So that, when an orator of the Left exclaimed, for instance: "_We rush for the suppression of war, and the abolition of the death penalty_," a crowd of poor souls on the Right distinctly understood: "_We wish to put everything to fire and sword_;" and in a fury shook their fists at the orator.

After such speeches, in which there had been a question only of liberty, of universal peace, of prosperity arising from labour, of concord, and of progress, the representatives of that category which we have designated at the head of this paragraph, were seen to rise, pale as death; they were not sure that they were not already guillotined, and went to look for their hats to see whether they still had heads.
These poor frightened creatures did not haggle over their adhesion to the 2nd of December.

The expression, "Louis Napoleon has saved society," was invented especially for them.
And those eternal prefects, those eternal mayors, those eternal magistrates, those eternal sheriffs, those eternal complimenters of the rising sun, or of the lighted lamp, who, on the day after success, flock to the conqueror, to the triumpher, to the master, to his Majesty Napoleon the Great, to his Majesty Louis XVIII, to his Majesty Alexander I, to his Majesty Charles X, to his Majesty Louis Philippe, to Citizen Lamartine, to Citizen Cavaignac, to Monseigneur the Prince-President, kneeling, smiling, expansive, bearing upon salvers the keys of their towns, and on their faces the keys of their consciences! But imbeciles ('tis an old story) have always made a part of all institutions, and are almost an institution of themselves; and as for the prefects and magistrates, as for these adorers of every new regime, insolent with, fortune and rapidity, they abound at all times.

Let us do justice to the regime of December; it can boast not only of such partisans as these, but it has creatures and adherents peculiar to itself; it has produced an altogether new race of notabilities.
Nations are never conscious of all the riches they possess in the matter of knaves.

Overturnings and subversions of this description are necessary to bring them to light.