At present, history, bow thy head, the whole universe is looking at the Elysee! That species of bastard door, guarded by two sentry-boxes painted on canvas, at the extremity of Faubourg Saint-Honore, that is the spot towards which the eyes of the civilized world are now turned with a sort of profound anxiety! Ah! what sort of place is that, whence no idea has issued that has not been a plot, no action that has not been a crime?
What sort of place is that wherein reside all kinds of cynicism and all kinds of hypocrisy?
What sort of place is that where bishops elbow Jeanne Poisson on the staircase, and, as a hundred years ago, bow to the ground before her; where Samuel Bernard laughs in a corner with Laubardemont; which Escobar enters, arm-in-arm with Guzman d'Alfarache; where (frightful rumour), in a thicket in the garden, they despatch, it is said, with the bayonet men whom they dare not bring to trial; where one hears a man say to a woman who is weeping and interceding: "I overlook your love-affairs, you must overlook my hatreds!" What sort of place is that where the orgies of 1852 intrude upon and dishonour the mourning of 1815! where Caesarion, with his arms crossed, or his hands behind his back, walks under those very trees, and in those very avenues still haunted by the indignant phantom of Caesar?
That place is the blot upon Paris; that place is the pollution of the age; that door, whence issue all sorts of joyous sounds, flourishes of trumpets, music, laughter, and the jingling of glasses; that door, saluted during the day by the passing battalions; illuminated at night; thrown wide open with insolent confidence,--is a sort of public insult always present.

There is the centre of the world's shame.
Alas! of what is France thinking?
Of a surety, we must awake this slumbering nation, we must take it by the arm, we must shake it, we must speak to it; we must scour the fields, enter the villages, go into the barracks, speak to the soldier who no longer knows what he is doing, speak to the labourer who has in his cabin an engraving of the Emperor, and who, for that reason, votes for everything they ask; we must remove the radiant phantom that dazzles their eyes; this whole situation is nothing but a huge and deadly joke.

We must expose this joke, probe it to the bottom, disabuse the people,--the country people above all,--excite them, agitate them, stir them up, show them the empty houses, the yawning graves, and make them touch with their finger the horror of this regime.

The people are good and honest; they will comprehend.

Yes, peasant, there are two, the great and the little, the illustrious and the infamous,--Napoleon and Naboleon! Let us sum up this government! Who is at the Elysee and the Tuileries?
Crime.