilippe, had been worn by the responsible overseer of the newspapers\u0026mdash;the\r\nmask of \u0026ldquo;homme de paille.\u0026rdquo; [#1 Man of straw] Now he threw off the\r\nmask, it being no longer the light curtain behind which he could conceal, but\r\nthe Iron Mask, which prevented him from revealing his own physiognomy. He had\r\ninstituted the Barrot Ministry in order to break up the republican National\r\nAssembly in the name of the party of Order; he now dismissed it in order to\r\ndeclare his own name independent of the parliament of the party of Order.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThere was no want of plausible pretexts for this dismissal. The Barrot Ministry\r\nhad neglected even the forms of decency that would have allowed the president\r\nof the republic to appear as a power along with the National Assembly. For\r\ninstance, during the vacation of the National Assembly, Bonaparte published a\r\nletter to Edgar Ney, in which he seemed to disapprove the liberal attitude of\r\nthe Pope, just as, in opposition to the constitutive assembly, he had published\r\na letter, in which he praised Oudinot for his attack upon the Roman republic;\r\nwhen the National Assembly came to vote on the budget for the Roman expedition,\r\nVictor Hugo, out of pretended liberalism, brought up that letter for\r\ndiscussion; the party of Order drowned this notion of Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s under\r\nexclamations of contempt and incredulity as though notions of Bonaparte could\r\nnot possibly have any political weight;\u0026mdash;and none of the Ministers took up\r\nthe gauntlet for him. On another occasion, Barrot, with his well-known hollow\r\npathos, dropped, from the speakers\u0026rsquo; tribune in the Assembly, words of\r\nindignation upon the \u0026ldquo;abominable machinations,\u0026rdquo; which, according to\r\nhim, went on in the immediate vicinity of the President. Finally, while the\r\nMinistry obtained from the National Assembly a widow\u0026rsquo;s pension for the\r\nDuchess of Orleans, it denied every motion to raise the Presidential civil\r\nlist;\u0026mdash;and, in Bonaparte, be it always remembered, the Imperial Pretender\r\nwas so closely blended with the impecunious adventurer, that the great idea of\r\nhis being destined to restore the Empire was ever supplemented by that other,\r\nto-wit, that the French people was destined to pay his debts.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe Barrot-Falloux Ministry was the first and last parliamentary Ministry that\r\nBonaparte called into life. Its dismissal marks, accordingly, a decisive\r\nperiod. With the Ministry, the party of Order lost, never to regain, an\r\nindispensable post to the maintenance of the parliamentary regime,\u0026mdash;the\r\nhandle to the Executive power. It is readily understood that, in a country like\r\nFrance, where the Executive disposes over an army of more than half a million\r\noffice-holders, and, consequently, keeps permanently a large mass of interests\r\nand existences in the completest dependence upon itself; where the Government\r\nsurrounds, controls, regulates, supervises and guards society, from its\r\nmightiest acts of national life, down to its most insignificant motions; from\r\nits common life, down to the private life of each individual; where, due to\r\nsuch extraordinary centralization, this body of parasites acquires a ubiquity\r\nand omniscience, a quickened capacity for motion and rapidity that finds an\r\nanalogue only in the helpless lack of self-reliance, in the unstrung weakness\r\nof the body social itself;\u0026mdash;that in such a country the National Assembly\r\nlost, with the control of the ministerial posts, all real influence; unless it\r\nsimultaneously simplified the administration; if possible, reduced the army of\r\noffice-holders; and, finally, allowed society and public opinion to establish\r\nits own organs, independent of government censorship. But the Material Interest\r\nof the French bourgeoisie is most intimately bound up in maintenance of just\r\nsuch a large and extensively ramified governmental machine. There the\r\nbourgeoisie provides for its own superfluous membership; and supplies, in the\r\nshape of government salaries, what it can not pocket in the form of profit,\r\ninterest, rent and fees. On the other hand, its Political Interests daily\r\ncompel it to increase the power of repression, i.e., the means and the\r\npersonnel of the government; it is at the same time forced to conduct an\r\nuninterrupted warfare against public opinion, and, full of suspicion, to\r\nhamstring and lame the independent organs of society\u0026mdash;whenever it does not\r\nsucceed in amputating them wholly. Thus the bourgeoisie of France was forced by\r\nits own class attitude, on the one hand, to destroy the conditions for all\r\nparliamentary power, its own included, and, on the other, to render\r\nirresistible the Executive power that stood hostile to it.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe new Ministry was called the d\u0026rsquo;Hautpoul Ministry. Not that General\r\nd\u0026rsquo;Hautpoul had gained the rank of Ministerial President. Along with\r\nBarrot, Bonaparte abolished this dignity, which, it must be granted, condemned\r\nthe President of the republic to the legal nothingness of a constitutional\r\nkind, of a constitutional king at that, without throne and crown, without\r\nsceptre and without sword, without irresponsibility, without the imperishable\r\npossession of the highest dignity in the State, and, what was most untoward of\r\nall\u0026mdash;without a civil list. The d\u0026rsquo;Hautpoul Ministry numbered only one\r\nman of parliamentary reputation, the Jew Fould, one of the most notorious\r\nmembers of the high finance. To him fell the portfolio of finance. Turn to the\r\nParis stock quotations, and it will be found that from November 1, 1849, French\r\nstocks fall and rise with the falling and rising of the Bonapartist shares.\r\nWhile Bonaparte had thus found his ally in the Bourse, he at the same time took\r\npossession of the Police through the appointment of Carlier as Prefect of\r\nPolice.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut the consequences of the change of Ministry could reveal themselves only in\r\nthe course of events. So far, Bonaparte had taken only one step forward, to be\r\nall the more glaringly driven back. Upon his harsh message, followed the most\r\nservile declarations of submissiveness to the National Assembly. As often as\r\nthe Ministers made timid attempts to introduce his own personal hobbies as\r\nbills, they themselves seemed unwilling and compelled only by their position to\r\nrun the comic errands, of whose futility they were convinced in advance. As\r\noften as Bonaparte blabbed out his plans behind the backs of his Ministers, and\r\nsported his \u0026ldquo;idees napoleoniennes,\u0026rdquo; [#2 Napoleonic ideas.] his own\r\nMinisters disavowed him from the speakers\u0026rsquo; tribune in the National\r\nAssembly. His aspirations after usurpation seemed to become audible only to the\r\nend that the ironical laughter of his adversaries should not die out. He\r\ndeported himself like an unappreciated genius, whom the world takes for a\r\nsimpleton. Never did lie enjoy in fuller measure the contempt of all classes\r\nthan at this period. Never did the bourgeoisie rule more absolutely; never did\r\nit more boastfully display the insignia of sovereignty.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIt is not here my purpose to write the history of its legislative activity,\r\nwhich is summed up in two laws passed during this period: the law\r\nreestablishing the duty on wine, and the laws on education, to suppress\r\ninfidelity. While the drinking of wine was made difficult to the Frenchmen, all\r\nthe more bounteously was the water of pure life poured out to them. Although in\r\nthe law on the duty on wine the bourgeoisie declares the old hated French\r\ntariff system to be inviolable, it sought, by means of the laws on education,\r\nto secure the old good will of the masses that made the former bearable. One\r\nwonders to see the Orleanists, the liberal bourgeois, these old apostles of\r\nVoltarianism and of eclectic philosophy, entrusting the supervision of the\r\nFrench intellect to their hereditary enemies, the Jesuits. But, while\r\nOrleanists and Legitimists could part company on the question of the Pretender\r\nto the crown, they understood full well that their joint reign dictated the\r\njoining of the means of oppression of two distinct epochs; that the means of\r\nsubjugation of the July monarchy had to be supplemented with and strengthened\r\nby the means of subjugation of the restoration.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe farmers, deceived in all their expectations, more than ever ground down by\r\nthe law scale of the price of corn, on the one hand, and, on the other, by the\r\ngrowing load of taxation and mortgages, began to stir in the Departments. They\r\nwere answered by the systematic baiting of the school masters, whom the\r\nGovernment subjected to the clergy; by the systematic baiting of the Mayors,\r\nwhom it subjected to the Prefects; and by a system of espionage to which all\r\nwere subjected. In Paris and the large towns, the reaction itself carries the\r\nphysiognomy of its own epoch; it irritates more than it cows; in the country,\r\nit becomes low, moan, petty, tiresome, vexatious,\u0026mdash;in a word, it becomes\r\n\u0026ldquo;gensdarme.\u0026rdquo; It is easily understood how three years of the\r\ngensdarme regime, sanctified by the regime of the clergyman, was bound to\r\ndemoralize unripe masses.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhatever the mass of passion and declamation, that the party of Order expended\r\nfrom the speakers\u0026rsquo; tribune in the National Assembly against the minority,\r\nits speech remained monosyllabic, like that of the Christian, whose speech was\r\nto be \u0026ldquo;Aye, aye; nay, nay.\u0026rdquo; It was monosyllabic, whether from the\r\ntribune or the press; dull as a conundrum, whose solution is known beforehand.\r\nWhether the question was the right of petition or the duty on wine, the liberty\r\nof the press or free trade, clubs or municipal laws, protection of individual\r\nfreedom or the regulation of national economy, the slogan returns ever again,\r\nthe theme is monotonously the same, the verdict is ever ready and unchanged:\r\nSocialism! Even bourgeois liberalism is pronounced socialistic; socialistic,\r\nalike, is pronounced popular education; and, likewise, socialistic national\r\nfinancial reform. It was socialistic to build a railroad where already a canal\r\nwas; and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a stick when attacked with a\r\nsword.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThis was not a mere form of speech, a fashion, nor yet party tactics. The\r\nbourgeoisie perceives correctly that all the weapons, which it forged against\r\nfeudalism, turn their edges against itself; that all the means of education,\r\nwhich it brought forth, rebel against its own civilization; that all the gods,\r\nwhich it made, have fallen away from it. It understands that all its so-called\r\ncitizens\u0026rsquo; rights and progressive organs assail and menace its class rule,\r\nboth in its social foundation and its political\r\nsuperstructure\u0026mdash;consequently, have become \u0026ldquo;socialistic.\u0026rdquo; It\r\njustly scents in this menace and assault the secret of Socialism, whose meaning\r\nand tendency it estimates more correctly than the spurious, so-called\r\nSocialism, is capable of estimating itself, and which, consequently, is unable\r\nto understand how it is that the bourgeoisie obdurately shuts up its ears to\r\nit, alike whether it sentimentally whines about the sufferings of humanity; or\r\nannounces in Christian style the millennium and universal brotherhood; or\r\ntwaddles humanistically about the soul, culture and freedom; or doctrinally\r\nmatches out a system of harmony and wellbeing for all classes. What, however,\r\nthe bourgeoisie does not understand is the consequence that its own\r\nparliamentary regime, its own political reign, is also of necessity bound to\r\nfall under the general ban of \u0026ldquo;socialistic.\u0026rdquo; So long as the rule of\r\nthe bourgeoisie is not fully organized, has not acquired its purely political\r\ncharacter, the contrast with the other classes cannot come into view in all its\r\nsharpness; and, where it does come into view, it cannot take that dangerous\r\nturn that converts every conflict with the Government into a conflict with\r\nCapital. When, however, the French bourgeoisie began to realize in every\r\npulsation of society a menace to \u0026ldquo;peace,\u0026rdquo; how could it, at the head\r\nof society, pretend to uphold the regime of unrest, its own regime, the\r\nparliamentary regime, which, according to the expression of one of its own\r\norators, lives in struggle, and through struggle? The parliamentary regime\r\nlives on discussion,\u0026mdash;how can it forbid discussion? Every single interest,\r\nevery single social institution is there converted into general thoughts, is\r\ntreated as a thought,\u0026mdash;how could any interest or institution claim to be\r\nabove thought, and impose itself as an article of faith? The orators\u0026rsquo;\r\nconflict in the tribune calls forth the conflict of the rowdies in the press\r\nthe debating club in parliament is necessarily supplemented by debating clubs\r\nin the salons and the barrooms; the representatives, who are constantly\r\nappealing to popular opinion, justify popular opinion in expressing its real\r\nopinion in petitions. The parliamentary regime leaves everything to the\r\ndecision of majorities,\u0026mdash;how can the large majorities beyond parliament be\r\nexpected not to wish to decide? If, from above, they hear the fiddle\r\nscreeching, what else is to be expected than that those below should dance?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAccordingly, by now persecuting as Socialist what formerly it had celebrated as\r\nLiberal, the bourgeoisie admits that its own interest orders it to raise itself\r\nabove the danger of self government; that, in order to restore rest to the\r\nland, its own bourgeois parliament must, before all, be brought to rest; that,\r\nin order to preserve its social power unhurt, its political power must be\r\nbroken; that the private bourgeois can continue to exploit the other classes\r\nand rejoice in \u0026ldquo;property,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;family,\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u0026ldquo;religion\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;order\u0026rdquo; only under the condition that\r\nhis own class be condemned to the same political nullity of the other classes,\r\nthat, in order to save their purse, the crown must be knocked off their heads,\r\nand the sword that was to shield them, must at the same time be hung over their\r\nheads as a sword of Damocles.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn the domain of general bourgeois interests, the National Assembly proved\r\nitself so barren, that, for instance, the discussion over the Paris-Avignon\r\nrailroad, opened in the winter of 1850, was not yet ripe for a vote on December\r\n2, 1851. Wherever it did not oppress or was reactionary, the bourgeoisie was\r\nsmitten with incurable barrenness.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhile Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s Ministry either sought to take the initiative of laws\r\nin the spirit of the party of Order, or even exaggerated their severity in\r\ntheir enforcement and administration, he, on his part, sought to win popularity\r\nby means of childishly silly propositions, to exhibit the contrast between\r\nhimself and the National Assembly, and to hint at a secret plan, held in\r\nreserve and only through circumstances temporarily prevented from disclosing\r\nits hidden treasures to the French people. Of this nature was the proposition\r\nto decree a daily extra pay of four sous to the under-officers; so, likewise,\r\nthe proposition for a \u0026ldquo;word of honor\u0026rdquo; loan bank for working-men. To\r\nhave money given and money borrowed\u0026mdash;that was the perspective that he\r\nhoped to cajole the masses with. Presents and loans\u0026mdash;to that was limited\r\nthe financial wisdom of the slums, the high as well as the low; to that were\r\nlimited the springs which Bonaparte knew how to set in motion. Never did\r\nPretender speculate more dully upon the dullness of the masses.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAgain and again did the National Assembly fly into a passion at these\r\nunmistakable attempts to win popularity at its expense, and at the growing\r\ndanger that this adventurer, lashed on by debts and unrestrained by reputation,\r\nmight venture upon some desperate act. The strained relations between the party\r\nof Order and the President had taken on a threatening aspect, when an\r\nunforeseen event threw him back, rueful into its arms. We mean the\r\nsupplementary elections of March, 1850. These elections took place to fill the\r\nvacancies created in the National Assembly, after June 13, by imprisonment and\r\nexile. Paris elected only Social-Democratic candidates; it even united the\r\nlargest vote upon one of the insurgents of June, 1848,\u0026mdash;Deflotte. In this\r\nway the small traders\u0026rsquo; world of Paris, now allied with the proletariat,\r\nrevenged itself for the defeat of June 13, 1849. It seemed to have disappeared\r\nfrom the field of battle at the hour of danger only to step on it again at a\r\nmore favorable opportunity, with increased forces for the fray, and with a\r\nbolder war cry. A circumstance seemed to heighten the danger of this electoral\r\nvictory. The Army voted in Paris for a June insurgent against Lahitte, a\r\nMinister of Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s, and, in the Departments, mostly for the\r\ncandidates of the Mountain, who, there also, although not as decisively as in\r\nParis, maintained the upper hand over their adversaries.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBonaparte suddenly saw himself again face to face with the revolution. As on\r\nJanuary 29, 1849, as on June 13, 1849, on May 10, 1850, he vanished again\r\nbehind the party of Order. He bent low; he timidly apologized; he offered to\r\nappoint any Ministry whatever at the behest of the parliamentary majority; he\r\neven implored the Orleanist and Legitimist party leaders\u0026mdash;the Thiers,\r\nBerryers, Broglies, Moles, in short, the so-called burgraves\u0026mdash;to take hold\r\nof the helm of State in person. The party of Order did not know how to utilize\r\nthis opportunity, that was never to return. Instead of boldly taking possession\r\nof the proffered power, it did not even force Bonaparte to restore the Ministry\r\ndismissed on November 1; it contented itself with humiliating him with its\r\npardon, and with affiliating Mr. Baroche to the d\u0026rsquo;Hautpoul Ministry. This\r\nBaroche had, as Public Prosecutor, stormed before the High Court at Bourges,\r\nonce against the revolutionists of May 15, another time against the Democrats\r\nof June 13, both times on the charge of \u0026ldquo;attentats\u0026rdquo; against the\r\nNational Assembly. None of Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s Ministers contributed later more\r\ntowards the degradation of the National Assembly; and, after December 2, 1851,\r\nwe meet him again as the comfortably stalled and dearly paid Vice-President of\r\nthe Senate. He had spat into the soup of the revolutionists for Bonaparte to\r\neat it.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOn its part, the Social Democratic party seemed only to look for pretexts in\r\norder to make its own victory doubtful, and to dull its edge. Vidal, one of the\r\nnewly elected Paris representatives, was returned for Strassburg also. He was\r\ninduced to decline the seat for Paris and accept the one for Strassburg. Thus,\r\ninstead of giving a definite character to their victory at the hustings, and\r\nthereby compelling the party of Order forthwith to contest it in parliament;\r\ninstead of thus driving the foe to battle at the season of popular enthusiasm\r\nand of a favorable temper in the Army, the democratic party tired out Paris\r\nwith a new campaign during the months of March and April; it allowed the\r\nexcited popular passions to wear themselves out in this second provisional\r\nelectoral play it allowed the revolutionary vigor to satiate itself with\r\nconstitutional successes, and lose its breath in petty intrigues, hollow\r\ndeclamation and sham moves; it gave the bourgeoisie time to collect itself and\r\nmake its preparations finally, it allowed the significance of the March\r\nelections to find a sentimentally weakening commentary at the subsequent April\r\nelection in the victory of Eugene Sue. In one word, it turned the 10th of March\r\ninto an April Fool.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe parliamentary majority perceived the weakness of its adversary. Its\r\nseventeen burgraves\u0026mdash;Bonaparte had left to it the direction of and\r\nresponsibility for the attack\u0026mdash;, framed a new election law, the moving of\r\nwhich was entrusted to Mr. Faucher, who had applied for the honor. On May 8, he\r\nintroduced the new law whereby universal suffrage was abolished; a three years\r\nresidence in the election district imposed as a condition for voting; and,\r\nfinally, the proof of this residence made dependent, for the working-man, upon\r\nthe testimony of his employer.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAs revolutionarily as the democrats had agitated and stormed during the\r\nconstitutional struggles, so constitutionally did they, now, when it was\r\nimperative to attest, arms in hand, the earnestness of their late electoral\r\nvictories, preach order, \u0026ldquo;majestic calmness,\u0026rdquo; lawful conduct, i.\r\ne., blind submission to the will of the counter-revolution, which revealed\r\nitself as law. During the debate, the Mountain put the party of Order to shame\r\nby maintaining the passionless attitude of the law-abiding burger, who upholds\r\nthe principle of law against revolutionary passions; and by twitting the party\r\nof Order with the fearful reproach of proceeding in a revolutionary manner.\r\nEven the newly elected deputies took pains to prove by their decent and\r\nthoughtful deportment what an act of misjudgment it was to decry them as\r\nanarchists, or explain their election as a victory of the revolution. The new\r\nelection law was passed on May 31. The Mountain contented itself with smuggling\r\na protest into the pockets of the President of the Assembly. To the election\r\nlaw followed a new press law, whereby the revolutionary press was completely\r\ndone away with. It had deserved its fate. The \u0026ldquo;National\u0026rdquo; and the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Presse,\u0026rdquo; two bourgeois organs, remained after this deluge the\r\nextreme outposts of the revolution.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWe have seen how, during March and April, the democratic leaders did everything\r\nto involve the people of Paris in a sham battle, and how, after May 8, they did\r\neverything to keep it away from a real battle. We may not here forget that the\r\nyear 1850 was one of the most brilliant years of industrial and commercial\r\nprosperity; consequently, that the Parisian proletariat was completely\r\nemployed. But the election law of May 31, 1850 excluded them from all\r\nparticipation in political power; it cut the field of battle itself from under\r\nthem; it threw the workingmen back into the state of pariahs, which they had\r\noccupied before the February revolution. In allowing themselves, in sight of\r\nsuch an occurrence, to be led by the democrats, and in forgetting the\r\nrevolutionary interests of their class through temporary comfort, the\r\nworkingmen abdicated the honor of being a conquering power; they submitted to\r\ntheir fate; they proved that the defeat of June, 1848, had incapacitated them\r\nfrom resistance for many a year to come finally, that the historic process must\r\nagain, for the time being, proceed over their heads. As to the small\r\ntraders\u0026rsquo; democracy, which, on June 13, had cried out: \u0026ldquo;If they but\r\ndare to assail universal suffrage . . . then . . . then we will show who we\r\nare!\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;they now consoled themselves with the thought that the\r\ncounter-revolutionary blow, which had struck them, was no blow at all, and that\r\nthe law of May 31 was no law. On May 2, 1852, according to them, every\r\nFrenchman would appear at the hustings, in one hand the ballot, in the other\r\nthe sword. With this prophecy they set their hearts at ease. Finally, the Army\r\nwas punished by its superiors for the elections of May and April, 1850, as it\r\nwas punished for the election of May 29, 1849. This time, however, it said to\r\nitself determinately: \u0026ldquo;The revolution shall not cheat us a third\r\ntime.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe law of May 31, 1850, was the \u0026ldquo;coup d\u0026rsquo;etat\u0026rdquo; of the\r\nbourgeoisie. All its previous conquests over the revolution had only a\r\ntemporary character: they became uncertain the moment the National Assembly\r\nstepped off the stage; they depended upon the accident of general elections,\r\nand the history of the elections since 1848 proved irrefutably that, in the\r\nsame measure as the actual reign of the bourgeoisie gathered strength, its\r\nmoral reign over the masses wore off. Universal suffrage pronounced itself on\r\nMay 10 pointedly against the reign of the bourgeoisie; the bourgeoisie answered\r\nwith the banishment of universal suffrage. The law of May 31 was, accordingly,\r\none of the necessities of the class struggle. On the other hand, the\r\nconstitution required a minimum of two million votes for the valid ejection of\r\nthe President of the republic. If none of the Presidential candidates polled\r\nthis minimum, then the National Assembly was to elect the President out of the\r\nthree candidates polling the highest votes. At the time that the constitutive\r\nbody made this law, ten million voters were registered on the election rolls.\r\nIn its opinion, accordingly, one-fifth of the qualified voters sufficed to make\r\na choice for President valid. The law of May 31 struck at least three million\r\nvoters off the rolls, reduced the number of qualified voters to seven millions,\r\nand yet, not withstanding, it kept the lawful minimum at two millions for the\r\nelection of a President. Accordingly, it raised the lawful minimum from a fifth\r\nto almost a third of the qualified voters, i.e., it did all it could to smuggle\r\nthe Presidential election out of the hands of the people into those of the\r\nNational Assembly. Thus, by the election law of May 31, the party of Order\r\nseemed to have doubly secured its empire, in that it placed the election of\r\nboth the National Assembly and the President of the republic in the keeping of\r\nthe stable portion of society.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c/div\u003e\u003c!–end chapter–\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv class=\"chapter\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003ca name=\"chap05\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eV.\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe strife immediately broke out again between the National Assembly and\r\nBonaparte, so soon as the revolutionary crisis was weathered, and universal\r\nsuffrage was abolished.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe Constitution had fixed the salary of Bonaparte at 600,000 francs. Barely\r\nhalf a year after his installation, he succeeded in raising this sum to its\r\ndouble: Odillon Barrot had wrung from the constitutive assembly a yearly\r\nallowance of 600,000 francs for so-called representation expenses. After June\r\n13, Bonaparte hinted at similar solicitations, to which, however, Barrot then\r\nturned a deaf ear. Now, after May 31, he forthwith utilized the favorable\r\nmoment, and caused his ministers to move a civil list of three millions in the\r\nNational Assembly. A long adventurous, vagabond career had gifted him with the\r\nbest developed antennae for feeling out the weak moments when he could venture\r\nupon squeezing money from his bourgeois. He carried on regular blackmail. The\r\nNational Assembly had maimed the sovereignty of the people with his aid and his\r\nknowledge: he now threatened to denounce its crime to the tribunal of the\r\npeople, if it did not pull out its purse and buy his silence with three\r\nmillions annually. It had robbed three million Frenchmen of the suffrage: for\r\nevery Frenchman thrown \u0026ldquo;out of circulation,\u0026rdquo; he demanded a franc\r\n\u0026ldquo;in circulation.\u0026rdquo; He, the elect of six million, demanded indemnity\r\nfor the votes he had been subsequently cheated of. The Committee of the\r\nNational Assembly turned the importunate fellow away. The Bonapartist press\r\nthreatened: Could the National Assembly break with the President of the\r\nrepublic at a time when it had broken definitely and on principle with the mass\r\nof the nation? It rejected the annual civil list, but granted, for this once,\r\nan allowance of 2,160,000 francs. Thus it made itself guilty of the double\r\nweakness of granting the money, and, at the same time, showing by its anger\r\nthat it did so only unwillingly. We shall presently see to what use Bonaparte\r\nput the money. After this aggravating after-play, that followed upon the heels\r\nof the abolition of universal suffrage, and in which Bonaparte exchanged his\r\nhumble attitude of the days of the crisis of March and April for one of defiant\r\nimpudence towards the usurping parliament, the National Assembly adjourned for\r\nthree months, from August 11, to November 11. It left behind in its place a\r\nPermanent Committee of 18 members that contained no Bonapartist, but did\r\ncontain a few moderate republicans. The Permanent Committee of the year 1849\r\nhad numbered only men of order and Bonapartists. At that time, however, the\r\nparty of Order declared itself in permanence against the revolution; now the\r\nparliamentary republic declared itself in permanence against the President.\r\nAfter the law of May 31, only this rival still confronted the party of Order.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhen the National Assembly reconvened in November, 1850, instead of its former\r\npetty skirmishes with the President, a great headlong struggle, a struggle for\r\nlife between the two powers, seemed to have become inevitable.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAs in the year 1849, the party of Order had during this year\u0026rsquo;s vacation,\r\ndissolved into its two separate factions, each occupied with its own\r\nrestoration intrigues, which had received new impetus from the death of Louis\r\nPhilippe. The Legitimist King, Henry V, had even appointed a regular Ministry,\r\nthat resided in Paris, and in which sat members of the Permanent Committee.\r\nHence, Bonaparte was, on his part, justified in making tours through the French\r\nDepartments, and\u0026mdash;according to the disposition of the towns that he\r\nhappened to be gladdening with his presence\u0026mdash;some times covertly, other\r\ntimes more openly blabbing out his own restoration plans, and gaining votes for\r\nhimself On these excursions, which the large official \u0026ldquo;Moniteur\u0026rdquo;\r\nand the small private \u0026ldquo;Moniteurs\u0026rdquo; of Bonaparte were, of course,\r\nbound to celebrate as triumphal marches, he was constantly accompanied by\r\naffiliated members of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10\u0026rdquo; This society\r\ndated from the year 1849. Under the pretext of founding a benevolent\r\nassociation, the slum-proletariat of Paris was organized into secret sections,\r\neach section led by Bonapartist agents, with a Bonapartist General at the head\r\nof all. Along with ruined roues of questionable means of support and\r\nquestionable antecedents, along with the foul and adventures-seeking dregs of\r\nthe bourgeoisie, there were vagabonds, dismissed soldiers, discharged convicts,\r\nrunaway galley slaves, sharpers, jugglers, lazzaroni, pickpockets,\r\nsleight-of-hand performers, gamblers, procurers, keepers of disorderly houses,\r\nporters, literati, organ grinders, rag pickers, scissors grinders, tinkers,\r\nbeggars\u0026mdash;in short, that whole undefined, dissolute, kicked-about mass that\r\nthe Frenchmen style \u0026ldquo;la Boheme\u0026rdquo; With this kindred element,\r\nBonaparte formed the stock of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10,\u0026rdquo; a\r\n\u0026ldquo;benevolent association\u0026rdquo; in so far as, like Bonaparte himself, all\r\nits members felt the need of being benevolent to themselves at the expense of\r\nthe toiling nation. The Bonaparte, who here constitutes himself Chief of the\r\nSlum-Proletariat; who only here finds again in plenteous form the interests\r\nwhich he personally pursues; who, in this refuse, offal and wreck of all\r\nclasses, recognizes the only class upon which he can depend\r\nunconditionally;\u0026mdash;this is the real Bonaparte, the Bonaparte without\r\nqualification. An old and crafty roue, he looks upon the historic life of\r\nnations, upon their great and public acts, as comedies in the ordinary sense,\r\nas a carnival, where the great costumes, words and postures serve only as masks\r\nfor the pettiest chicaneries. So, on the occasion of his expedition against\r\nStrassburg when a trained Swiss vulture impersonated the Napoleonic eagle; so,\r\nagain, on the occasion of his raid upon Boulogne, when he struck a few London\r\nlackeys into French uniform: they impersonated the army; [#1 Under the reign of\r\nLouis Philippe, Bonaparte made two attempts to restore the throne of Napoleon:\r\none in October, 1836, in an expedition from Switzerland upon Strassburg and one\r\nin August, 1840, in an expedition from England upon Boulogne.] and so now, in\r\nhis \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10,\u0026rdquo; he collects 10,000 loafers who are to\r\nimpersonate the people as Snug the Joiner does the lion. At a period when the\r\nbourgeoisie itself is playing the sheerest comedy, but in the most solemn\r\nmanner in the world, without doing violence to any of the pedantic requirements\r\nof French dramatic etiquette, and is itself partly deceived by, partly\r\nconvinced of, the solemnity of its own public acts, the adventurer, who took\r\nthe comedy for simple comedy, was bound to win. Only after he has removed his\r\nsolemn opponent, when he himself takes seriously his own role of emperor, and,\r\nwith the Napoleonic mask on, imagines he impersonates the real Napoleon, only\r\nthen does he become the victim of his own peculiar conception of\r\nhistory\u0026mdash;the serious clown, who no longer takes history for a comedy, but\r\na comedy for history. What the national work-shops were to the socialist\r\nworkingmen, what the \u0026ldquo;Gardes mobiles\u0026rdquo; were to the bourgeois\r\nrepublicans, that was to Bonaparte the \u0026ldquo;Society of December\r\n10,\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;a force for partisan warfare peculiar to himself. On his\r\njourneys, the divisions of the Society, packed away on the railroads,\r\nimprovised an audience for him, performed public enthusiasm, shouted\r\n\u0026ldquo;vive l\u0026rsquo;Empereur,\u0026rdquo; insulted and clubbed the\r\nrepublicans,\u0026mdash;all, of course, under the protection of the police. On his\r\nreturn stages to Paris, this rabble constituted his vanguard, it forestalled or\r\ndispersed counter-demonstrations. The \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10\u0026rdquo;\r\nbelonged to him, it was his own handiwork, his own thought. Whatever else he\r\nappropriates, the power of circumstances places in his hands; whatever else he\r\ndoes, either circumstances do for him, or he is content to copy from the deeds\r\nof others, but he posing before the citizens with the official phrases about\r\n\u0026ldquo;Order,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Religion,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Family,\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u0026ldquo;Property,\u0026rdquo; and, behind him, the secret society of skipjacks and\r\npicaroons, the society of disorder, of prostitution, and of theft,\u0026mdash;that\r\nis Bonaparte himself as the original author; and the history of the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Society of December 10\u0026rdquo; is his own history. Now, then, it happened\r\nthat Representatives belonging to the party of order occasionally got under the\r\nclubs of the Decembrists. Nay, more. Police Commissioner Yon, who had been\r\nassigned to the National Assembly, and was charged with the guardianship of its\r\nsafety, reported to the Permanent Committee upon the testimony of one Alais,\r\nthat a Section of the Decembrists had decided on the murder of General\r\nChangarnier and of Dupin, the President of the National Assembly, and had\r\nalready settled upon the men to execute the decree. One can imagine the fright\r\nof Mr. Dupin. A parliamentary inquest over the \u0026ldquo;Society of December\r\n10,\u0026rdquo; i. e., the profanation of the Bonapartist secret world now seemed\r\ninevitable. Just before the reconvening of the National Assembly, Bonaparte\r\ncircumspectly dissolved his Society, of course, on paper only. As late as the\r\nend of 1851, Police Prefect Carlier vainly sought, in an exhaustive memorial,\r\nto move him to the real dissolution of the Decembrists.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10\u0026rdquo; was to remain the private army of\r\nBonaparte until he should have succeeded in converting the public Army into a\r\n\u0026ldquo;Society of December 10.\u0026rdquo; Bonaparte made the first attempt in this\r\ndirection shortly after the adjournment of the National Assembly, and he did so\r\nwith the money which he had just wrung from it. As a fatalist, he lives devoted\r\nto the conviction that there are certain Higher Powers, whom man, particularly\r\nthe soldier, cannot resist. First among these Powers he numbers cigars and\r\nchampagne, cold poultry and garlic-sausage. Accordingly, in the apartments of\r\nthe Elysee, he treated first the officers and under-officers to cigars and\r\nchampagne, to cold poultry and garlic-sausage. On October 3, he repeats this\r\nmanoeuvre with the rank and file of the troops by the review of St. Maur; and,\r\non October 10, the same manoeuvre again, upon a larger scale, at the army\r\nparade of Satory. The Uncle bore in remembrance the campaigns of Alexander in\r\nAsia: the Nephew bore in remembrance the triumphal marches of Bacchus in the\r\nsame country. Alexander was, indeed, a demigod; but Bacchus was a full-fledged\r\ngod, and the patron deity, at that, of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December\r\n10.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAfter the review of October 3, the Permanent Committee summoned the Minister of\r\nWar, d\u0026rsquo;Hautpoul, before it. He promised that such breaches of discipline\r\nshould not recur. We have seen how, on October 10th, Bonaparte kept\r\nd\u0026rsquo;Hautpoul\u0026rsquo;s word. At both reviews Changarnier had commanded as\r\nCommander-in-chief of the Army of Paris. He, at once member of the Permanent\r\nCommittee, Chief of the National Guard, the \u0026ldquo;Savior\u0026rdquo; of January 29,\r\nand June 13, the \u0026ldquo;Bulwark of Society,\u0026rdquo; candidate of the Party of\r\nOrder for the office of President, the suspected Monk of two\r\nmonarchies,\u0026mdash;he had never acknowledged his subordination to the Minister\r\nof War, had ever openly scoffed at the republican Constitution, and had pursued\r\nBonaparte with a protection that was ambiguously distinguished. Now he became\r\nzealous for the discipline in opposition to Bonaparte. While, on October 10, a\r\npart of the cavalry cried: \u0026ldquo;Vive Napoleon! Vivent les saucissons;\u0026rdquo;\r\n[#2 Long live Napoleon! Long live the sausages!] Changarnier saw to it that at\r\nleast the infantry, which filed by under the command of his friend Neumeyer,\r\nshould observe an icy silence. In punishment, the Minister of War, at the\r\ninstigation of Bonaparte, deposed General Neumeyer from his post in Paris,\r\nunder the pretext of providing for him as Commander-in-chief of the Fourteenth\r\nand Fifteenth Military Divisions. Neumeyer declined the exchange, and had, in\r\nconsequence, to give his resignation. On his part, Changarnier published on\r\nNovember 2, an order, wherein he forbade the troops to indulge, while under\r\narms, in any sort of political cries or demonstrations. The papers devoted to\r\nthe Elysee interests attacked Changarnier; the papers of the party of Order\r\nattacked Bonaparte; the Permanent Committee held frequent secret sessions, at\r\nwhich it was repeatedly proposed to declare the fatherland in danger; the Army\r\nseemed divided into two hostile camps, with two hostile staffs; one at the\r\nElysee, where Bonaparte, the other at the Tuileries, where Changarnier resided.\r\nAll that seemed wanting for the signal of battle to sound was the convening of\r\nthe National Assembly. The French public looked upon the friction between\r\nBonaparte and Changarnier in the light of the English journalist, who\r\ncharacterized it in these words: \u0026ldquo;The political servant girls of France\r\nare mopping away the glowing lava of the revolution with old mops, and they\r\nscold each other while doing their work.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nMeanwhile, Bonaparte hastened to depose the Minister of War, d\u0026rsquo;Hautpoul;\r\nto expedite him heels over head to Algiers; and to appoint in his place General\r\nSchramm as Minister of War. On November 12, he sent to the National Assembly a\r\nmessage of American excursiveness, overloaded with details, redolent of order,\r\nathirst for conciliation, resignful to the Constitution, dealing with all and\r\neverything, only not with the burning questions of the moment. As if in passing\r\nhe dropped the words that according to the express provisions of the\r\nConstitution, the President alone disposes over the Army. The message closed\r\nwith the following high-sounding protestations:\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;France demands, above all things, peace . . . Alone bound by an oath, I\r\nshall keep myself within the narrow bounds marked out by it to me . . . As to\r\nme, elected by the people, and owing my power to it alone, I shall always\r\nsubmit to its lawfully expressed will. Should you at this session decide upon\r\nthe revision of the Constitution, a Constitutional Convention will regulate the\r\nposition of the Executive power. If you do not, then, the people will, in 1852,\r\nsolemnly announce its decision. But, whatever the solution may be that the\r\nfuture has in store, let us arrive at an understanding to the end that never\r\nmay passion, surprise or violence decide over the fate of a great nation. . . .\r\nThat which, above all, bespeaks my attention is, not who will, in 1852, rule\r\nover France, but to so devote the time at my disposal that the interval may\r\npass by with-out agitation and disturbance. I have straightforwardly opened my\r\nheart to you, you will answer my frankness with your confidence, my good\r\nefforts with your co-operation. God will do the rest.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe honnete, hypocritically temperate, commonplace-virtuous language of the\r\nbourgeoisie reveals its deep meaning in the mouth of the self-appointed ruler\r\nof the \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10,\u0026rdquo; and of the picnic-hero of St. Maur\r\nand Satory.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe burgraves of the party of Order did not for a moment deceive themselves on\r\nthe confidence that this unbosoming deserved. They were long blase on oaths;\r\nthey numbered among themselves veterans and virtuosi of perjury. The passage\r\nabout the army did not, however, escape them. They observed with annoyance that\r\nthe message, despite its prolix enumeration of the lately enacted laws, passed,\r\nwith affected silence, over the most important of all, the election law, and,\r\nmoreover, in case no revision of the Constitution was held, left the choice of\r\nthe President, in 1852, with the people. The election law was the\r\nball-and-chain to the feet of the party of Order, that hindered them from\r\nwalking, and now assuredly from storming. Furthermore, by the official\r\ndisbandment of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10,\u0026rdquo; and the dismissal of\r\nthe Minister of War, d\u0026rsquo;Hautpoul, Bonaparte had, with his own hands,\r\nsacrificed the scapegoats on the altar of the fatherland. He had turned off the\r\nexpected collision. Finally, the party of Order itself anxiously sought to\r\navoid every decisive conflict with the Executive, to weaken and to blur it\r\nover. Fearing to lose its conquests over the revolution, it let its rival\r\ngather the fruits thereof. \u0026ldquo;France demands, above all things,\r\npeace,\u0026rdquo; with this language had the party of Order been apostrophizing the\r\nrevolution, since February; with this language did Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s message\r\nnow apostrophize the party of Order: \u0026ldquo;France demands, above all things,\r\npeace.\u0026rdquo; Bonaparte committed acts that aimed at usurpation, but the party\r\nof Order committed a \u0026ldquo;disturbance of the peace,\u0026rdquo; if it raised the\r\nhue and cry, and explained them hypochrondriacally. The sausages of Satory were\r\nmouse-still when nobody talked about them;\u0026mdash;France demands, above all\r\nthings, \u0026ldquo;peace.\u0026rdquo; Accordingly, Bonaparte demanded that he be let\r\nalone; and the parliamentary party was lamed with a double fear: the fear of\r\nre-conjuring up the revolutionary disturbance of the peace, and the fear of\r\nitself appearing as the disturber of the peace in the eyes of its own class, of\r\nthe bourgeosie. Seeing that, above all things, France demanded peace, the party\r\nof Order did not dare, after Bonaparte had said \u0026ldquo;peace\u0026rdquo; in his\r\nmessage, to answer \u0026ldquo;war.\u0026rdquo; The public, who had promised to itself\r\nthe pleasure of seeing great scenes of scandal at the opening of the National\r\nAssembly, was cheated out of its expectations. The opposition deputies, who\r\ndemanded the submission of the minutes of the Permanent Committee over the\r\nOctober occurrences, were outvoted. All debate that might excite was fled from\r\non principle. The labors of the National Assembly during November and December,\r\n1850, were without interest.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFinally, toward the end of December, began a guerilla warfare about certain\r\nprerogatives of the parliament. The movement sank into the mire of petty\r\nchicaneries on the prerogative of the two powers, since, with the abolition of\r\nuniversal suffrage, the bourgeoisie had done away with the class struggle.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nA judgment for debt had been secured against Mauguin, one of the\r\nRepresentatives. Upon inquiry by the President of the Court, the Minister of\r\nJustice, Rouher, declared that an order of arrest should be made out without\r\ndelay. Manguin was, accordingly, cast into the debtors\u0026rsquo; prison. The\r\nNational Assembly bristled up when it heard of the \u0026ldquo;attentat.\u0026rdquo; It\r\nnot only ordered his immediate release, but had him forcibly taken out of\r\nClichy the same evening by its own greffier. In order, nevertheless, to shield\r\nits belief in the \u0026ldquo;sacredness of private property,\u0026rdquo; and also with\r\nthe ulterior thought of opening, in case of need, an asylum for troublesome\r\nMountainers, it declared the imprisonment of a Representative for debt to be\r\npermissible upon its previous consent. It forgot to decree that the President\r\nalso could be locked up for debt. By its act, it wiped out the last semblance\r\nof inviolability that surrounded the members of its own body.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIt will be remembered that, upon the testimony of one Allais, Police\r\nCommissioner Yon had charged a Section of Decembrists with a plan to murder\r\nDupin and Changarnier. With an eye upon that, the questors proposed at the very\r\nfirst session, that the parliament organize a police force of its own, paid for\r\nout of the private budget of the National Assembly itself, and wholly\r\nindependent of the Police Prefects. The Minister of the Interior, Baroche,\r\nprotested against this trespass on his preserves. A miserable compromise\r\nfollowed, according to which the Police Commissioner of the Assembly was to be\r\npaid out of its own private budget and was to be subject to the appointment and\r\ndismissal of its own questors, but only upon previous agreement with the\r\nMinister of the Interior. In the meantime Allais had been prosecuted by the\r\nGovernment. It was an easy thing in Court, to present his testimony in the\r\nlight of a mystification, and, through the mouth of the Public Prosecutor, to\r\nthrow Dupin, Changarnier, Yon, together with the whole National Assembly, into\r\na ridiculous light. Thereupon, on December 29, Minister Baroche writes a letter\r\nto Dupin, in which he demands the dismissal of Yon. The Committee of the\r\nNational Assembly decides to keep Yon in office; nevertheless, the National\r\nAssembly, frightened by its own violence in the affair of Mauguin, and\r\naccustomed, every time it has shied a blow at the Executive, to receive back\r\nfrom it two in exchange, does not sanction this decision. It dismisses Yon in\r\nreward for his zeal in office, and robs itself of a parliamentary prerogative,\r\nindispensable against a person who does not decide by night to execute by day,\r\nbut decides by day and executes by night.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWe have seen how, during the months of November and December, under great and\r\nsevere provocations, the National Assembly evaded and refused the combat with\r\nthe Executive power. Now we see it compelled to accept it on the smallest\r\noccasions. In the affair of Mauguin, it confirms in principle the liability of\r\na Representative to imprisonment for debt, but to itself reserves the power of\r\nallowing the principle to be applied only to the Representatives whom it\r\ndislikes,-and for this infamous privilege we see it wrangling with the Minister\r\nof Justice. Instead of utilizing the alleged murder plan to the end of\r\nfastening an inquest upon the \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10,\u0026rdquo; and of\r\nexposing Bonaparte beyond redemption before France and his true figure, as the\r\nhead of the slum-proletariat of Paris, it allows the collision to sink to a\r\npoint where the only issue between itself and the Minister of the Interior is.\r\nWho has jurisdiction over the appointment and dismissal of a Police\r\nCommissioner? Thus we see the party of Order, during this whole period,\r\ncompelled by its ambiguous position to wear out and fritter away its conflict\r\nwith the Executive power in small quarrels about jurisdiction, in chicaneries,\r\nin pettifogging, in boundary disputes, and to turn the stalest questions of\r\nform into the very substance of its activity. It dares not accept the collision\r\nat the moment when it involves a principle, when the Executive power has really\r\ngiven itself a blank, and when the cause of the National Assembly would be the\r\ncause of the nation. It would thereby have issued to the nation an order of\r\nmarch; and it feared nothing so much as that the nation should move. Hence, on\r\nthese occasions, it rejects the motions of the Mountain, and proceeds to the\r\norder of the day. After the issue has in this way lost all magnitude, the\r\nExecutive power quietly awaits the moment when it can take it up again upon\r\nsmall and insignificant occasions; when, so to say, the issue offers only a\r\nparliamentary local interest. Then does the repressed valor of the party of\r\nOrder break forth, then it tears away the curtain from the scene, then it\r\ndenounces the President, then it declares the republic to be in\r\ndanger,\u0026mdash;but then all its pathos appears stale, and the occasion for the\r\nquarrel a hypocritical pretext, or not at all worth the effort. The\r\nparliamentary tempest becomes a tempest in a tea-pot, the struggle an intrigue,\r\nthe collision a scandal. While the revolutionary classes gloat with sardonic\r\nlaughter over the humiliation of the National Assembly\u0026mdash;they, of course,\r\nbeing as enthusiastic for the prerogatives of the parliament as that body is\r\nfor public freedom\u0026mdash;the bourgeoisie, outside of the parliament, does not\r\nunderstand how the bourgeoisie, inside of the parliament, can squander its time\r\nwith such petty bickerings, and can endanger peace by such wretched rivalries\r\nwith the President. It is puzzled at a strategy that makes peace the very\r\nmoment when everybody expects battles, and that attacks the very moment\r\neverybody believes peace has been concluded.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOn December 20, Pascal Duprat interpellated the Minister of the Interior on the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Goldbar Lottery.\u0026rdquo; This lottery was a \u0026ldquo;Daughter from\r\nElysium\u0026rdquo;; Bonaparte, together with his faithful, had given her birth; and\r\nPolice Prefect Carlier had placed her under his official protection, although\r\nthe French law forbade all lotteries, with the exception of games for\r\nbenevolent purposes. Seven million tickets, a franc a piece, and the profit\r\nostensibly destined to the shipping of Parisian vagabonds to California. Golden\r\ndreams were to displace the Socialist dreams of the Parisian proletariat; the\r\ntempting prospect of a prize was to displace the doctrinal right to labor. Of\r\ncourse, the workingmen of Paris did not recognize in the lustre of the\r\nCalifornia gold bars the lack-lustre francs that had been wheedled out of their\r\npockets. In the main, however, the scheme was an unmitigated swindle. The\r\nvagabonds, who meant to open California gold mines without taking the pains to\r\nleave Paris, were Bonaparte himself and his Round Table of desperate\r\ninsolvents. The three millions granted by the National Assembly were rioted\r\naway; the Treasury had to be refilled somehow or another. In vain did Bonaparte\r\nopen a national subscription, at the head of which he himself figured with a\r\nlarge sum, for the establishment of so-called \u0026ldquo;cites ouvrieres.\u0026rdquo;\r\n[#3 Work cities.] The hard-hearted bourgeois waited, distrustful, for the\r\npayment of his own shares; and, as this, of course, never took place, the\r\nspeculation in Socialist castles in the air fell flat. The gold bars drew\r\nbetter. Bonaparte and his associates did not content themselves with putting\r\ninto their own pockets part of the surplus of the seven millions over and above\r\nthe bars that were to be drawn; they manufactured false tickets; they sold, of\r\nNumber 10 alone, fifteen to twenty lots\u0026mdash;a financial operation fully in\r\nthe spirit of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10\u0026rdquo;! The National Assembly\r\ndid not here have before it the fictitious President of the Republic, but\r\nBonaparte himself in flesh and blood. Here it could catch him in the act, not\r\nin conflict with the Constitution, but with the penal code. When, upon\r\nDuprat\u0026rsquo;s interpellation, the National Assembly went over to the order of\r\nthe day, this did not happen simply because Girardin\u0026rsquo;s motion to declare\r\nitself \u0026ldquo;satisfied\u0026rdquo; reminded the party of Order of its own\r\nsystematic corruption: the bourgeois, above all the bourgeois who has been\r\ninflated into a statesman, supplements his practical meanness with theoretical\r\npompousness. As statesman, he becomes, like the Government facing him, a\r\nsuperior being, who can be fought only in a higher, more exalted manner.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBonaparte-who, for the very reason of his being a \u0026ldquo;bohemian,\u0026rdquo; a\r\nprincely slum-proletarian, had over the scampish bourgeois the advantage that\r\nhe could carry on the fight after the Assembly itself had carried him with its\r\nown hands over the slippery ground of the military banquets, of the reviews, of\r\nthe \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10,\u0026rdquo; and, finally, of the penal code-now\r\nsaw that the moment had arrived when he could move from the seemingly defensive\r\nto the offensive. He was but little troubled by the intermediate and trifling\r\ndefeats of the Minister of Justice, of the Minister of War, of the Minister of\r\nthe Navy, of the Minister of Finance, whereby the National Assembly indicated\r\nits growling displeasure. Not only did he prevent the Ministers from resigning,\r\nand thus recognizing the subordination of the executive power to the\r\nParliament; he could now accomplish what during the vacation of the National\r\nAssembly he had commenced, the separation of the military power from the\r\nAssembly\u0026mdash;the deposition of Changarnier.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAn Elysee paper published an order, issued during the month of May, ostensibly\r\nto the First Military Division, and, hence, proceeding from Changarnier,\r\nwherein the officers were recommended, in case of an uprising, to give no\r\nquarter to the traitors in their own ranks, to shoot them down on the spot, and\r\nto refuse troops to the National Assembly, should it make a requisition for\r\nsuch. On January 3, 1851, the Cabinet was interpellated on this order. The\r\nCabinet demands for the examination of the affair at first three months, then\r\none week, finally only twenty-four hours\u0026rsquo; time. The Assembly orders an\r\nimmediate explanation Changarnier rises and declares that this order never\r\nexisted; he adds that he would ever hasten to respond to the calls of the\r\nNational Assembly, and that, in case of a collision, they could count upon him.\r\nThe Assembly receives his utterances with inexpressible applause, and decrees a\r\nvote of confidence to him. It thereby resign its own powers; it decrees its own\r\nimpotence and the omnipotence of the Army by committing itself to the private\r\nprotection of a general. But the general, in turn, deceives himself when he\r\nplaces at the Assembly\u0026rsquo;s disposal and against Bonaparte a power that he\r\nholds only as a fief from that same Bonaparte, and when, on his part, he\r\nexpects protection from this Parliament, from his protege\u0026rsquo;, itself\r\nneedful of protection. But Changarnier has faith in the mysterious power with\r\nwhich since January, 1849, he had been clad by the bourgeoisie. He takes\r\nhimself for the Third Power, standing beside the other Powers of Government. He\r\nshares the faith of all the other heroes, or rather saints, of this epoch,\r\nwhose greatness consists but in the interested good opinion that their own\r\nparty holds of them, and who shrink into every-day figures so soon as\r\ncircumstances invite them to perform miracles. Infidelity is, indeed, the\r\ndeadly enemy of these supposed heroes and real saints. Hence their virtuously\r\nproud indignation at the unenthusiastic wits and scoffers.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThat same evening the Ministers were summoned to the Elysee; Bonaparte presses\r\nthe removal of Changarnier; five Ministers refuse to sign the order; the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Moniteur\u0026rdquo; announces a Ministerial crisis; and the party of Order\r\nthreatens the formation of a Parliamentary army under the command of\r\nChangarnier. The party of Order had the constitutional power hereto. It needed\r\nonly to elect Changarnier President of the National Assembly in order to make a\r\nrequisition for whatever military forces it needed for its own safety. It could\r\ndo this all the more safely, seeing that Changarnier still stood at the head of\r\nthe Army and of the Parisian National Guard, and only lay in wait to be\r\nsummoned, together with the Army. The Bonapartist press did not even dare to\r\nquestion the right of the National Assembly to issue a direct requisition for\r\ntroops;\u0026mdash;a legal scruple, that, under the given circumstances, did not\r\npromise success. That the Army would have obeyed the orders of the National\r\nAssembly is probable, when it is considered that Bonaparte had to look eight\r\ndays all over Paris to find two generals\u0026mdash;Baraguay d\u0026rsquo;Hilliers and\r\nSt. Jean d\u0026rsquo;Angley\u0026mdash;who declared themselves ready to countersign the\r\norder cashiering Changamier. That, however, the party of Order would have found\r\nin its own ranks and in the parliament the requisite vote for such a decision\r\nis more than doubtful, when it is considered that, eight days later, 286 votes\r\npulled away from it, and that, as late as December, 1851, at the last decisive\r\nhour, the Mountain rejected a similar proposition. Nevertheless, the burgraves\r\nmight still have succeeded in driving the mass of their party to an act of\r\nheroism, consisting in feeling safe behind a forest of bayonets, and in\r\naccepting the services of the Army, which found itself deserted in its camp.\r\nInstead of this, the Messieurs Burgraves betook themselves to the Elysee on the\r\nevening of January 6, with the view of inducing Bonaparte, by means of politic\r\nwords and considerations, to drop the removal of Changarnier. Him whom we must\r\nconvince we recognize as the master of the situation. Bonaparte, made to feel\r\nsecure by this step, appoints on January 12 a new Ministry, in which the\r\nleaders of the old, Fould and Baroche, are retained. St Jean d\u0026rsquo;Angley\r\nbecomes Minister of War; the \u0026ldquo;Moniteur\u0026rdquo; announces the decree\r\ncashiering Changarnier; his command is divided up between Baraguay\r\nd\u0026rsquo;Hilliers, who receives the First Division, and Perrot, who is placed\r\nover the National Guard. The \u0026ldquo;Bulwark of Society\u0026rdquo; is turned down;\r\nand, although no dog barks over the event, in the Bourses the stock quotations\r\nrise.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBy repelling the Army, that, in Changarnier\u0026rsquo;s person, put itself at its\r\ndisposal, and thus irrevocably stood up against the President, the party of\r\nOrder declares that the bourgeoisie has lost its vocation to reign. Already\r\nthere was no parliamentary Ministry. By losing, furthermore, the handle to the\r\nArmy and to the National Guard, what instrument of force was there left to the\r\nNational Assembly in order to maintain both the usurped power of the parliament\r\nover the people, and its constitutional power over the President? None. All\r\nthat was left to it was the appeal to peaceful principles, that itself had\r\nalways explained as \u0026ldquo;general rules\u0026rdquo; merely, to be prescribed to\r\nthird parties, and only in order to enable itself to move all the more freely.\r\nWith the removal of Changarnier, with the transfer of the military power to\r\nBonaparte, closes the first part of the period that we are considering, the\r\nperiod of the struggle between the party of Order and the Executive power. The\r\nwar between the two powers is now openly declared; it is conducted openly; but\r\nonly after the party of Order has lost both arms and soldier. With-out a\r\nMinistry, without any army, without a people, without the support of public\r\nopinion; since its election law of May 31, no longer the representative of the\r\nsovereign nation sans eyes, sans ears, sans teeth, sans everything, the\r\nNational Assembly had gradually converted itself into a French Parliament of\r\nolden days, that must leave all action to the Government, and content itself\r\nwith growling remonstrances \u0026ldquo;post festum.\u0026rdquo; [#4 After the act is\r\ndone; after the fact.]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe party of Order receives the new Ministry with a storm of indignation.\r\nGeneral Bedeau calls to mind the mildness of the Permanent Committee during the\r\nvacation, and the excessive prudence with which it had renounced the privilege\r\nof disclosing its minutes. Now, the Minister of the Interior himself insists\r\nupon the disclosure of these minutes, that have now, of course, become dull as\r\nstagnant waters, reveal no new facts, and fall without making the slightest\r\neffect upon the blase public. Upon Remusat\u0026rsquo;s proposition, the National\r\nAssembly retreats into its Committees, and appoints a \u0026ldquo;Committee on\r\nExtraordinary Measures.\u0026rdquo; Paris steps all the less out of the ruts of its\r\ndaily routine, seeing that business is prosperous at the time, the\r\nmanufactories busy, the prices of cereals low, provisions abundant, the savings\r\nbanks receiving daily new deposits. The \u0026ldquo;extraordinary measures,\u0026rdquo;\r\nthat the parliament so noisily announced fizzle out on January 18 in a vote of\r\nlack of confidence against the Ministry, without General Changarnier\u0026rsquo;s\r\nname being even mentioned. The party of Order was forced to frame its motion in\r\nthat way so as to secure the votes of the republicans, because, of all the acts\r\nof the Ministry, Changarnier\u0026rsquo;s dismissal only was the very one they\r\napproved, while the party of Order cannot in fact, condemn the other\r\nMinisterial acts which it had itself dictated. The January 18 vote of lack of\r\nconfidence was decided by 415 ayes against 286 nays. It was, accordingly put\r\nthrough by a coalition of the uncompromising Legitimists and Orleanists with\r\nthe pure republicans and the Mountain. Thus it revealed the fact that, in its\r\nconflicts with Bonaparte, not only the Ministry, not only the Army, but also\r\nits independent parliamentary majority; that a troop of Representatives had\r\ndeserted its camp out of a fanatic zeal for harmony, out of fear of fight, out\r\nof lassitude, out of family considerations for the salaries of relatives in\r\noffice, out of speculations on vacancies in the Ministry (Odillon Barrot), or\r\nout of that unmitigated selfishness that causes the average bourgeois to be\r\never inclined to sacrifice the interests of his class to this or that private\r\nmotive. The Bonapartist Representatives belonged from the start to the party of\r\nOrder only in the struggle against the revolution. The leader of the Catholic\r\nparty, Montalembert, already then threw his influence in the scale of\r\nBonaparte, since he despaired of the vitality of the parliamentary party.\r\nFinally, the leaders of this party itself, Thiers and Berryer\u0026mdash;the\r\nOrleanist and the Legitimist\u0026mdash;were compelled to proclaim themselves openly\r\nas republicans; to admit that their heart favored royalty, but their head the\r\nrepublic; that their parliamentary republic was the only possible form for the\r\nrule of the bourgeoisie Thus were they compelled to brand, before the eyes of\r\nthe bourgeois class itself, as an intrigue\u0026mdash;as dangerous as it was\r\nsenseless\u0026mdash;the restoration plans, which they continued to pursue\r\nindefatigably behind the back of the parliament.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe January 18 vote of lack of confidence struck the Ministers, not the\r\nPresident. But it was not the Ministry, it was the President who had deposed\r\nChangarnier. Should the party of Order place Bonaparte himself under charges?\r\nOn account of his restoration hankerings? These only supplemented their own. On\r\naccount of his conspiracy at the military reviews and of the \u0026ldquo;Society of\r\nDecember 10\u0026rdquo;? They had long since buried these subjects under simple\r\norders of business. On account of the discharge of the hero of January 29 and\r\nJune 13, of the man who, in May, 1850, threatened, in case of riot, to set\r\nParis on fire at all its four corners? Their allies of the Mountain and\r\nCavaignac did not even allow them to console the fallen \u0026ldquo;Bulwark of\r\nSociety\u0026rdquo; with an official testimony of their sympathy. They themselves\r\ncould not deny the constitutional right of the President to remove a General.\r\nThey stormed only because he made an unparliamentary use of his constitutional\r\nright. Had they not themselves constantly made an unconstitutional use of their\r\nparliamentary prerogative, notably by the abolition of universal suffrage?\r\nConsequently they were reminded to move exclusively within parliamentary\r\nbounds. Indeed, it required that peculiar disease, a disease that, since 1848,\r\nhas raged over the whole continent, \u0026ldquo;Parliamentary\r\nIdiocy,\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;that fetters those whom it infects to an imaginary world,\r\nand robs them of all sense, all remembrance, all understanding of the rude\r\noutside world;\u0026mdash;it required this \u0026ldquo;Parliamentary Idiocy\u0026rdquo; in\r\norder that the party of Order, which had, with its own hands, destroyed all the\r\nconditions for parliamentary power, and, in its struggle with the other\r\nclasses, was obliged to destroy them, still should consider its parliamentary\r\nvictories as victories, and imagine it hit the President by striking his\r\nMinisters. They only afforded him an opportunity to humble the National\r\nAssembly anew in the eyes of the nation. On January 20, the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Moniteur\u0026rdquo; announced that the whole the dismissal of the whole\r\nMinistry was accepted. Under the pretext that none of the parliamentary parties\r\nhad any longer the majority\u0026mdash;as proved by the January 18 vote, that fruit\r\nof the coalition between mountain and royalists\u0026mdash;, and, in order to await\r\nthe re-formation of a majority, Bonaparte appointed a so-called transition\r\nMinistry, of whom no member belonged to the parliament-altogether wholly\r\nunknown and insignificant individuals; a Ministry of mere clerks and\r\nsecretaries. The party of Order could now wear itself out in the game with\r\nthese puppets; the Executive power no longer considered it worth the while to\r\nbe seriously represented in the National Assembly. By this act Bonaparte\r\nconcentrated the whole executive power all the more securely in his own person;\r\nhe had all the freer elbow-room to exploit the same to his own ends, the more\r\nhis Ministers became mere supernumeraries.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe party of Order, now allied with the Mountain, revenged itself by rejecting\r\nthe Presidential endowment project of 1,800.000 francs, which the chief of the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Society of December 10\u0026rdquo; had compelled his Ministerial clerks to\r\npresent to the Assembly. This time a majority of only 102 votes carried the day\r\naccordingly since January 18, 27 more votes had fallen off: the dissolution of\r\nthe party of Order was making progress. Lest any one might for a moment be\r\ndeceived touching the meaning of its coalition with the Mountain, the party of\r\nOrder simultaneously scorned even to consider a motion, signed by 189 members\r\nof the Mountain, for a general amnesty to political criminals. It was enough\r\nthat the Minister of the Interior, one Baisse, declared that the national\r\ntranquility was only in appearance, in secret there reigned deep agitation, in\r\nsecret, ubiquitous societies were organized, the democratic papers were\r\npreparing to reappear, the reports from the Departments were unfavorable, the\r\nfugitives of Geneva conducted a conspiracy via Lyons through the whole of\r\nsouthern France, France stood on the verge of an industrial and commercial\r\ncrisis, the manufacturers of Roubaix were working shorter hours, the prisoners\r\nof Belle Isle had mutinied;\u0026mdash;it was enough that even a mere Baisse should\r\nconjure up the \u0026ldquo;Red Spectre\u0026rdquo; for the party of Order to reject\r\nwithout discussion a motion that would have gained for the National Assembly a\r\ntremendous popularity, and thrown Bonaparte back into its arms. Instead of\r\nallowing itself to be intimidated by the Executive power with the perspective\r\nof fresh disturbances, the party of Order should rather have allowed a little\r\nelbow-room to the class struggle, in order to secure the dependence of the\r\nExecutive upon itself. But it did not feel itself equal to the task of playing\r\nwith fire.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nMeanwhile, the so-called transition Ministry vegetated along until the middle\r\nof April. Bonaparte tired out and fooled the National Assembly with constantly\r\nnew Ministerial combinations. Now he seemed to intend constructing a republican\r\nMinistry with Lamartine and Billault; then, a parliamentary one with the\r\ninevitable Odillon Barrot, whose name must never be absent when a dupe is\r\nneeded; then again, a Legitimist, with Batismenil and Lenoist d\u0026rsquo;Azy; and\r\nyet again, an Orleansist, with Malleville. While thus throwing the several\r\nfactions of the party of Order into strained relations with one another, and\r\nalarming them all with the prospect of a republican Ministry, together with the\r\nthere-upon inevitable restoration of universal suffrage, Bonaparte\r\nsimultaneously raises in the bourgeoisie the conviction that his sincere\r\nefforts for a parliamentary Ministry are wrecked upon the irreconcilable\r\nantagonism of the royalist factions. All the while the bourgeoisie was\r\nclamoring louder and louder for a \u0026ldquo;strong Government,\u0026rdquo; and was\r\nfinding it less and less pardonable to leave France \u0026ldquo;without an\r\nadministration,\u0026rdquo; in proportion as a general commercial crisis seemed to\r\nbe under way and making recruits for Socialism in the cities, as did the\r\nruinously low price of grain in the rural districts. Trade became daily duller;\r\nthe unemployed hands increased perceptibly; in Paris, at least 10,000\r\nworkingmen were without bread; in Rouen, Muehlhausen, Lyons, Roubaix,\r\nTourcoign, St. Etienue, Elbeuf, etc., numerous factories stood idle. Under\r\nthese circumstances Bonaparte could venture to restore, on April 11, the\r\nMinistry of January 18; Messieurs Rouher, Fould, Baroche, etc., reinforced by\r\nMr. Leon Faucher, whom the constitutive assembly had, during its last days,\r\nunanimously, with the exception of five Ministerial votes, branded with a vote\r\nof censure for circulating false telegraphic dispatches. Accordingly, the\r\nNational Assembly had won a victory on January 18 over the Ministry, it had,\r\nfor the period of three months, been battling with Bonaparte, and all this\r\nmerely to the end that, on April 11, Fould and Baroche should be able to take\r\nup the Puritan Faucher as third in their ministerial league.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn November, 1849, Bonaparte had satisfied himself with an Unparliamentary, in\r\nJanuary, 1851, with an Extra-Parliamentary, on April 11, he felt strong enough\r\nto form an Anti-Parliamentary Ministry, that harmoniously combined within\r\nitself the votes of lack of confidence of both assemblies-the constitutive and\r\nthe legislative, the republican and the royalist. This ministerial progression\r\nwas a thermometer by which the parliament could measure the ebbing temperature\r\nof its own life. This had sunk so low by the end of April that, at a personal\r\ninterview, Persigny could invite Changarnier to go over to the camp of the\r\nPresident. Bonaparte, he assured Changarnier, considered the influence of the\r\nNational Assembly to be wholly annihilated, and already the proclamation was\r\nready, that was to be published after the steadily contemplated, but again\r\naccidentally postponed \u0026ldquo;coup d\u0026rsquo;etat.\u0026rdquo; Changarnier\r\ncommunicated this announcement of its death to the leaders of the party of\r\nOrder; but who was there to believe a bed-bug bite could kill? The parliament,\r\nhowever beaten, however dissolved, however death-tainted it was, could not\r\npersuade itself to see, in the duel with the grotesque chief of the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Society of December 10,\u0026rdquo; anything but a duel with a bed-bug. But\r\nBonaparte answered the party of Order as Agesilaus did King Agis: \u0026ldquo;I seem\r\nto you an ant; but shall one day be a lion.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c/div\u003e\u003c!–end chapter–\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv class=\"chapter\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003ca name=\"chap06\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eVI.\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe coalition with the Mountain and the pure republicans, to which the party of\r\nOrder found itself condemned in its fruitless efforts to keep possession of the\r\nmilitary and to reconquer supreme control over the Executive power, proved\r\nconclusively that it had forfeited its independent parliamentary majority. The\r\ncalendar and clock merely gave, on May 29, the signal for its complete\r\ndissolution. With May 29 commenced the last year of the life of the National\r\nAssembly. It now had to decide for the unchanged continuance or the revision of\r\nthe Constitution. But a revision of the Constitution meant not only the\r\ndefinitive supremacy of either the bourgeoisie of the small traders\u0026rsquo;\r\ndemocracy, of either democracy or proletarian anarchy, of either a\r\nparliamentary republic or Bonaparte, it meant also either Orleans or Bourbon!\r\nThus fell into the very midst of the parliament the apple of discord, around\r\nwhich the conflict of interests, that cut up the party of Order into hostile\r\nfactions, was to kindle into an open conflagration. The party of Order was a\r\ncombination of heterogeneous social substances. The question of revision raised\r\na political temperature, in which the product was reduced to its original\r\ncomponents.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe interest of the Bonapartists in the revision was simple: they were above\r\nall concerned in the abolition of Article 45, which forbade Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s\r\nreelection and the prolongation of his term. Not less simple seemed to be the\r\nposition of the republicans; they rejected all revision, seeing in that only a\r\ngeneral conspiracy against the republic; as they disposed over more than\r\none-fourth of the votes in the National Assembly, and, according to the\r\nConstitution, a three-fourths majority was requisite to revise and to call a\r\nrevisory convention, they needed only to count their own votes to be certain of\r\nvictory. Indeed, they were certain of it.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOver and against these clear-cut positions, the party of Order found itself\r\ntangled in inextricable contradictions. If it voted against the revision, it\r\nendangered the \u0026ldquo;status quo,\u0026rdquo; by leaving to Bonaparte only one\r\nexpedient\u0026mdash;that of violence and handing France over, on May 2, 1852, at\r\nthe very time of election, a prey to revolutionary anarchy, with a President\r\nwhose authority was at an end; with a parliament that the party had long ceased\r\nto own, and with a people that it meant to re-conquer. If it voted\r\nconstitutionally for a revision, it knew that it voted in vain and would\r\nconstitutionally have to go under before the veto of the republicans. If,\r\nunconstitutionally, it pronounced a simple majority binding, it could hope to\r\ncontrol the revolution only in case it surrendered unconditionally to the\r\ndomination of the Executive power: it then made Bonaparte master of the\r\nConstitution, of the revision and of itself. A merely partial revision,\r\nprolonging the term of the President, opened the way to imperial usurpation; a\r\ngeneral revision, shortening the existence of the republic, threw the dynastic\r\nclaims into an inevitable conflict: the conditions for a Bourbon and those for\r\nan Orleanist restoration were not only different, they mutually excluded each\r\nother.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe parliamentary republic was more than a neutral ground on which the two\r\nfactions of the French bourgeoisie\u0026mdash;Legitimists and Orleanists, large\r\nlanded property and manufacture\u0026mdash;could lodge together with equal rights.\r\nIt was the indispensable condition for their common reign, the only form of\r\ngovernment in which their common class interest could dominate both the claims\r\nof their separate factions and all the other classes of society. As royalists,\r\nthey relapsed into their old antagonism into the struggle for the overlordship\r\nof either landed property or of money; and the highest expression of this\r\nantagonism, its personification, were the two kings themselves, their\r\ndynasties. Hence the resistance of the party of Order to the recall of the\r\nBourbons.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe Orleanist Representative Creton moved periodically in 1849, 1850 and 1851\r\nthe repeal of the decree of banishment against the royal families; as\r\nperiodically did the parliament present the spectacle of an Assembly of\r\nroyalists who stubbornly shut to their banished kings the door through which\r\nthey could return home. Richard III murdered Henry VI, with the remark that he\r\nwas too good for this world, and belonged in heaven. They declared France too\r\nbad to have her kings back again. Forced by the power of circumstances, they\r\nhad become republicans, and repeatedly sanctioned the popular mandate that\r\nexiled their kings from France.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe revision of the Constitution, and circumstances compelled its\r\nconsideration, at once made uncertain not only the republic itself, but also\r\nthe joint reign of the two bourgeois factions; and it revived, with the\r\npossibility of the monarchy, both the rivalry of interests which these two\r\nfactions had alternately allowed to preponderate, and the struggle for the\r\nsupremacy of the one over the other. The diplomats of the party of Order\r\nbelieved they could allay the struggle by a combination of the two dynasties\r\nthrough a so-called fusion of the royalist parties and their respective royal\r\nhouses. The true fusion of the restoration and the July monarchy was, however,\r\nthe parliamentary republic, in which the Orleanist and Legitimist colors were\r\ndissolved, and the bourgeois species vanished in the plain bourgeois, in the\r\nbourgeois genus. Now however, the plan was to turn the Orleanist Legitimist and\r\nthe Legitimist Orleanist. The kingship, in which their antagonism was\r\npersonified, was to incarnate their unity, the expression of their exclusive\r\nfaction interests was to become the expression of their common class interest;\r\nthe monarchy was to accomplish what only the abolition of two\r\nmonarchies\u0026mdash;the republic could and did accomplish. This was the\r\nphilosopher\u0026rsquo;s stone, for the finding of which the doctors of the party of\r\nOrder were breaking their heads. As though the Legitimate monarchy ever could\r\nbe the monarchy of the industrial bourgeoisie, or the bourgeois monarchy the\r\nmonarchy of the hereditary landed aristocracy! As though landed property and\r\nindustry could fraternize under one crown, where the crown could fall only upon\r\none head, the head of the older or the younger brother! As though industry\r\ncould at all deal upon a footing of equality with landed property, so long as\r\nlanded property did not decide itself to become industrial. If Henry V were to\r\ndie tomorrow, the Count of Paris would not, therefore, become the king of the\r\nLegitimists, unless he ceased to be the King of the Orleanists. Nevertheless,\r\nthe fusion philosophers, who became louder in the measure that the question of\r\nrevision stepped to the fore, who had provided themselves with a daily organ in\r\nthe \u0026ldquo;Assemblee Nationale,\u0026rdquo; who, even at this very moment (February,\r\n1852) are again at work, explained the whole difficulty by the opposition and\r\nrivalries of the two dynasties. The attempts to reconcile the family of Orleans\r\nwith Henry V., begun since the death of Louis Philippe, but, as all these\r\ndynastic intrigues carried on only during the vacation of the National\r\nAssembly, between acts, behind the scenes, more as a sentimental coquetry with\r\nthe old superstition than as a serious affair, were now raised by the party of\r\nOrder to the dignity of a great State question, and were conducted upon the\r\npublic stage, instead of, as heretofore in the amateurs\u0026rsquo; theater.\r\nCouriers flew from Paris to Venice, from Venice to Claremont, from Claremont to\r\nParis. The Duke of Chambord issues a manifesto in which he announces not his\r\nown, but the \u0026ldquo;national\u0026rdquo; restoration, \u0026ldquo;with the aid of all the\r\nmembers of his family.\u0026rdquo; The Oleanist Salvandy throws himself at the feet\r\nof Henry V. The Legitimist leaders Berryer, Benoit d\u0026rsquo;Azy, St. Priest\r\ntravel to Claremont, to persuade the Orleans; but in vain. The fusionists learn\r\ntoo late that the interests of the two bourgeois factions neither lose in\r\nexclusiveness nor gain in pliancy where they sharpen to a point in the form of\r\nfamily interests, of the interests of the two royal houses. When Henry V.\r\nrecognized the Count of Paris as his successor\u0026mdash;the only success that the\r\nfusion could at best score\u0026mdash;the house of Orleans acquired no claim that\r\nthe childlessness of Henry V. had not already secured to it; but, on the other\r\nhand, it lost all the claims that it had conquered by the July revolution. It\r\nrenounced its original claims, all the title, that, during a struggle nearly\r\none hundred years long, it had wrested from the older branch of the Bourbons;\r\nit bartered away its historic prerogative, the prerogative of its family-tree.\r\nFusion, accordingly, amounted to nothing else than the resignation of the house\r\nof Orleans, its Legitimist resignation, a repentful return from the Protestant\r\nState Church into the Catholic;\u0026mdash;a return, at that, that did not even\r\nplace it on the throne that it had lost, but on the steps of the throne on\r\nwhich it was born. The old Orleanist Ministers Guizot, Duchatel, etc., who\r\nlikewise hastened to Claremont, to advocate the fusion, represented in fact\r\nonly the nervous reaction of the July monarchy; despair, both in the citizen\r\nkingdom and the kingdom of citizens; the superstitious belief in legitimacy as\r\nthe last amulet against anarchy. Mediators, in their imagination, between\r\nOrleans and Bourbon, they were in reality but apostate Orleanists, and as such\r\nwere they received by the Prince of Joinville. The virile, bellicose part of\r\nthe Orleanists, on the contrary\u0026mdash;Thiers, Baze, etc.\u0026mdash;, persuaded the\r\nfamily of Louis Philippe all the easier that, seeing every plan for the\r\nimmediate restoration of the monarchy presupposed the fusion of the two\r\ndynasties, and every plan for fusion the resignation of the house of Orleans,\r\nit corresponded, on the contrary, wholly with the tradition of its ancestors to\r\nrecognize the republic for the time being, and to wait until circumstances\r\npermitted I the conversion of the Presidential chair into a throne.\r\nJoinville\u0026rsquo;s candidacy was set afloat as a rumor, public curiosity was\r\nheld in suspense, and a few months later, after the revision was rejected,\r\nopenly proclaimed in September.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAccordingly, the essay of a royalist fusion between Orleanists and Legitimists\r\ndid not miscarry only, it broke up their parliamentary fusion, the republican\r\nform that they had adopted in common, and it decomposed the party of Order into\r\nits original components. But the wider the breach became between Venice and\r\nClaremont, the further they drifted away from each I other, and the greater the\r\nprogress made by the Joinville agitation, all the more active and earnest\r\nbecame the negotiations between Faucher, the Minister of Bonaparte, and the\r\nLegitimists.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe dissolution of the party of Order went beyond its original elements. Each\r\nof the two large factions fell in turn into new fragments. It was as if all the\r\nold political shades, that formerly fought and crowded one another within each\r\nof the two circles\u0026mdash;be it that of the Legitimists or that of the\r\nOrleanists\u0026mdash;, had been thawed out like dried infusoria by contact with\r\nwater; as if they had recovered enough vitality to build their own groups and\r\nassert their own antagonisms. The Legitimists dreamed they were back amidst the\r\nquarrels between the Tuileries and the pavilion Marsan, between Villele and\r\nPolignac; the Orleanists lived anew through the golden period of the tourneys\r\nbetween Guizot, Mole, Broglie, Thiers, and Odillon Barrot.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThat portion of the party of Order\u0026mdash;eager for a revision of the\r\nConstitution but disagreed upon the extent of revision\u0026mdash;made up of the\r\nLegitimists under Berryer and Falloux and of those under Laroche Jacquelein,\r\ntogether with the tired-out Orleanists under Mole, Broglie, Montalembert and\r\nOdillon Barrot, united with the Bonapartist Representatives in the following\r\nindefinite and loosely drawn motion:\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;The undersigned Representatives, with the end in view of restoring to\r\nthe nation the full exercise of her sovereignty, move that the Constitution be\r\nrevised.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAt the same time, however, they unanimously declared through their spokesman,\r\nTocqueville, that the National Assembly had not the right to move the abolition\r\nof the republic, that right being vested only in a Constitutional Convention.\r\nFor the rest, the Constitution could be revised only in a \u0026ldquo;legal\u0026rdquo;\r\nway, that is to say, only in case a three-fourths majority decided in favor of\r\nrevision, as prescribed by the Constitution. After a six days\u0026rsquo; stormy\r\ndebate, the revision was rejected on July 19, as was to be foreseen. In its\r\nfavor 446 votes were cast, against it 278. The resolute Oleanists, Thiers,\r\nChangarnier, etc., voted with the republicans and the Mountain.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThus the majority of the parliament pronounced itself against the Constitution,\r\nwhile the Constitution itself pronounced itself for the minority, and its\r\ndecision binding. But had not the party of Order on May 31, 1850, had it not on\r\nJune 13, 1849, subordinated the Constitution to the parliamentary majority? Did\r\nnot the whole republic they had been hitherto having rest upon the\r\nsubordination of the Constitutional clauses to the majority decisions of the\r\nparliament? Had they not left to the democrats the Old Testament superstitious\r\nbelief in the letter of the law, and had they not chastised the democrats\r\ntherefor? At this moment, however, revision meant nothing else than the\r\ncontinuance of the Presidential power, as the continuance of the Constitution\r\nmeant nothing else than the deposition of Bonaparte. The parliament had\r\npronounced itself for him, but the Constitution pronounced itself against the\r\nparliament. Accordingly, he acted both in the sense of the parliament when he\r\ntore up the Constitution, and in the sense of the Constitution when he chased\r\naway the parliament.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe parliament pronounced the Constitution, and, thereby, also, its own reign,\r\n\u0026ldquo;outside of the pale of the majority\u0026rdquo;; by its decision, it repealed\r\nthe Constitution, and continued the Presidential power, and it at once declared\r\nthat neither could the one live nor the other die so long as itself existed.\r\nThe feet of those who were to bury it stood at the door. While it was debating\r\nthe subject of revision, Bonaparte removed General Baraguay d\u0026rsquo;Hilliers,\r\nwho showed himself irresolute, from the command of the First Military Division,\r\nand appointed in his place General Magnan, the conqueror of Lyon; the hero of\r\nthe December days, one of his own creatures, who already under Louis Philippe,\r\non the occasion of the Boulogne expedition, had somewhat compromised himself in\r\nhis favor.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBy its decision on the revision, the party of Order proved that it knew neither\r\nhow to rule nor how to obey; neither how to live nor how to die; neither how to\r\nbear with the republic nor how to overthrow it; neither how to maintain the\r\nConstitution nor how to throw it overboard; neither how to co-operate with the\r\nPresident nor how to break with him. From what quarter did it then, look to for\r\nthe solution of all the existing perplexities? From the calendar, from the\r\ncourse of events. It ceased to assume the control of events. It, accordingly,\r\ninvited events to don its authority and also the power to which in its struggle\r\nwith the people, it had yielded one attribute after another until it finally\r\nstood powerless before the same. To the end that the Executive be able all the\r\nmore freely to formulate his plan of campaign against it, strengthen his means\r\nof attack, choose his tools, fortify his positions, the party of Order decided,\r\nin the very midst of this critical moment, to step off the stage, and adjourn\r\nfor three months, from August 10 to November 4.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNot only was the parliamentary party dissolved into its two great factions, not\r\nonly was each of these dissolved within itself, but the party of Order, inside\r\nof the parliament, was at odds with the party of Order, outside of the\r\nparliament. The learned speakers and writers of the bourgeoisie, their tribunes\r\nand their press, in short, the ideologists of the bourgeoisie and the\r\nbourgeoisie itself, the representatives and the represented, stood estranged\r\nfrom, and no longer understood one another.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe Legitimists in the provinces, with their cramped horizon and their\r\nboundless enthusiasm, charged their parliamentary leaders Berryer and Falloux\r\nwith desertion to the Bonapartist camp, and with apostacy from Henry V. Their\r\nlilymind [#1 An allusion to the lilies of the Bourbon coat-of-arms] believed in\r\nthe fall of man, but not in diplomacy.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nMore fatal and completer, though different, was the breach between the\r\ncommercial bourgeoisie and its politicians. It twitted them, not as the\r\nLegitimists did theirs, with having apostatized from their principle, but, on\r\nthe contrary, with adhering to principles that had become useless.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nI have already indicated that, since the entry of Fould in the Ministry, that\r\nportion of the commercial bourgeoisie that had enjoyed the lion\u0026rsquo;s share\r\nin Louis Philippe\u0026rsquo;s reign, to-wit, the aristocracy of finance, had become\r\nBonapartist. Fould not only represented Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s interests at the\r\nBourse, he represented also the interests of the Bourse with Bonaparte. A\r\npassage from the London \u0026ldquo;Economist,\u0026rdquo; the European organ of the\r\naristocracy of finance, described most strikingly the attitude of this class.\r\nIn its issue of February 1, 1851, its Paris correspondent writes: \u0026ldquo;Now we\r\nhave it stated from numerous quarters that France wishes above all things for\r\nrepose. The President declares it in his message to the Legislative Assembly;\r\nit is echoed from the tribune; it is asserted in the journals; it is announced\r\nfrom the pulpit; it is demonstrated by the sensitiveness of the public funds at\r\nthe least prospect of disturbance, and their firmness the instant it is made\r\nmanifest that the Executive is far superior in wisdom and power to the factious\r\nex-officials of all former governments.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn its issue of November 29, 1851, the \u0026ldquo;Economist\u0026rdquo; declares\r\neditorially: \u0026ldquo;The President is now recognized as the guardian of order on\r\nevery Stock Exchange of Europe.\u0026rdquo; Accordingly, the Aristocracy of Finance\r\ncondemned the parliamentary strife of the party of Order with the Executive as\r\na \u0026ldquo;disturbance of order,\u0026rdquo; and hailed every victory of the President\r\nover its reputed representatives as a \u0026ldquo;victory of order.\u0026rdquo; Under\r\n\u0026ldquo;aristocracy of finance\u0026rdquo; must not, however, be understood merely\r\nthe large bond negotiators and speculators in government securities, of whom it\r\nmay be readily understood that their interests and the interests of the\r\nGovernment coincide. The whole modern money trade, the whole banking industry,\r\nis most intimately interwoven with the public credit. Part of their business\r\ncapital requires to be invested in interest-bearing government securities that\r\nare promptly convertible into money; their deposits, i. e., the capital placed\r\nat their disposal and by them distributed among merchants and industrial\r\nestablishments, flow partly out of the dividends on government securities. The\r\nwhole money market, together with the priests of this market, is part and\r\nparcel of this \u0026ldquo;aristocracy of finance\u0026rdquo; at every epoch when the\r\nstability of the government is to them synonymous with \u0026ldquo;Moses and his\r\nprophets.\u0026rdquo; This is so even before things have reached the present stage\r\nwhen every deluge threatens to carry away the old governments themselves.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut the industrial Bourgeoisie also, in its fanaticism for order, was annoyed\r\nat the quarrels of the Parliamentary party of Order with the Executive. Thiers,\r\nAnglas, Sainte Beuve, etc., received, after their vote of January 18, on the\r\noccasion of the discharge of Changarnier, public reprimands from their\r\nconstituencies, located in the industrial districts, branding their coalition\r\nwith the Mountain as an act of high treason to the cause of order. Although,\r\ntrue enough, the boastful, vexatious and petty intrigues, through which the\r\nstruggle of the party of Order with the President manifested itself, deserved\r\nno better reception, yet notwithstanding, this bourgeois party, that expects of\r\nits representatives to allow the military power to pass without resistance out\r\nof the hands of their own Parliament into those of an adventurous Pretender, is\r\nnot worth even the intrigues that were wasted in its behalf. It showed that the\r\nstruggle for the maintenance of their public interests, of their class\r\ninterests, of their political power only incommoded and displeased them, as a\r\ndisturbance of their private business.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe bourgeois dignitaries of the provincial towns, the magistrates, commercial\r\njudges, etc., with hardly any exception, received Bonaparte everywhere on his\r\nexcursions in the most servile manner, even when, as in Dijon, he attacked the\r\nNational Assembly and especially the party of Order without reserve.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBusiness being brisk, as still at the beginning of 1851, the commercial\r\nbourgeoisie stormed against every Parliamentary strife, lest business be put\r\nout of temper. Business being dull, as from the end of February, 1851, on, the\r\nbourgeoisie accused the Parliamentary strifes as the cause of the stand-still,\r\nand clamored for quiet in order that business may revive. The debates on\r\nrevision fell just in the bad times. Seeing the question now was the to be or\r\nnot to be of the existing form of government, the bourgeoisie felt itself all\r\nthe more justified in demanding of its Representatives that they put an end to\r\nthis tormenting provisional status, and preserve the \u0026ldquo;status quo.\u0026rdquo;\r\nThis was no contradiction. By putting an end to the provisional status, it\r\nunderstood its continuance, the indefinite putting off of the moment when a\r\nfinal decision had to be arrived at. The \u0026ldquo;status quo\u0026rdquo; could be\r\npreserved in only one of two ways: either by the prolongation of\r\nBonaparte\u0026rsquo;s term of office or by his constitutional withdrawal and the\r\nelection of Cavaignac. A part of the bourgeoisie preferred the latter solution,\r\nand knew no better advice to give their Representatives than to be silent, to\r\navoid the burning point. If their Representatives did not speak, so argued\r\nthey, Bonaparte would not act. They desired an ostrich Parliament that would\r\nhide its head, in order not to be seen. Another part of the bourgeoisie\r\npreferred that Bonaparte, being once in the Presidential chair, be left in the\r\nPresidential chair, in order that everything might continue to run in the old\r\nruts. They felt indignant that their Parliament did not openly break the\r\nConstitution and resign without further ado. The General Councils of the\r\nDepartments, these provisional representative bodies of the large bourgeoisie,\r\nwho had adjourned during the vacation of the National Assembly since August 25,\r\npronounced almost unanimously for revision, that is to say, against the\r\nParliament and for Bonaparte.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nStill more unequivocally than in its falling out with its Parliamentary\r\nRepresentatives, did the bourgeoisie exhibit its wrath at its literary\r\nRepresentatives, its own press. The verdicts of the bourgeois juries,\r\ninflicting excessive fines and shameless sentences of imprisonment for every\r\nattack of the bourgeois press upon the usurping aspirations of Bonaparte, for\r\nevery attempt of the press to defend the political rights of the bourgeoisie\r\nagainst the Executive power, threw, not France alone, but all Europe into\r\namazement.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhile on the one hand, as I have indicated, the Parliamentary party of Order\r\nordered itself to keep the peace by screaming for peace; and while it\r\npronounced the political rule of the bourgeoisie irreconcilable with the safety\r\nand the existence of the bourgeoisie, by destroying with its own hands in its\r\nstruggle with the other classes of society all the conditions for its own, the\r\nParliamentary regime; on the other hand, the mass of the bourgeoisie, outside\r\nof the Parliament, urged Bonaparte\u0026mdash;by its servility towards the\r\nPresident, by its insults to the Parliament, by the brutal treatment of its own\r\npress\u0026mdash;to suppress and annihilate its speaking and writing organs, its\r\npoliticians and its literati, its orators\u0026rsquo; tribune and its press, to the\r\nend that, under the protection of a strong and unhampered Government, it might\r\nply its own private pursuits in safety. It declared unmistakably that it longed\r\nto be rid of its own political rule, in order to escape the troubles and\r\ndangers of ruling.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd this bourgeoisie, that had rebelled against even the Parliamentary and\r\nliterary contest for the supremacy of its own class, that had betrayed its\r\nleaders in this contest, it now has the effrontery to blame the proletariat for\r\nnot having risen in its defence in a bloody struggle, in a struggle for life!\r\nThose bourgeois, who at every turn sacrificed their common class interests to\r\nnarrow and dirty private interests, and who demanded a similar sacrifice from\r\ntheir own Representatives, now whine that the proletariat has sacrificed their\r\nidea-political to its own material interests! This bourgeois class now strikes\r\nthe attitude of a pure soul, misunderstood and abandoned, at a critical moment,\r\nby the proletariat, that has been misled by the Socialists. And its cry finds a\r\ngeneral echo in the bourgeois world. Of course, I do not refer to German\r\ncrossroad politicians and kindred blockheads. I refer, for instance, to the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Economist,\u0026rdquo; which, as late as November 29, 1851, that is to say,\r\nfour days before the \u0026ldquo;coup d\u0026rsquo;etat\u0026rdquo; pronounced Bonaparte the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Guardian of Order\u0026rdquo; and Thiers and Berryer\r\n\u0026ldquo;Anarchists,\u0026rdquo; and as early as December 27, 1851, after Bonaparte\r\nhad silenced those very Anarchists, cries out about the treason committed by\r\n\u0026ldquo;the ignorant, untrained and stupid proletaires against the skill,\r\nknowledge, discipline, mental influence, intellectual resources an moral weight\r\nof the middle and upper ranks.\u0026rdquo; The stupid, ignorant and contemptible\r\nmass was none other than the bourgeoisie itself.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFrance had, indeed; experienced a sort of commercial crisis in 1851. At the end\r\nof February, there was a falling off of exports as compared with 1850; in\r\nMarch, business languished and factories shut down; in April, the condition of\r\nthe industrial departments seemed as desperate as after the February days; in\r\nMay, business did not yet pick up; as late as June 28, the reports of the Bank\r\nof France revealed through a tremendous increase of deposits and an equal\r\ndecrease of loans on exchange notes, the standstill of production; not until\r\nthe middle of October did a steady improvement of business set in. The French\r\nbourgeoisie accounted for this stagnation of business with purely political\r\nreasons; it imputed the dull times to the strife between the Parliament and the\r\nExecutive power, to the uncertainty of a provisional form of government, to the\r\nalarming prospects of May 2, 1852. I shall not deny that all these causes did\r\ndepress some branches of industry in Paris and in the Departments. At any rate,\r\nthis effect of political circumstances was only local and trifling. Is there\r\nany other proof needed than that the improvement in business set in at the very\r\ntime when the political situation was growing worse, when the political horizon\r\nwas growing darker, and when at every moment a stroke of lightning was expected\r\nout of the Elysee\u0026mdash;in the middle of October? The French bourgeois, whose\r\n\u0026ldquo;skill, knowledge, mental influence and intellectual resources,\u0026rdquo;\r\nreach no further than his nose, could, moreover, during the whole period of the\r\nIndustrial Exposition in London, have struck with his nose the cause of his own\r\nbusiness misery. At the same time that, in France, the factories were being\r\nclosed, commercial failures broke out in England. While the industrial panic\r\nreached its height during April and May in France, in England the commercial\r\npanic reached its height in April and May. The same as the French, the English\r\nwoolen industries suffered, and, as the French, so did the English silk\r\nmanufacture. Though the English cotton factories went on working, it,\r\nnevertheless, was not with the same old profit of 1849 and 1850. The only\r\ndifference was this: that in France, the crisis was an industrial, in England\r\nit was a commercial one; that while in France the factories stood still, they\r\nspread themselves in England, but under less favorable circumstances than they\r\nhad done the years just previous; that, in France, the export, in England, the\r\nimport trade suffered the heaviest blows. The common cause, which, as a matter\r\nof fact, is not to be looked for with-in the bounds of the French political\r\nhorizon, was obvious. The years 1849 and 1850 were years of the greatest\r\nmaterial prosperity, and of an overproduction that did not manifest itself\r\nuntil 1851. This was especially promoted at the beginning of 1851 by the\r\nprospect of the Industrial Exposition; and, as special causes, there were\r\nadded, first, the failure of the cotton crop of 1850 and 1851; second, the\r\ncertainty of a larger cotton crop than was expected: first, the rise, then the\r\nsudden drop; in short, the oscillations of the cotton market. The crop of raw\r\nsilk in France had been below the average. Finally, the manufacture of woolen\r\ngoods had received such an increment since 1849, that the production of wool\r\ncould not keep step with it, and the price of the raw material rose greatly out\r\nof proportion to the price of the manufactured goods. Accordingly, we have here\r\nin the raw material of three staple articles a threefold material for a\r\ncommercial crisis. Apart from these special circumstances, the seeming crisis\r\nof the year 1851 was, after all, nothing but the halt that overproduction and\r\noverspeculation make regularly in the course of the industrial cycle, before\r\npulling all their forces together in order to rush feverishly over the last\r\nstretch, and arrive again at their point of departure\u0026mdash;the General\r\nCommercial Crisis. At such intervals in the history of trade, commercial\r\nfailures break out in England, while, in France, industry itself is stopped,\r\npartly because it is compelled to retreat through the competition of the\r\nEnglish, that, at such times becomes resistless in all markets, and partly\r\nbecause, as an industry of luxuries, it is affected with preference by every\r\nstoppage of trade. Thus, besides the general crisis, France experiences her own\r\nnational crises, which, how-ever, are determined by and conditioned upon the\r\ngeneral state of the world\u0026rsquo;s market much more than by local French\r\ninfluences. It will not be devoid of interest to contrast the prejudgment of\r\nthe French bourgeois with the judgment of the English bourgeois. One of the\r\nlargest Liverpool firms writes in its yearly report of trade for 1851:\r\n\u0026ldquo;Few years have more completely disappointed the expectations entertained\r\nat their beginning than the year that has just passed; instead of the great\r\nprosperity, that was unanimously looked forward to, it proved itself one of the\r\nmost discouraging years during the last quarter of a century. This applies, of\r\ncourse, only to the mercantile, not to the industrial classes. And yet, surely\r\nthere were grounds at the beginning of the year from which to draw a contrary\r\nconclusion; the stock of products was scanty, capital was abundant, provisions\r\ncheap, a rich autumn was assured, there was uninterrupted peace on the\r\ncontinent and no political and financial disturbances at home; indeed, never\r\nwere the wings of trade more unshackled. . . . What is this unfavorable result\r\nto be ascribed to? We believe to excessive trade in imports as well as exports.\r\nIf our merchants do not themselves rein in their activity, nothing can keep us\r\ngoing, except a panic every three years.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nImagine now the French bourgeois, in the midst of this business panic, having\r\nhis trade-sick brain tortured, buzzed at and deafened with rumors of a\r\n\u0026ldquo;coup d\u0026rsquo;etat\u0026rdquo; and the restoration of universal suffrage; with\r\nthe struggle between the Legislature and the Executive; with the Fronde warfare\r\nbetween Orleanists and Legitimists; with communistic conspiracies in southern\r\nFrance; with alleged Jacqueries [#2 Peasant revolts] in the Departments of\r\nNievre and Cher; with the advertisements of the several candidates for\r\nPresident; with \u0026ldquo;social solutions\u0026rdquo; huckstered about by the\r\njournals; with the threats of the republicans to uphold, arms in hand, the\r\nConstitution and universal suffrage; with the gospels, according to the\r\nemigrant heroes \u0026ldquo;in partibus,\u0026rdquo; who announced the destruction of the\r\nworld for May 2,\u0026mdash;imagine that, and one can understand how the bourgeois,\r\nin this unspeakable and noisy confusion of fusion, revision, prorogation,\r\nconstitution, conspiracy, coalition, emigration, usurpation and revolution,\r\nblurts out at his parliamentary republic: \u0026ldquo;Rather an End With Fright,\r\nThan a Fright Without End.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBonaparte understood this cry. His perspicacity was sharpened by the growing\r\nanxiety of the creditors\u0026rsquo; class, who, with every sunset, that brought\r\nnearer the day of payment, the 2d of May, 1852, saw in the motion of the stars\r\na protest against their earthly drafts. They had become regular astrologers The\r\nNational Assembly had cut off Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s hope of a constitutional\r\nprolongation of his term; the candidature of the Prince of Joinville tolerated\r\nno further vacillation.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIf ever an event cast its shadow before it long before its occurrence, it was\r\nBonaparte\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;coup d\u0026rsquo;etat.\u0026rdquo; Already on January 29, 1849,\r\nbarely a month after his election, he had made to Changarnier a proposition to\r\nthat effect. His own Prime Minister. Odillon Barrot, had covertly, in 1849, and\r\nThiers openly in the winter of 1850, revealed the scheme of the \u0026ldquo;coup\r\nd\u0026rsquo;etat.\u0026rdquo; In May, 1851, Persigny had again sought to win Changarnier\r\nover to the \u0026ldquo;coup,\u0026rdquo; and the \u0026ldquo;Miessager de\r\nl\u0026rsquo;Assemblee\u0026rdquo; newspaper had published this conversation. At every\r\nparliamentary storm, the Bonapartist papers threatened a \u0026ldquo;coup,\u0026rdquo;\r\nand the nearer the crisis approached, all the louder grew their tone. At the\r\norgies, that Bonaparte celebrated every night with a swell mob of males and\r\nfemales, every time the hour of midnight drew nigh and plenteous libations had\r\nloosened the tongues and heated the minds of the revelers, the\r\n\u0026ldquo;coup\u0026rdquo; was resolved upon for the next morning. Swords were then\r\ndrawn, glasses clinked, the Representatives were thrown out at the windows, the\r\nimperial mantle fell upon the shoulders of Bonaparte, until the next morning\r\nagain drove away the spook, and astonished Paris learned, from not very\r\nreserved Vestals and indiscreet Paladins, the danger it had once more escaped.\r\nDuring the months of September and October, the rumors of a \u0026ldquo;coup\r\nd\u0026rsquo;etat\u0026rdquo; tumbled close upon one another\u0026rsquo;s heels. At the same\r\ntime the shadow gathered color, like a confused daguerreotype. Follow the\r\nissues of the European daily press for the months of September and October, and\r\nitems like this will be found literally:\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;Rumors of a \u0026lsquo;coup\u0026rsquo; fill Paris. The capital, it is said, is\r\nto be filled with troops by night and the next morning decrees are to be issued\r\ndissolving the National Assembly, placing the Department of the Seine in state\r\nof siege restoring universal suffrage, and appealing to the people. Bonaparte\r\nis rumored to be looking for Ministers to execute these illegal decrees.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe newspaper correspondence that brought this news always close ominously with\r\n\u0026ldquo;postponed.\u0026rdquo; The \u0026ldquo;coup\u0026rdquo; was ever the fixed idea of\r\nBonaparte. With this idea he had stepped again upon French soil. It had such\r\nfull possession of him that he was constantly betraying and blabbing it out. He\r\nwas so weak that he was as constantly giving it up again. The shadow of the\r\n\u0026ldquo;coup\u0026rdquo; had become so familiar a spectre to the Parisians, that they\r\nrefused to believe it when it finally did appear in flesh and blood.\r\nConsequently, it was neither the reticent backwardness of the chief of the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Society of December 10,\u0026rdquo; nor an unthought of surprise of the\r\nNational Assembly that caused the success of the \u0026ldquo;coup.\u0026rdquo; When it\r\nsucceeded, it did so despite his indiscretion and with its anticipation\u0026mdash;a\r\nnecessary, unavoidable result of the development that had preceded.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOn October 10, Bonaparte announced to his Ministers his decision to restore\r\nuniversal suffrage; on the 16th day they handed in their resignations; on the\r\n26th Paris learned of the formation of the Thorigny Ministry. The Prefect of\r\nPolice, Carlier, was simultaneously replaced by Maupas; and the chief of the\r\nFirst Military Division Magnan, concentrated the most reliable regiments in the\r\ncapital. On November 4, the National Assembly re-opened its sessions. There was\r\nnothing left for it to do but to repeat, in short recapitulation, the course it\r\nhad traversed, and to prove that it had been buried only after it had expired.\r\nThe first post that it had forfeited in the struggle with the Executive was the\r\nMinistry. It had solemnly to admit this loss by accepting as genuine the\r\nThorigny Ministry, which was but a pretence. The permanent Committee had\r\nreceived Mr. Giraud with laughter when he introduced himself in the name of the\r\nnew Ministers. So weak a Ministry for so strong a measure as the restoration of\r\nuniversal suffrage! The question, however, then was to do nothing in,\r\neverything against the parliament.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOn the very day of its re-opening, the National Assembly received the message\r\nfrom Bonaparte demanding the restoration of universal suffrage and the repeal\r\nof the law of May 31, 1850. On the same day, his Ministers introduced a decree\r\nto that effect. The Assembly promptly rejected the motion of urgency made by\r\nthe Ministers, but repealed the law itself, on November 13, by a vote of 355\r\nagainst 348. Thus it once more tore to pieces its own mandate, once more\r\ncertified to the fact that it had transformed itself from a freely chosen\r\nrepresentative body of the nation into the usurpatory parliament of a class; it\r\nonce more admitted that it had itself severed the muscles that connected the\r\nparliamentary head with the body of the nation.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhile the Executive power appealed from the National Assembly to the people by\r\nits motion for the restoration of universal suffrage, the Legislative power\r\nappealed from the people to the Army by its \u0026ldquo;Questors\u0026rsquo; Bill.\u0026rdquo;\r\nThis bill was to establish its right to immediate requisitions for troops, to\r\nbuild up a parliamentary army. By thus appointing the Army umpire between\r\nitself and the people, between itself and Bonaparte; by thus recognizing the\r\nArmy as the decisive power in the State, the National Assembly was constrained\r\nto admit that it had long given up all claim to supremacy. By debating the\r\nright to make requisitions for troops, instead of forthwith collecting them, it\r\nbetrayed its own doubts touching its own power. By thus subsequently rejecting\r\nthe \u0026ldquo;Questors\u0026rsquo; Bill,\u0026rdquo; it publicly confessed it impotence. The\r\nbill fell through with a minority of 108 votes; the Mountain had, accordingly,\r\nthrown the casting vote It now found itself in the predicament of\r\nBuridan\u0026rsquo;s donkey, not, indeed, between two sacks of hay, forced to decide\r\nwhich of the two was the more attractive, but between two showers of blows,\r\nforced to decide which of the two was the harder; fear of Changarnier, on one\r\nside, fear of Bonaparte, on the other. It must be admitted the position was not\r\na heroic one.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOn November 18, an amendment was moved to the Act, passed by the party of\r\nOrder, on municipal elections to the effect that, instead of three years, a\r\ndomicile of one year should suffice. The amendment was lost by a single\r\nvote\u0026mdash;but this vote, it soon transpired, was a mistake. Owing to the\r\ndivisions within its own hostile factions, the party of Order had long since\r\nforfeited its independent parliamentary majority. It was now plain that there\r\nwas no longer any majority in the parliament. The National Assembly had become\r\nimpotent even to decide. Its atomic parts were no longer held together by any\r\ncohesive power; it had expended its last breath, it was dead.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFinally, the mass of the bourgeoisie outside of the parliament was once more\r\nsolemnly to confirm its rupture with the bourgeoisie inside of the parliament a\r\nfew days before the catastrophe. Thiers, as a parliamentary hero conspicuously\r\nsmitten by that incurable disease\u0026mdash;Parliamentary Idiocy\u0026mdash;, had\r\nhatched out jointly with the Council of State, after the death of the\r\nparliament, a new parliamentary intrigue in the shape of a\r\n\u0026ldquo;Responsibility Law,\u0026rdquo; that was intended to lock up the President\r\nwithin the walls of the Constitution. The same as, on September 15, Bonaparte\r\nbewitched the fishwives, like a second Massaniello, on the occasion of laying\r\nthe corner-stone for the Market of Paris,\u0026mdash;though, it must be admitted,\r\none fishwife was equal to seventeen Burgraves in real power\u0026mdash;; the same\r\nas, after the introduction of the \u0026ldquo;Questors\u0026rsquo; Bill,\u0026rdquo; he\r\nenthused the lieutenants, who were being treated at the Elysee;\u0026mdash;so,\r\nlikewise, did he now, on November 25, carry away with him the industrial\r\nbourgeoisie, assembled at the Circus, to receive from his hands the\r\nprize-medals that had been awarded at the London Industrial Exposition. I here\r\nreproduce the typical part of his speech, from the \u0026ldquo;Journal des\r\nDebats\u0026rdquo;:\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;With such unhoped for successes, I am justified to repeat how great the\r\nFrench republic would be if she were only allowed to pursue her real interests,\r\nand reform her institutions, instead of being constantly disturbed in this by\r\ndemagogues, on one side, and, on the other, by monarchic hallucinations. (Loud,\r\nstormy and continued applause from all parts of the amphitheater). The\r\nmonarchic hallucinations hamper all progress and all serious departments of\r\nindustry. Instead of progress, we have struggle only. Men, formerly the most\r\nzealous supporters of royal authority and prerogative, become the partisans of\r\na convention that has no purpose other than to weaken an authority that is born\r\nof universal suffrage. (Loud and prolonged applause). We see men, who have\r\nsuffered most from the revolution and complained bitterest of it, provoking a\r\nnew one for the sole purpose of putting fetters on the will of the nation. . .\r\n. I promise you peace for the future.\u0026rdquo; (Bravo! Bravo! Stormy bravos.)\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThus the industrial bourgeoisie shouts its servile \u0026ldquo;Bravo!\u0026rdquo; to the\r\n\u0026ldquo;coup d\u0026rsquo;etat\u0026rdquo; of December 2, to the destruction of the\r\nparliament, to the downfall of their own reign, to the dictatorship of\r\nBonaparte. The rear of the applause of November 25 was responded to by the roar\r\nof cannon on December 4, and the house of Mr. Sallandrouze, who had been\r\nloudest in applauding, was the one demolished by most of the bombs.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nCromwell, when he dissolved the Long Parliament, walked alone into its midst,\r\npulled out his watch in order that the body should not continue to exist one\r\nminute beyond the term fixed for it by him, and drove out each individual\r\nmember with gay and humorous invectives. Napoleon, smaller than his prototype,\r\nat least went on the 18th Brumaire into the legislative body, and, though in a\r\ntremulous voice, read to it its sentence of death. The second Bonaparte, who,\r\nmoreover, found himself in possession of an executive power very different from\r\nthat of either Cromwell or Napoleon, did not look for his model in the annals\r\nof universal history, but in the annals of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December\r\n10,\u0026rdquo; in the annals of criminal jurisprudence. He robs the Bank of France\r\nof twenty-five million francs; buys General Magnan with one million and the\r\nsoldiers with fifteen francs and a drink to each; comes secretly together with\r\nhis accomplices like a thief by night; has the houses of the most dangerous\r\nleaders in the parliament broken into; Cavalignac, Lamorciere, Leflo,\r\nChangarnier, Charras, Thiers, Baze, etc., taken out of their beds; the\r\nprincipal places of Paris, the building of the parliament included, occupied\r\nwith troops; and, early the next morning, loud-sounding placards posted on all\r\nthe walls proclaiming the dissolution of the National Assembly and of the\r\nCouncil of State, the restoration of universal suffrage, and the placing of the\r\nDepartment of the Seine under the state of siege. In the same way he shortly\r\nafter sneaked into the \u0026ldquo;Moniteur\u0026rdquo; a false document, according to\r\nwhich influential parliamentary names had grouped themselves round him in a\r\nCommittee of the Nation.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAmidst cries of \u0026ldquo;Long live the Republic!\u0026rdquo;, the rump-parliament,\r\nassembled at the Mayor\u0026rsquo;s building of the Tenth Arrondissement, and\r\ncomposed mainly of Legitimists and Orleanists, resolves to depose Bonaparte; it\r\nharangues in vain the gaping mass gathered before the building, and is finally\r\ndragged first, under the escort of African sharpshooters, to the barracks of\r\nOrsay, and then bundled into convicts\u0026rsquo; wagons and transported to the\r\nprisons of Mazas, Ham and Vincennes. Thus ended the party of Order, the\r\nLegislative Assembly and the February revolution.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBefore hastening to the end, let us sum up shortly the plan of its history:\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nI.\u0026mdash;First Period. From February 24 to May 4, 1848. February period.\r\nPrologue. Universal fraternity swindle.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nII.\u0026mdash;Second Period. Period in which the republic is constituted, and of\r\nthe Constitutive National Assembly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n1. May 4 to June 25, 1848. Struggle of all the classes against the house of Mr.\r\nproletariat. Defeat of the proletariat in the June days.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n2. June 25 to December 10, 1848. Dictatorship of the pure bourgeois\r\nrepublicans. Drafting of the Constitution. The state of siege hangs over Paris.\r\nThe Bourgeois dictatorship set aside on December 10 by the election of\r\nBonaparte as President.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n3. December 20, 1848, to May 20, 1849. Struggle of the Constitutive Assembly\r\nwith Bonaparte and with the united party of Order. Death of the Constitutive\r\nAssembly. Downfall of the republican bourgeoisie.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIII.\u0026mdash;Third Period. Period of the constitutional republic and of the\r\nLegislative National Assembly.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n1. May 29 to June 13, 1849. Struggle of the small traders\u0026rsquo;, middle class\r\nwith the bourgeoisie and with Bonaparte. Defeat of the small traders\u0026rsquo;\r\ndemocracy.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n2. June 13, 1849, to May, 1850. Parliamentary dictatorship of the party of\r\nOrder. Completes its reign by the abolition of universal suffrage, but loses\r\nthe parliamentary Ministry.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n3. May 31, 1850, to December 2, 1851. Struggle between the parliamentary\r\nbourgeoisie and Bonaparte.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\na. May 31, 1850, to January 12, 1851. The parliament loses the supreme command\r\nover the Army.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nb. January 12 to April 11, 1851. The parliament succumbs in the attempts to\r\nregain possession of the administrative power. The party of Order loses its\r\nindependent parliamentary majority. Its coalition with the republicans and the\r\nMountain.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nc. April 11 to October 9, 1851. Attempts at revision, fusion and prorogation.\r\nThe party of Order dissolves into its component parts. The breach between the\r\nbourgeois parliament and the bourgeois press, on the one hand, and the\r\nbourgeois mass, on the other, becomes permanent.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nd. October 9 to December 2, 1851. Open breach between the parliament and the\r\nexecutive power. It draws up its own decree of death, and goes under, left in\r\nthe lurch by its own class, by the Army, and by all the other classes. Downfall\r\nof the parliamentary regime and of the reign of the bourgeoisie.\r\nBonaparte\u0026rsquo;s triumph. Parody of the imperialist restoration.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c/div\u003e\u003c!–end chapter–\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cdiv class=\"chapter\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003ca name=\"chap07\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003eVII.\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe Social Republic appeared as a mere phrase, as a prophecy on the threshold\r\nof the February Revolution; it was smothered in the blood of the Parisian\r\nproletariat during the days of 1848 but it stalks about as a spectre throughout\r\nthe following acts of the drama. The Democratic Republic next makes its bow; it\r\ngoes out in a fizzle on June 13, 1849, with its runaway small traders; but, on\r\nfleeing, it scatters behind it all the more bragging announcements of what it\r\nmeans do to. The Parliamentary Republic, together with the bourgeoisie, then\r\nappropriates the whole stage; it lives its life to the full extent of its\r\nbeing; but the 2d of December, 1851, buries it under the terror-stricken cry of\r\nthe allied royalists: \u0026ldquo;Long live the Republic!\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe French bourgeoisie reared up against the reign of the working\r\nproletariat;\u0026mdash;it brought to power the slum-proletariat, with the chief of\r\nthe \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10\u0026rdquo; at its head. It kept France in\r\nbreathless fear over the prospective terror of \u0026ldquo;red\r\nanarchy;\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;Bonaparte discounted the prospect when, on December 4, he\r\nhad the leading citizens of the Boulevard Montmartre and the Boulevard des\r\nItaliens shot down from their windows by the grog-inspired \u0026ldquo;Army of\r\nOrder.\u0026rdquo; It made the apotheosis of the sabre; now the sabre rules it. It\r\ndestroyed the revolutionary press;\u0026mdash;now its own press is annihilated. It\r\nplaced public meetings under police surveillance;\u0026mdash;now its own salons are\r\nsubject to police inspection. It disbanded the democratic National\r\nGuards;\u0026mdash;now its own National Guard is disbanded. It instituted the state\r\nof siege;\u0026mdash;now itself is made subject thereto. It supplanted the jury by\r\nmilitary commissions;\u0026mdash;now military commissions supplant its own juries.\r\nIt subjected the education of the people to the parsons\u0026rsquo;\r\ninterests;\u0026mdash;the parsons\u0026rsquo; interests now subject it to their own\r\nsystems. It ordered transportations without trial;\u0026mdash;now itself is\r\ntransported without trial. It suppressed every movement of society with\r\nphysical force;\u0026mdash;now every movement of its own class is suppressed by\r\nphysical force. Out of enthusiasm for the gold bag, it rebelled against its own\r\npolitical leaders and writers;\u0026mdash;now, its political leaders and writers are\r\nset aside, but the gold hag is plundered, after the mouth of the bourgeoisie\r\nhas been gagged and its pen broken. The bourgeoisie tirelessly shouted to the\r\nrevolution, in the language of St. Orsenius to the Christians: \u0026ldquo;Fuge,\r\nTace, Quiesce!\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;flee, be silent, submit!\u0026mdash;; Bonaparte shouts\r\nto the bourgeoisie: \u0026ldquo;Fuge, Tace, Oniesce!\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;flee, be silent,\r\nsubmit!\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe French bourgeoisie had long since solved Napoleon\u0026rsquo;s dilemma:\r\n\u0026ldquo;Dans cinquante ans l\u0026rsquo;Europe sera republicaine ou cosaque.\u0026rdquo;\r\n[#1 Within fifty years Europe will be either republican or Cossack.] It found\r\nthe solution in the \u0026ldquo;republique cosaque.\u0026rdquo; [#2 Cossack republic.] No\r\nCirce distorted with wicked charms the work of art of the bourgeois republic\r\ninto a monstrosity. That republic lost nothing but the appearance of decency.\r\nThe France of to-day was ready-made within the womb of the Parliamentary\r\nrepublic. All that was wanted was a bayonet thrust, in order that the bubble\r\nburst, and the monster leap forth to sight.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhy did not the Parisian proletariat rise after the 2d of December?\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe downfall of the bourgeoisie was as yet merely decreed; the decree was not\r\nyet executed. Any earnest uprising of the proletariat would have forthwith\r\nrevived this bourgeoisie, would have brought on its reconciliation with the\r\narmy, and would have insured a second June rout to the workingmen.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOn December 4, the proletariat was incited to fight by Messrs. Bourgeois \u0026amp;\r\nSmall-Trader. On the evening of that day, several legions of the National Guard\r\npromised to appear armed and uniformed on the place of battle. This arose from\r\nthe circumstance that Messrs. Bourgeois \u0026amp; Small-Trader had got wind that,\r\nin one of his decrees of December 2, Bonaparte abolished the secret ballot, and\r\nordered them to enter the words \u0026ldquo;Yes\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;No\u0026rdquo; after\r\ntheir names in the official register. Bonaparte took alarm at the stand taken\r\non December 4. During the night he caused placards to be posted on all the\r\nstreet corners of Paris, announcing the restoration of the secret ballot.\r\nMessrs. Bourgeois \u0026amp; Small-Trader believed they had gained their point. The\r\nabsentees, the next morning, were Messieurs. Bourgeois \u0026amp; Small-Trader.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nDuring the night of December 1 and 2, the Parisian proletariat was robbed of\r\nits leaders and chiefs of barricades by a raid of Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s. An army\r\nwithout officers, disinclined by the recollections of June, 1848 and 1849, and\r\nMay, 1850, to fight under the banner of the Montagnards, it left to its\r\nvanguard, the secret societies, the work of saving the insurrectionary honor of\r\nParis, which the bourgeoisie had yielded to the soldiery so submissively that\r\nBonaparte was later justified in disarming the National Guard upon the scornful\r\nground that he feared their arms would be used against themselves by the\r\nAnarchists!\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;C\u0026rsquo;est Ic triomphe complet et definitif du Socialism!\u0026rdquo; Thus\r\ndid Guizot characterize the 2d of December. But, although the downfall of the\r\nparliamentary republic carries with it the germ of the triumph of the\r\nproletarian revolution, its immediate and tangible result was the triumph of\r\nBonaparte over parliament, of the Executive over the Legislative power, of\r\nforce without phrases over the force of phrases. In the parliament, the nation\r\nraised its collective will to the dignity of law, i.e., it raised the law of\r\nthe ruling class to the dignity of its collective will. Before the Executive\r\npower, the nation abdicates all will of its own, and submits to the orders of\r\nan outsider of Authority. In contrast with the Legislative, the Executive power\r\nexpresses the heteronomy of the nation in contrast with its autonomy.\r\nAccordingly, France seems to have escaped the despotism of a class only in\r\norder to fall under the despotism of an individual, under the authority, at\r\nthat of an individual without authority The struggle seems to settle down to\r\nthe point where all classes drop down on their knees, equally impotent and\r\nequally dumb.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAll the same, the revolution is thoroughgoing. It still is on its passage\r\nthrough purgatory. It does its work methodically: Down to December 2, 1851, it\r\nhad fulfilled one-half of its programme, it now fulfils the other half. It\r\nfirst ripens the power of the Legislature into fullest maturity in order to be\r\nable to overthrow it. Now that it has accomplished that, the revolution\r\nproceeds to ripen the power of the Executive into equal maturity; it reduces\r\nthis power to its purest expression; isolates it; places it before itself as\r\nthe sole subject for reproof in order to concentrate against it all the\r\nrevolutionary forces of destruction. When the revolution shall have\r\naccomplished this second part of its preliminary programme, Europe will jump up\r\nfrom her seat to exclaim: \u0026ldquo;Well hast thou grubbed, old mole!\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe Executive power, with its tremendous bureaucratic and military\r\norganization; with its wide-spreading and artificial machinery of\r\ngovernment\u0026mdash;an army of office-holders, half a million strong, together\r\nwith a military force of another million men\u0026mdash;; this fearful body of\r\nparasites, that coils itself like a snake around French society, stopping all\r\nits pores, originated at the time of the absolute monarchy, along with the\r\ndecline of feudalism, which it helped to hasten. The princely privileges of the\r\nlanded proprietors and cities were transformed into so many at-tributes of the\r\nExecutive power; the feudal dignitaries into paid office-holders; and the\r\nconfusing design of conflicting medieval seigniories, into the well regulated\r\nplan of a government, work is subdivided and centralized as in the factory. The\r\nfirst French revolution, having as a mission to sweep away all local,\r\nterritorial, urban and provincial special privileges, with the object of\r\nestablishing the civic unity of the nation, was hound to develop what the\r\nabsolute monarchy had begun\u0026mdash;the work of centralization, together with the\r\nrange, the attributes and the menials of government. Napoleon completed this\r\ngovernmental machinery. The Legitimist and the July Monarchy contribute nothing\r\nthereto, except a greater subdivision of labor, that grew in the same measure\r\nas the division and subdivision of labor within bourgeois society raised new\r\ngroups and interests, i.e., new material for the administration of government.\r\nEach Common interest was in turn forthwith removed from society, set up against\r\nit as a higher Collective interest, wrested from the individual activity of the\r\nmembers of society, and turned into a subject for governmental administration,\r\nfrom the bridges, the school house and the communal property of a village\r\ncommunity, up to the railroads, the national wealth and the national University\r\nof France. Finally, the parliamentary republic found itself, in its struggle\r\nagainst the revolution, compelled, with its repressive measures, to strengthen\r\nthe means and the centralization of the government. Each overturn, instead of\r\nbreaking up, carried this machine to higher perfection. The parties, that\r\nalternately wrestled for supremacy, looked upon the possession of this\r\ntremendous governmental structure as the principal spoils of their victory.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNevertheless, under the absolute monarchy, was only the means whereby the first\r\nrevolution, and under Napoleon, to prepare the class rule of the bourgeoisie;\r\nunder the restoration, under Louis Philippe, and under the parliamentary\r\nrepublic, it was the instrument of the ruling class, however eagerly this class\r\nstrained after autocracy. Not before the advent of the second Bonaparte does\r\nthe government seem to have made itself fully independent. The machinery of\r\ngovernment has by this time so thoroughly fortified itself against society,\r\nthat the chief of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10\u0026rdquo; is thought good\r\nenough to be at its head; a fortune-hunter, run in from abroad, is raised on\r\nits shield by a drunken soldiery, bought by himself with liquor and sausages,\r\nand whom he is forced ever again to throw sops to. Hence the timid despair, the\r\nsense of crushing humiliation and degradation that oppresses the breast of\r\nFrance and makes her to choke. She feels dishonored.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd yet the French Government does not float in the air. Bonaparte represents\r\nan economic class, and that the most numerous in the commonweal of\r\nFrance\u0026mdash;the Allotment Farmer. [#4 The first French Revolution distributed\r\nthe bulk of the territory of France, held at the time by the feudal lords, in\r\nsmall patches among the cultivators of the soil. This allotment of lands\r\ncreated the French farmer class.]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAs the Bourbons are the dynasty of large landed property, as the Orleans are\r\nthe dynasty of money, so are the Bonapartes the dynasty of the farmer, i.e. of\r\nthe French masses. Not the Bonaparte, who threw himself at the feet of the\r\nbourgeois parliament, but the Bonaparte, who swept away the bourgeois\r\nparliament, is the elect of this farmer class. For three years the cities had\r\nsucceeded in falsifying the meaning of the election of December 10, and in\r\ncheating the farmer out of the restoration of the Empire. The election of\r\nDecember 10, 1848, is not carried out until the \u0026ldquo;coup d\u0026rsquo;etat\u0026rdquo;\r\nof December 2, 1851.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe allotment farmers are an immense mass, whose individual members live in\r\nidentical conditions, without, however, entering into manifold relations with\r\none another. Their method of production isolates them from one another, instead\r\nof drawing them into mutual intercourse. This isolation is promoted by the poor\r\nmeans of communication in France, together with the poverty of the farmers\r\nthemselves. Their field of production, the small allotment of land that each\r\ncultivates, allows no room for a division of labor, and no opportunity for the\r\napplication of science; in other words, it shuts out manifoldness of\r\ndevelopment, diversity of talent, and the luxury of social relations. Every\r\nsingle farmer family is almost self-sufficient; itself produces directly the\r\ngreater part of what it consumes; and it earns its livelihood more by means of\r\nan interchange with nature than by intercourse with society. We have the\r\nallotted patch of land, the farmer and his family; alongside of that another\r\nallotted patch of land, another farmer and another family. A bunch of these\r\nmakes up a village; a bunch of villages makes up a Department. Thus the large\r\nmass of the French nation is constituted by the simple addition of equal\r\nmagnitudes\u0026mdash;much as a bag with potatoes constitutes a potato-bag. In so\r\nfar as millions of families live under economic conditions that separate their\r\nmode of life, their interests and their culture from those of the other\r\nclasses, and that place them in an attitude hostile toward the latter, they\r\nconstitute a class; in so far as there exists only a local connection among\r\nthese farmers, a connection which the individuality and exclusiveness of their\r\ninterests prevent from generating among them any unity of interest, national\r\nconnections, and political organization, they do not constitute a class.\r\nConsequently, they are unable to assert their class interests in their own\r\nname, be it by a parliament or by convention. They can not represent one\r\nanother, they must themselves be represented. Their representative must at the\r\nsame time appear as their master, as an authority over them, as an unlimited\r\ngovernmental power, that protects them from above, bestows rain and sunshine\r\nupon them. Accordingly, the political influence of the allotment farmer finds\r\nits ultimate expression in an Executive power that subjugates the commonweal to\r\nits own autocratic will.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nHistoric tradition has given birth to the superstition among the French farmers\r\nthat a man named Napoleon would restore to them all manner of glory. Now, then,\r\nan individual turns I up, who gives himself out as that man because, obedient\r\nto the \u0026ldquo;Code Napoleon,\u0026rdquo; which provides that \u0026ldquo;La recherche de\r\nla paternite est interdite,\u0026rdquo; [#5 The inquiry into paternity is\r\nforbidden.] he carries the name of Napoleon. [#6 L. N. Bonaparte is said to\r\nhave been an illegitimate son.] After a vagabondage of twenty years, and a\r\nseries of grotesque adventures, the myth is verified, and that man becomes the\r\nEmperor of the French. The rooted thought of the Nephew becomes a reality\r\nbecause it coincided with the rooted thought of the most numerous class among\r\nthe French.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026ldquo;But,\u0026rdquo; I shall be objected to, \u0026ldquo;what about the farmers\u0026rsquo;\r\nuprisings over half France, the raids of the Army upon the farmers, the\r\nwholesale imprisonment and transportation of farmers?\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIndeed, since Louis XIV., France has not experienced such persecutions of the\r\nfarmer on the ground of his demagogic machinations.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut this should be well understood: The Bonaparte dynasty does not represent\r\nthe revolutionary, it represents the conservative farmer; it does not represent\r\nthe farmer, who presses beyond his own economic conditions, his little\r\nallotment of land it represents him rather who would confirm these conditions;\r\nit does not represent the rural population, that, thanks to its own inherent\r\nenergy, wishes, jointly with the cities to overthrow the old order, it\r\nrepresents, on the contrary, the rural population that, hide-bound in the old\r\norder, seeks to see itself, together with its allotments, saved and favored by\r\nthe ghost of the Empire; it represents, not the intelligence, but the\r\nsuperstition of the farmer; not his judgment, but his bias; not his future, but\r\nhis past; not his modern Cevennes; [#7 The Cevennes were the theater of the\r\nmost numerous revolutionary uprisings of the farmer class.] but his modern\r\nVendee. [#8 La Vendee was the theater of protracted reactionary uprisings of\r\nthe farmer class under the first Revolution.]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe three years\u0026rsquo; severe rule of the parliamentary republic had freed a\r\npart of the French farmers from the Napoleonic illusion, and, though even only\r\nsuperficially; had revolutionized them The bourgeoisie threw them, however,\r\nviolently back every time that they set themselves in motion. Under the\r\nparliamentary republic, the modern wrestled with the traditional consciousness\r\nof the French farmer. The process went on in the form of a continuous struggle\r\nbetween the school teachers and the parsons;\u0026mdash;the bourgeoisie knocked the\r\nschool teachers down. For the first time, the farmer made an effort to take an\r\nindependent stand in the government of the country; this manifested itself in\r\nthe prolonged conflicts of the Mayors with the Prefects;\u0026mdash;the bourgeoisie\r\ndeposed the Mayors. Finally, during period of the parliamentary republic, the\r\nfarmers of several localities rose against their own product, the\r\nArmy;\u0026mdash;the bourgeoisie punished them with states of siege and executions.\r\nAnd this is the identical bourgeoisie, that now howls over the \u0026ldquo;stupidity\r\nof the masses,\u0026rdquo; over the \u0026ldquo;vile multitude,\u0026rdquo; which, it claims,\r\nbetrayed it to Bonaparte. Itself has violently fortified the imperialism of the\r\nfarmer class; it firmly maintained the conditions that Constitute the\r\nbirth-place of this farmer-religion. Indeed, the bourgeoisie has every reason\r\nto fear the stupidity of the masses\u0026mdash;so long as they remain conservative;\r\nand their intelligence\u0026mdash;so soon as they become revolutionary.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn the revolts that took place after the \u0026ldquo;coup d\u0026rsquo;etat\u0026rdquo; a part\r\nof the French farmers protested, arms in hand, against their own vote of\r\nDecember 10, 1848. The school house had, since 1848, sharpened their wits. But\r\nthey had bound themselves over to the nether world of history, and history kept\r\nthem to their word. Moreover, the majority of this population was still so full\r\nof prejudices that, just in the \u0026ldquo;reddest\u0026rdquo; Departments, it voted\r\nopenly for Bonaparte. The National Assembly prevented, as it thought, this\r\npopulation from walking; the farmers now snapped the fetters which the cities\r\nhad struck upon the will of the country districts. In some places they even\r\nindulged the grotesque hallucination of a \u0026ldquo;Convention together with a\r\nNapoleon.\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAfter the first revolution had converted the serf farmers into freeholders,\r\nNapoleon fixed and regulated the conditions under which, unmolested, they could\r\nexploit the soil of France, that had just fallen into their hands, and expiate\r\nthe youthful passion for property. But that which now bears the French farmer\r\ndown is that very allotment of land, it is the partition of the soil, the form\r\nof ownership, which Napoleon had consolidated. These are the material condition\r\nthat turned French feudal peasant into a small or allotment farmer, and\r\nNapoleon into an Emperor. Two generations have sufficed to produce the\r\ninevitable result the progressive deterioration of agriculture, and the\r\nprogressive encumbering of the agriculturist The \u0026ldquo;Napoleonic\u0026rdquo; form\r\nof ownership, which, at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the\r\ncondition for the emancipation and enrichment of the French rural population,\r\nhas, in the course of the century, developed into the law of their enslavement\r\nand pauperism. Now, then, this very law is the first of the \u0026ldquo;idees\r\nNapoleoniennes,\u0026rdquo; which the second Bonaparte must uphold. If he still\r\nshares with the farmers the illusion of seeking, not in the system of the small\r\nallotment itself, but outside of that system, in the influence of secondary\r\nconditions, the cause of their ruin, his experiments are bound to burst like\r\nsoap-bubbles against the modern system of production.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe economic development of the allotment system has turned bottom upward the\r\nrelation of the farmer to the other classes of society. Under Napoleon, the\r\nparceling out of the agricultural lands into small allotments supplemented in\r\nthe country the free competition and the incipient large production of the\r\ncities. The farmer class was the ubiquitous protest against the aristocracy of\r\nland, just then overthrown. The roots that the system of small allotments cast\r\ninto the soil of France, deprived feudalism of all nutriment. Its\r\nboundary-posts constituted the natural buttress of the bourgeoisie against\r\nevery stroke of the old overlords. But in the course of the nineteenth century,\r\nthe City Usurer stepped into the shoes of the Feudal Lord, the Mortgage\r\nsubstituted the Feudal Duties formerly yielded by the soil, bourgeois Capital\r\ntook the place of the aristocracy of Landed Property. The former allotments are\r\nnow only a pretext that allows the capitalist class to draw profit, interest\r\nand rent from agricultural lands, and to leave to the farmer himself the task\r\nof seeing to it that he knock out his wages. The mortgage indebtedness that\r\nburdens the soil of France imposes upon the French farmer class they payment of\r\nan interest as great as the annual interest on the whole British national debt.\r\nIn this slavery of capital, whither its development drives it irresistibly, the\r\nallotment system has transformed the mass of the French nation into\r\ntroglodytes. Sixteen million farmers (women and children included), house in\r\nhovels most of which have only one opening, some two, and the few most favored\r\nones three. Windows are to a house what the five senses are to the head. The\r\nbourgeois social order, which, at the beginning of the century, placed the\r\nState as a sentinel before the newly instituted allotment, and that manured\r\nthis with laurels, has become a vampire that sucks out its heart-blood and its\r\nvery brain, and throws it into the alchemist\u0026rsquo;s pot of capital. The\r\n\u0026ldquo;Code Napoleon\u0026rdquo; is now but the codex of execution, of\r\nsheriff\u0026rsquo;s sales and of intensified taxation. To the four million\r\n(children, etc., included) official paupers, vagabonds, criminals and\r\nprostitutes, that France numbers, must be added five million souls who hover\r\nover the precipice of life, and either sojourn in the country itself, or float\r\nwith their rags and their children from the country to the cities, and from the\r\ncities back to the country. Accordingly, the interests of the farmers are no\r\nlonger, as under Napoleon, in harmony but in conflict with the interests of the\r\nbourgeoisie, i.e., with capital; they find their natural allies and leaders\r\namong the urban proletariat, whose mission is the overthrow of the bourgeois\r\nsocial order. But the \u0026ldquo;strong and unlimited government\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;and\r\nthis is the second of the \u0026ldquo;idees Napoleoniennes,\u0026rdquo; which the second\r\nNapoleon has to carried out\u0026mdash;, has for its mission the forcible defence of\r\nthis very \u0026ldquo;material\u0026rdquo; social order, a \u0026ldquo;material order\u0026rdquo;\r\nthat furnishes the slogan in Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s proclamations against the\r\nfarmers in revolt.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAlong with the mortgage, imposed by capital upon the farmer\u0026rsquo;s allotment,\r\nthis is burdened by taxation. Taxation is the fountain of life to the\r\nbureaucracy, the Army, the parsons and the court, in short to the whole\r\napparatus of the Executive power. A strong government, and heavy taxes are\r\nidentical. The system of ownership, involved in the system of allotments lends\r\nitself by nature for the groundwork of a powerful and numerous bureaucracy: it\r\nproduces an even level of conditions and of persons over the whole surface of\r\nthe country; it, therefore, allows the exercise of an even influence upon all\r\nparts of this even mass from a high central point downwards: it annihilates the\r\naristocratic gradations between the popular masses and the Government; it,\r\nconsequently, calls from all sides for the direct intervention of the\r\nGovernment and for the intervention of the latter\u0026rsquo;s immediate organs;\r\nand, finally, it produces an unemployed excess of population, that finds no\r\nroom either in the country or in the cities, that, consequently, snatches after\r\npublic office as a sort of dignified alms, and provokes the creation of further\r\noffices. With the new markets, which he opened at the point of the bayonet, and\r\nwith the plunder of the continent, Napoleon returned to the farmer class with\r\ninterest the taxes wrung from them. These taxes were then a goad to the\r\nindustry of the farmer, while now, on the contrary, they rob his industry of\r\nits last source of support, and completely sap his power to resist poverty.\r\nIndeed, an enormous bureaucracy, richly gallooned and well fed is that\r\n\u0026ldquo;idee Napoleonienne\u0026rdquo; that above all others suits the requirements\r\nof the second Bonaparte. How else should it be, seeing he is forced to raise\r\nalongside of the actual classes of society, an artificial class, to which the\r\nmaintenance of his own regime must be a knife-and-fork question? One of his\r\nfirst financial operations was, accordingly, the raising of the salaries of the\r\ngovernment employees to their former standard and the creation of new\r\nsinecures.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnother \u0026ldquo;idee Napoleonienne\u0026rdquo; is the rule of the parsons as an\r\ninstrument of government. But while the new-born allotment, in harmony with\r\nsociety, in its dependence upon the powers of nature, and in its subordination\r\nto the authority that protected it from above, was naturally religious, the\r\ndebt-broken allotment, on the contrary, at odds with society and authority, and\r\ndriven beyond its own narrow bounds, becomes as naturally irreligious. Heaven\r\nwas quite a pretty gift thrown in with the narrow strip of land that had just\r\nbeen won, all the more as it makes the weather; it, however, becomes an insult\r\nfrom the moment it is forced upon the farmer as a substitute for his allotment.\r\nThen the parson appears merely as the anointed blood-hound of the earthly\r\npolice,\u0026mdash;yet another \u0026ldquo;idee Napoleonienne.\u0026rdquo; The expedition\r\nagainst Rome will next time take place in France, but in a reverse sense from\r\nthat of M. de Montalembert.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFinally, the culminating point of the \u0026ldquo;idees Napoleoniennes\u0026rdquo; is the\r\npreponderance of the Army. The Army was the \u0026ldquo;point of honor\u0026rdquo; with\r\nthe allotment farmers: it was themselves turned into masters, defending abroad\r\ntheir newly established property, glorifying their recently conquered\r\nnationality, plundering and revolutionizing the world. The uniform was their\r\nState costume; war was their poetry; the allotment, expanded and rounded up in\r\ntheir phantasy, was the fatherland; and patriotism became the ideal form of\r\nproperty. But the foe, against whom the French farmer must now defend his\r\nproperty, are not the Cossacks, they are the sheriffs and the tax collectors.\r\nThe allotment no longer lies in the so-called fatherland, but in the register\r\nof mortgages. The Army itself no longer is the flower of the youth of the\r\nfarmers, it is the swamp-blossom of the slum-proletariat of the farmer class.\r\nIt consists of \u0026ldquo;remplacants,\u0026rdquo; substitutes, just as the second\r\nBonaparte himself is but a \u0026ldquo;remplacant,\u0026rdquo; a substitute, for\r\nNapoleon. Its feats of heroism are now performed in raids instituted against\r\nfarmers and in the service of the police;\u0026mdash;and when the internal\r\ncontradictions of his own system shall drive the chief of the \u0026ldquo;Society of\r\nDecember 10\u0026rdquo; across the French frontier, that Army will, after a few\r\nbandit-raids, gather no laurels but only hard knocks.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIt is evident that all the \u0026ldquo;idees Napoleoniennes\u0026rdquo; are the ideas of\r\nthe undeveloped and youthfully fresh allotment; they are an absurdity for the\r\nallotment that now survives. They are only the hallucinations of its death\r\nstruggle; words turned to hollow phrases, spirits turned to spooks. But this\r\nparody of the Empire was requisite in order to free the mass of the French\r\nnation from the weight of tradition, and to elaborate sharply the contrast\r\nbetween Government and Society. Along with the progressive decay of the\r\nallotment, the governmental structure, reared upon it, breaks down. The\r\ncentralization of Government, required by modern society, rises only upon the\r\nruins of the military and bureaucratic governmental machinery that was forged\r\nin contrast to feudalism.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe conditions of the French farmers\u0026rsquo; class solve to us the riddle of the\r\ngeneral elections of December 20 and 21, that led the second Bonaparte to the\r\ntop of Sinai, not to receive, but to decree laws.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe bourgeoisie had now, manifestly, no choice but to elect Bonaparte. When at\r\nthe Council of Constance, the puritans complained of the sinful life of the\r\nPopes, and moaned about the need of a reform in morals, Cardinal d\u0026rsquo;Ailly\r\nthundered into their faces: \u0026ldquo;Only the devil in his Own person can now\r\nsave the Catholic Church, and you demand angels.\u0026rdquo; So, likewise, did the\r\nFrench bourgeoisie cry out after the \u0026ldquo;coup d\u0026rsquo;etat\u0026rdquo;:\r\n\u0026ldquo;Only the chief of the \u0026lsquo;Society of December 10\u0026rsquo; can now save\r\nbourgeois society, only theft can save property, only perjury religion, only\r\nbastardy the family, only disorder order!\u0026rdquo;\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBonaparte, as autocratic Executive power, fulfills his mission to secure\r\n\u0026ldquo;bourgeois order.\u0026rdquo; But the strength of this bourgeois order lies in\r\nthe middle class. He feels himself the representative of the middle class, and\r\nissues his decrees in that sense. Nevertheless, he is something only because he\r\nhas broken the political power of this class, and daily breaks it anew. Hence\r\nhe feels himself the adversary of the political and the literary power of the\r\nmiddle class. But, by protecting their material, he nourishes anew their\r\npolitical power. Consequently, the cause must be kept alive, but the result,\r\nwherever it manifests itself, swept out of existence. But this procedure is\r\nimpossible without slight mistakings of causes and effects, seeing that both,\r\nin their mutual action and reaction, lose their distinctive marks. Thereupon,\r\nnew decrees, that blur the line of distinction. Bonaparte, furthermore, feels\r\nhimself, as against the bourgeoisie, the representative of the farmer and the\r\npeople in general, who, within bourgeois society, is to render the lower\r\nclasses of society happy. To this end, new decrees, intended to exploit the\r\n\u0026ldquo;true Socialists,\u0026rdquo; together with their governmental wisdom. But,\r\nabove all, Bonaparte feels himself the chief of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December\r\n10,\u0026rdquo; the representative of the slum-proletariat, to which he himself, his\r\nimmediate surroundings, his Government, and his army alike belong, the main\r\nobject with all of whom is to be good to themselves, and draw Californian\r\ntickets out of the national treasury. An he affirms his chieftainship of the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Society of December 10\u0026rdquo; with decrees, without decrees, and despite\r\ndecrees.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThis contradictory mission of the man explains the contradictions of his own\r\nGovernment, and that confused groping about, that now seeks to win, then to\r\nhumiliate now this class and then that, and finishes by arraying against itself\r\nall the classes; whose actual insecurity constitutes a highly comical contrast\r\nwith the imperious, categoric style of the Government acts, copied closely from\r\nthe Uncle.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIndustry and commerce, i.e., the business of the middle class, are to be made\r\nto blossom in hot-house style under the \u0026ldquo;strong Government.\u0026rdquo; Loans\r\nfor a number of railroad grants. But the Bonapartist slum-proletariat is to\r\nenrich itself. Peculation is carried on with railroad concessions on the Bourse\r\nby the initiated; but no capital is forthcoming for the railroads. The bank\r\nthen pledges itself to make advances upon railroad stock; but the bank is\r\nitself to be exploited; hence, it must be cajoled; it is released of the\r\nobligation to publish its reports weekly. Then follows a leonine treaty between\r\nthe bank and the Government. The people are to be occupied: public works are\r\nordered; but the public works raise the tax rates upon the people; thereupon\r\nthe taxes are reduced by an attack upon the national bond-holders through the\r\nconversion of the five per cent \u0026ldquo;rentes\u0026rdquo; [#9 The name of the French\r\nnational bonds.] into four-and-halves. Yet the middle class must again be\r\ntipped: to this end, the tax on wine is doubled for the people, who buy it at\r\nretail, and is reduced to one-half for the middle class, that drink it at\r\nwholesale. Genuine labor organizations are dissolved, but promises are made of\r\nfuture wonders to accrue from organization. The farmers are to be helped:\r\nmortgage-banks are set up that must promote the indebtedness; of the farmer and\r\nthe concentration of property but again, these banks are to be utilized\r\nespecially to the end of squeezing money out of the confiscated estates of the\r\nHouse of Orleans; no capitalist will listen to this scheme, which, moreover, is\r\nnot mentioned in the decree; the mortgage bank remains a mere decree, etc.,\r\netc.\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBonaparte would like to appear as the patriarchal benefactor of all classes;\r\nbut he can give to none without taking from the others. As was said of the Duke\r\nof Guise, at the time of the Fronde, that he was the most obliging man in\r\nFrance because he had converted all his estates into bonds upon himself for his\r\nParisians, so would Napoleon like to be the most obliging man in France and\r\nconvert all property and all labor of France into a personal bond upon himself.\r\nHe would like to steal the whole of France to make a present thereof to France,\r\nor rather to be able to purchase France back again with French money;\u0026mdash;as\r\nchief of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December 10,\u0026rdquo; he must purchase that which\r\nis to be his. All the State institutions, the Senate, the Council of State, the\r\nLegislature, the Legion of Honor, the Soldiers\u0026rsquo; decorations, the public\r\nbaths, the public buildings, the railroads, the General Staff of the National\r\nGuard, exclusive of the rank and file, the confiscated estates of the House of\r\nOrleans,\u0026mdash;all are converted into institutions for purchase and sale. Every\r\nplace in the Army and the machinery of Government becomes a purchasing power.\r\nThe most important thing, however, in this process, whereby France is taken to\r\nbe given back to herself, are the percentages that, in the transfer, drop into\r\nthe hands of the chief and the members of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December\r\n10.\u0026rdquo; The witticisms with which the Countess of L., the mistress of de\r\nMorny, characterized the confiscations of the Orleanist estates:\r\n\u0026ldquo;C\u0026rsquo;est le premier vol de l\u0026rsquo;aigle,\u0026rdquo; [#10 \u0026ldquo;It is\r\nthe first flight of the eagle\u0026rdquo; The French word \u0026ldquo;vol\u0026rdquo; means\r\ntheft as well as flight.] fits every fight of the eagle that is rather a crow.\r\nHe himself and his followers daily call out to themselves, like the Italian\r\nCarthusian monk in the legend does to the miser, who displayfully counted the\r\ngoods on which he could live for many years to come: \u0026ldquo;Tu fai conto sopra\r\ni beni, bisogna prima far il conto sopra gli anni.\u0026rdquo; [#11 \u0026ldquo;You count\r\nyour property you should rather count the years left to you.\u0026rdquo;] In order\r\nnot to make a mistake in the years, they count by minutes. A crowd of fellows,\r\nof the best among whom all that can be said is that one knows not whence he\r\ncomes\u0026mdash;a noisy, restless \u0026ldquo;Boheme,\u0026rdquo; greedy after plunder, that\r\ncrawls about in gallooned frocks with the same grotesque dignity as\r\nSoulonque\u0026rsquo;s [#12 Soulonque was the negro Emperor of the short-lived negro\r\nEmpire of Hayti.] Imperial dignitaries\u0026mdash;, thronged the court crowded the\r\nministries, and pressed upon the head of the Government and of the Army. One\r\ncan picture to himself this upper crust of the \u0026ldquo;Society of December\r\n10\u0026rdquo; by considering that Veron Crevel [#13 Crevel is a character of\r\nBalzac, drawn after Dr. Veron, the proprietor of the\r\n\u0026ldquo;Constitutional\u0026rdquo; newspaper, as a type of the dissolute Parisian\r\nPhilistine.] is their preacher of morality, and Granier de Cassagnac their\r\nthinker. When Guizot, at the time he was Minister, employed this Granier on an\r\nobscure sheet against the dynastic opposition, he used to praise him with the\r\nterm: \u0026ldquo;C\u0026rsquo;est le roi des droles.\u0026rdquo; [#14 \u0026ldquo;He Is the king\r\nof the clowns.\u0026rdquo;] It were a mistake to recall the days of the Regency or\r\nof Louis XV. by the court and the kit of Louis Bonaparte\u0026rsquo;s: \u0026ldquo;Often\r\ndid France have a mistress-administration, but never yet an administration of\r\nkept men.\u0026rdquo; [#15 Madame de Girardin.]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nHarassed by the contradictory demands of his situation, and compelled, like a\r\nsleight-of-hands performer, to keep, by means of constant surprises, the eyes\r\nof the public riveted upon himself as the substitute of Napoleon, compelled,\r\nconsequently, everyday to accomplish a sort of \u0026ldquo;coup\u0026rdquo; on a small\r\nscale, Bonaparte throws the whole bourgeois social system into disorder; he\r\nbroaches everything that seemed unbroachable by the revolution of 1848; he\r\nmakes one set people patient under the revolution and another anxious for it;\r\nhe produces anarchy itself in the name of order by rubbing off from the whole\r\nmachinery of Government the veneer of sanctity, by profaning it, by rendering\r\nit at once nauseating and laughable. He rehearses in Paris the cult of the\r\nsacred coat of Trier with the cult of the Napoleonic Imperial mantle. But when\r\nthe Imperial Mantle shall have finally fallen upon the shoulders of Louis\r\nBonaparte, then will also the iron statue of Napoleon drop down from the top of\r\nthe Vendome column. [#16 A prophecy that a few years later, after\r\nBonaparte\u0026rsquo;s coronation as Emperor, was literally fulfilled. By order of\r\nEmperor Louis Napoleon, the military statue of the Napoleon that originally\r\nsurmounted the Vendome was taken down and replaced by one of first Napoleon in\r\nimperial robes.]\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c/div\u003e\u003c!–end chapter–\u003e\r\n\u003c/article\u003e"}],"SectionSequence":["Back Link","Work Title","Deck","Author","Period","Era","Composition","Date Note","Region","Terra Avita","Terra Avita Region","Modern Country","Original Title","Language","Primary Discipline","Secondary Discipline","Tradition","Full Versions","Core Thesis","Classification","Arguments","Influence","Significance","Evidence Note","Full Text"],"Counts":{"ContextCards":3,"GeoCards":4,"DisciplineCards":2,"Links":11,"Sections":25,"Styles":3,"Scripts":1}}