It is calculated that this subscription will amount to upwards of 6,000 francs." That which he attacks, that which he persecutes, that which they all persecute with him, upon which they pounce, which they wish to crush, to burn, to suppress, to destroy, to annihilate, is it this poor obscure man who is called primary instructor?
Is it this sheet of paper that is called a journal?
Is it this bundle of sheets which is called a book?
Is it this machine of wood and iron which is called a press?
No, it is thou, thought, it is thou, human reason, it is thou, nineteenth century, it is thou, Providence, it is thou, God! We who combat them are "the eternal enemies of order." We are--for they can as yet find nothing but this worn-out word--we are demagogues.
In the language of the Duke of Alva, to believe in the sacredness of the human conscience, to resist the Inquisition, to brave the state for one's faith, to draw the sword for one's country, to defend one's worship, one's city, one's home, one's house, one's family, and one's God, was called _vagabondism_; in the language of Louis Bonaparte, to struggle for freedom, for justice, for the right, to fight in the cause of progress, of civilisation, of France, of mankind, to wish for the abolition of war, and of the penalty of death, to take _au serieux_ the fraternity of men, to believe in a plighted oath, to take up arms for the constitution of one's country, to defend the laws,--this is called _demagogy_.
The man is a demagogue in the nineteenth century, who in the sixteenth would have been a vagabond.
This much being granted, that the dictionary of the Academy no longer exists, that it is night at noonday, that a cat is no longer called cat, and that Baroche is no longer called a knave; that justice is a chimera, that history is a dream, that the Prince of Orange was a vagabond, and the Duke of Alva a just man; that Louis Bonaparte is identical with Napoleon the Great, that they who have violated the Constitution are saviours, and that they who defended it are brigands,--in a word that human probity is dead: very good! in that case I admire this government It works well.

It is a model of its species.

It compresses, it represses, it oppresses, it imprisons, it exiles, it shoots down with grape-shot, it exterminates, and it even "pardons!" It exercises authority with cannon-balls, and clemency with the flat of the sabre.
"At your pleasure," repeat some worthy incorrigibles of the former party of order, "be indignant, rail, stigmatize, disavow,--'tis all the same to us; long live stability! All these things put together constitute, after all, a stable government." Stable! We have already expressed ourselves on the subject of this stability.
Stability! I admire such stability.

If it rained newspapers in France for two days only, on the morning of the third nobody would know what had become of M.Louis Bonaparte.
No matter; this man is a burden upon the whole age, he disfigures the nineteenth century, and there will be in this century, perhaps, two or three years upon which it will be recognised, by some shameful mark or other, that Louis Bonaparte sat down upon them.
This person, we grieve to say it, is now the question that occupies all mankind.
At certain epochs in history, the whole human race, from all points of the earth, fix their eyes upon some mysterious spot whence it seems that universal destiny is about to issue.

There have been hours when the world has looked towards the Vatican: Gregory VII and Leo X occupied the pontifical throne; other hours, when it has contemplated the Louvre; Philip Augustus, Louis IX, Francois I, and Henri IV were there; the Escorial, Saint-Just: Charles V dreamed there; Windsor: Elizabeth the Great reigned there; Versailles: Louis XIV shone there surrounded by stars; the Kremlin: one caught a glimpse there of Peter the Great; Potsdam: Frederick II was closeted there with Voltaire.