BOOK VI.
THE ABSOLUTION:--FIRST PHASE: THE 7,500,000 VOTES I THE ABSOLUTION Some one says to us: "You do not consider! All these facts, which you call crimes, are henceforth 'accomplished facts,' and consequently to be respected; it is all accepted, adopted, legitimized, absolved." "Accepted! adopted! legitimized! absolved! by what ?" "By a vote." "What vote ?" "The seven million five hundred thousand votes." "Oh! true.

There was a plebiscite, and a vote, and seven million five hundred thousand ayes.

Let us say a word of them." II THE DILIGENCE A brigand stops a diligence in the woods.
He is at the head of a resolute band.
The travellers are more numerous, but they are separated, disunited, cooped up in the different compartments, half asleep, surprised in the middle of the night, seized unexpectedly and without arms.
The brigand orders them to alight, not to utter a cry, not to speak a word, and to lie down with their faces to the ground.
Some resist: he blows out their brains.
The rest obey, and lie on the road, speechless, motionless, terrified, mixed up with the dead bodies, and half dead themselves.
The brigand, while his accomplices keep their feet on the ribs of the travellers, and their pistols at their heads, rifles their pockets, forces open their trunks, and takes all the valuables they possess.
The pockets rifled, the trunks pillaged, the _coup d'etat_ completed, he says to them:-- "Now, in order to set myself right with justice, I have written down on paper a declaration, that you acknowledge that all I have taken belonged to me, and that you give it to me of your own free will.

I propose that this shall be your view of the matter.

Each of you will have a pen given you, and without uttering a syllable, without making the slightest movement, without quitting your present attitude" (belly on ground, and face in the mud) "you will put out your arms, and you will all sign this paper.