The story is told, that a citizen of Paris in the seventeenth century having heard it said that in Venice there was no king, the good man could not recover from his astonishment, and nearly died from laughter at the mere mention of so ridiculous a thing.

So strong is our prejudice.

As long as we live, we want a chief or chiefs; and at this very moment I hold in my hand a brochure, whose author--a zealous communist--dreams, like a second Marat, of the dictatorship.

The most advanced among us are those who wish the greatest possible number of sovereigns,--their most ardent wish is for the royalty of the National Guard.

Soon, undoubtedly, some one, jealous of the citizen militia, will say, "Everybody is king." But, when he has spoken, I will say, in my turn, "Nobody is king; we are, whether we will or no, associated." Every question of domestic politics must be decided by departmental statistics; every question of foreign politics is an affair of international statistics.