THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE OF LOUIS BONAPARTE

by Karl Marx

Translator's Preface

"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" is one of Karl Marx' mostprofound and most brilliant monographs. It may be considered the bestwork extant on the philosophy of history, with an eye especially uponthe history of the Movement of the Proletariat, together with thebourgeois and other manifestations that accompany the same, and thetactics that such conditions dictate. 

The recent populist uprising; the more recent "Debs Movement"; thethousand and one utopian and chimerical notions that are flaring up; thecapitalist maneuvers; the hopeless, helpless grasping after straws, thatcharacterize the conduct of the bulk of the working class; all of these, together with the empty-headed, ominous figures that are springing intonotoriety for a time and have their day, mark the present period ofthe Labor Movement in the nation a critical one. The best informationacquirable, the best mental training obtainable are requisite to steerthrough the existing chaos that the death-tainted social system of todaycreates all around us. To aid in this needed information and mentaltraining, this instructive work is now made accessible to Englishreaders, and is commended to the serious study of the serious. 

The teachings contained in this work are hung on an episode in recentFrench history. With some this fact may detract of its value. Apedantic, supercilious notion is extensively abroad among us that weare an "Anglo Saxon" nation; and an equally pedantic, supercilioushabit causes many to look to England for inspiration, as from a racialbirthplace Nevertheless, for weal or for woe, there is no such thingextant as "Anglo-Saxon"--of all nations, said to be "Anglo-Saxon, "in the United States least. What we still have from England, muchas appearances may seem to point the other way, is not of ourbone-and-marrow, so to speak, but rather partakes of the nature of"importations. " We are no more English on account of them than we areChinese because we all drink tea. 

Of all European nations, France is the on to which we come nearest. Besides its republican form of government--the directness of itshistory, the unity of its actions, the sharpness that marks its internaldevelopment, are all characteristics that find their parallel her best, and vice versa. In all essentials the study of modern French history, particularly when sketched by such a master hand as Marx', is the mostvaluable one for the acquisition of that historic, social and biologicinsight that our country stands particularly in need of, and that willbe inestimable during the approaching critical days. 

For the assistance of those who, unfamiliar with the history of France, may be confused by some of the terms used by Marx, the followingexplanations may prove aidful:

On the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9th), the post-revolutionary development ofaffairs in France enabled the first Napoleon to take a step that ledwith inevitable certainty to the imperial throne. The circumstancethat fifty and odd years later similar events aided his nephew, LouisBonaparte, to take a similar step with a similar result, gives the nameto this work--"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. "

As to the other terms and allusions that occur, the following sketchwill suffice:

Upon the overthrow of the first Napoleon came the restoration of theBourbon throne (Louis XVIII, succeeded by Charles X). In July, 1830, anuprising of the upper tier of the bourgeoisie, or capitalist class--thearistocracy of finance--overthrew the Bourbon throne, or landedaristocracy, and set up the throne of Orleans, a younger branch of thehouse of Bourbon, with Louis Philippe as king. From the month in whichthis revolution occurred, Louis Philippe's monarchy is called the "JulyMonarchy. " In February, 1848, a revolt of a lower tier of the capitalistclass--the industrial bourgeoisie--against the aristocracy of finance, in turn dethroned Louis Philippe. The affair, also named from the monthin which it took place, is the "February Revolution". "The EighteenthBrumaire" starts with that event. 

Despite the inapplicableness to our affairs of the political names andpolitical leadership herein described, both these names and leadershipsare to such an extent the products of an economic-social developmentthat has here too taken place with even greater sharpens, and they havetheir present or threatened counterparts here so completely, that, bythe light of this work of Marx', we are best enabled to understand ourown history, to know whence we came, and whither we are going and how toconduct ourselves. 

D. D. L. New York, Sept. 12, 1897

THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE OF LOUIS BONAPARTE

I

Hegel says somewhere that that great historic facts and personagesrecur twice. He forgot to add: "Once as tragedy, and again as farce. "Caussidiere for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the "Mountain" of1848-51 for the "Mountain" of 1793-05, the Nephew for the Uncle. Theidentical caricature marks also the conditions under which the secondedition of the eighteenth Brumaire is issued. 

Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the wholecloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but outof such as he finds close at hand. The tradition of all past generationsweighs like an alp upon the brain of the living. At the very time whenmen appear engaged in revolutionizing things and themselves, in bringingabout what never was before, at such very epochs of revolutionary crisisdo they anxiously conjure up into their service the spirits of the past, assume their names, their battle cries, their costumes to enact a newhistoric scene in such time-honored disguise and with such borrowedlanguage Thus did Luther masquerade as the Apostle Paul; thus did therevolution of 1789-1814 drape itself alternately as Roman Republic andas Roman Empire; nor did the revolution of 1818 know what better to dothan to parody at one time the year 1789, at another the revolutionarytraditions of 1793-95 Thus does the beginner, who has acquired a newlanguage, keep on translating it back into his own mother tongue; onlythen has he grasped the spirit of the new language and is able freely toexpress himself therewith when he moves in it without recollections ofthe old, and has forgotten in its use his own hereditary tongue. 

When these historic configurations of the dead past are closely observeda striking difference is forthwith noticeable. Camille Desmoulins, Danton, Robespierre, St. Juste, Napoleon, the heroes as well as theparties and the masses of the old French revolution, achieved in Romancostumes and with Roman phrases the task of their time: the emancipationand the establishment of modern bourgeois society. One set knocked topieces the old feudal groundwork and mowed down the feudal heads thathad grown upon it; Napoleon brought about, within France, the conditionsunder which alone free competition could develop, the partitioned landsbe exploited the nation's unshackled powers of industrial production beutilized; while, beyond the French frontier, he swept away everywherethe establishments of feudality, so far as requisite, to furnish thebourgeois social system of France with fit surroundings of the Europeancontinent, and such as were in keeping with the times. Once the newsocial establishment was set on foot, the antediluvian giants vanished, and, along with them, the resuscitated Roman world--the Brutuses, Gracchi, Publicolas, the Tribunes, the Senators, and Caesar himself. In its sober reality, bourgeois society had produced its own trueinterpretation in the Says, Cousins, Royer-Collards, Benjamin Constantsand Guizots; its real generals sat behind the office desks; and themutton-head of Louis XVIII was its political lead. Wholly absorbed inthe production of wealth and in the peaceful fight of competition, thissociety could no longer understand that the ghosts of the days of Romehad watched over its cradle. And yet, lacking in heroism as bourgeoissociety is, it nevertheless had stood in need of heroism, ofself-sacrifice, of terror, of civil war, and of bloody battle fieldsto bring it into the world. Its gladiators found in the sternclassic traditions of the Roman republic the ideals and the form, theself-deceptions, that they needed in order to conceal from themselvesthe narrow bourgeois substance of their own struggles, and to keep theirpassion up to the height of a great historic tragedy. Thus, at anotherstage of development a century before, did Cromwell and the Englishpeople draw from the Old Testament the language, passions and illusionsfor their own bourgeois revolution. When the real goal was reached, whenthe remodeling of English society was accomplished, Locke supplantedHabakuk. 

Accordingly, the reviving of the dead in those revolutions served thepurpose of glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; itserved the purpose of exaggerating to the imagination the given task, not to recoil before its practical solution; it served the purpose ofrekindling the revolutionary spirit, not to trot out its ghost. 

In 1848-51 only the ghost of the old revolution wandered about, from Marrast the "Republicain en gaunts jaunes, " [#1 Silk-stockingrepublican] who disguised himself in old Bailly, down to the adventurer, who hid his repulsively trivial features under the iron death maskof Napoleon. A whole people, that imagines it has imparted to itselfaccelerated powers of motion through a revolution, suddenly findsitself transferred back to a dead epoch, and, lest there be any mistakepossible on this head, the old dates turn up again; the old calendars;the old names; the old edicts, which long since had sunk to the level ofthe antiquarian's learning; even the old bailiffs, who had long seemedmouldering with decay. The nation takes on the appearance of that crazyEnglishman in Bedlam, who imagines he is living in the days of thePharaohs, and daily laments the hard work that he must do in theEthiopian mines as gold digger, immured in a subterranean prison, with adim lamp fastened on his head, behind him the slave overseer with a longwhip, and, at the mouths of the mine a mob of barbarous camp servantswho understand neither the convicts in the mines nor one another, because they do not speak a common language. "And all this, " cries thecrazy Englishman, "is demanded of me, the free-born Englishman, in orderto make gold for old Pharaoh. " "In order to pay off the debts of theBonaparte family"--sobs the French nation. The Englishman, so long ashe was in his senses, could not rid himself of the rooted thought makinggold. The Frenchmen, so long as they were busy with a revolution, could not rid then selves of the Napoleonic memory, as the electionof December 10th proved. They longed to escape from the dangers ofrevolution back to the flesh pots of Egypt; the 2d of December, 1851 wasthe answer. They have not merely the character of the old Napoleon, but the old Napoleon himself-caricatured as he needs must appear in themiddle of the nineteenth century. 

The social revolution of the nineteenth century can not draw its poetryfrom the past, it can draw that only from the future. It cannot startupon its work before it has stricken off all superstition concerningthe past. Former revolutions require historic reminiscences in orderto intoxicate themselves with their own issues. The revolution of thenineteenth century must let the dead bury their dead in order to reachits issue. With the former, the phrase surpasses the substance; withthis one, the substance surpasses the phrase. 

The February revolution was a surprisal; old society was taken unawares;and the people proclaimed this political stroke a great historic actwhereby the new era was opened. On the 2d of December, the Februaryrevolution is jockeyed by the trick of a false player, and what is seerto be overthrown is no longer the monarchy, but the liberal concessionswhich had been wrung from it by centuries of struggles. Instead ofsociety itself having conquered a new point, only the State appears tohave returned to its oldest form, to the simply brazen rule of the swordand the club. Thus, upon the "coup de main" of February, 1848, comesthe response of the "coup de tete" December, 1851. So won, so lost. Meanwhile, the interval did not go by unutilized. During theyears 1848-1851, French society retrieved in abbreviated, becauserevolutionary, method the lessons and teachings, which--if it was to bemore than a disturbance of the surface-should have preceded the Februaryrevolution, had it developed in regular order, by rule, so to say. NowFrench society seems to have receded behind its point of departure; infact, however, it was compelled to first produce its own revolutionarypoint of departure, the situation, circumstances, conditions, underwhich alone the modern revolution is in earnest. 

Bourgeois revolutions, like those of the eighteenth century, rush onwardrapidly from success to success, their stage effects outbid one another, men and things seem to be set in flaming brilliants, ecstasy is theprevailing spirit; but they are short-lived, they reach their climaxspeedily, then society relapses into a long fit of nervous reactionbefore it learns how to appropriate the fruits of its period of feverishexcitement. Proletarian revolutions, on the contrary, such as thoseof the nineteenth century, criticize themselves constantly; constantlyinterrupt themselves in their own course; come back to what seems tohave been accomplished, in order to start over anew; scorn with cruelthoroughness the half measures, weaknesses and meannesses of their firstattempts; seem to throw down their adversary only in order to enablehim to draw fresh strength from the earth, and again, to rise up againstthem in more gigantic stature; constantly recoil in fear before theundefined monster magnitude of their own objects--until finally thatsituation is created which renders all retreat impossible, and theconditions themselves cry out:

"Hic Rhodus, hic salta!" [#2 Here is Rhodes, leap here! An allusion toAesop's Fables. ]

Every observer of average intelligence; even if he failed to follow stepby step the course of French development, must have anticipated that anunheard of fiasco was in store for the revolution. It was enough to hearthe self-satisfied yelpings of victory wherewith the Messieurs Democratsmutually congratulated one another upon the pardons of May 2d, 1852. Indeed, May 2d had become a fixed idea in their heads; it had become adogma with them--something like the day on which Christ was to reappearand the Millennium to begin had formed in the heads of the Chiliasts. Weakness had, as it ever does, taken refuge in the wonderful; itbelieved the enemy was overcome if, in its imagination, it hocus-pocusedhim away; and it lost all sense of the present in the imaginaryapotheosis of the future, that was at hand, and of the deeds, that ithad "in petto, " but which it did not yet want to bring to the scratch. The heroes, who ever seek to refute their established incompetenceby mutually bestowing their sympathy upon one another and by pullingtogether, had packed their satchels, taken their laurels in advancepayments and were just engaged in the work of getting discounted "inpartibus, " on the stock exchange, the republics for which, in thesilence of their unassuming dispositions, they had carefully organizedthe government personnel. The 2d of December struck them like abolt from a clear sky; and the 'peoples, who, in periods of timiddespondency, gladly allow their hidden fears to be drowned by theloudest screamers, will perhaps have become convinced that the days aregone by when the cackling of geese could save the Capitol. 

The constitution, the national assembly, the dynastic parties, the blueand the red republicans, the heroes from Africa, the thunder fromthe tribune, the flash-lightnings from the daily press, the wholeliterature, the political names and the intellectual celebrities, thecivil and the criminal law, the "liberte', egalite', fraternite', "together with the 2d of May 1852--all vanished like a phantasmagoriabefore the ban of one man, whom his enemies themselves do not pronouncean adept at witchcraft. Universal suffrage seems to have survived onlyfor a moment, to the end that, before the eyes of the whole world, itshould make its own testament with its own hands, and, in the name ofthe people, declare: "All that exists deserves to perish. "

It is not enough to say, as the Frenchmen do, that their nation wastaken by surprise. A nation, no more than a woman, is excused for theunguarded hour when the first adventurer who comes along can do violenceto her. The riddle is not solved by such shifts, it is only formulatedin other words. There remains to be explained how a nation of thirty-sixmillions can be surprised by three swindlers, and taken to prisonwithout resistance. 

Let us recapitulate in general outlines the phases which the Frenchrevolution of' February 24th, 1848, to December, 1851, ran through. 

Three main periods are unmistakable:

First--The February period;

Second--The period of constituting the republic, or of the constitutivenational assembly (May 4, 1848, to May 29th, 1849);

Third--The period of the constitutional republic, or of the legislativenational assembly (May 29, 1849, to December 2, 1851). 

The first period, from February 24, or the downfall of Louis Philippe, to May 4, 1848, the date of the assembling of the constitutiveassembly--the February period proper--may be designated as the prologueof the revolution. It officially expressed its' own character in this, that the government which it improvised declared itself "provisional;"and, like the government, everything that was broached, attempted, oruttered, pronounced itself provisional. Nobody and nothing dared toassume the right of permanent existence and of an actual fact. Allthe elements that had prepared or determined the revolution--dynasticopposition, republican bourgeoisie, democratic-republican small traders'class, social-democratic labor element-all found "provisionally" theirplace in the February government. 

It could not be otherwise. The February days contemplated originallya reform of the suffrage laws, whereby the area of the politicallyprivileged among the property-holding class was to be extended, whilethe exclusive rule of the aristocracy of finance was to be overthrown. When however, it came to a real conflict, when the people mounted thebarricades, when the National Guard stood passive, when the army offeredno serious resistance, and the kingdom ran away, then the republicseemed self-understood. Each party interpreted it in its own sense. Won, arms in hand, by the proletariat, they put upon it the stamp of theirown class, and proclaimed the social republic. Thus the general purposeof modern revolutions was indicated, a purpose, however, that stood inmost singular contradiction to every thing that, with the material athand, with the stage of enlightenment that the masses had reached, andunder existing circumstances and conditions, could be immediatelyused. On the other hand, the claims of all the other elements, that hadcooperated in the revolution of February, were recognized by the lion'sshare that they received in the government. Hence, in no period do wefind a more motley mixture of high-sounding phrases together withactual doubt and helplessness; of more enthusiastic reform aspirations, together with a more slavish adherence to the old routine; moreseeming harmony permeating the whole of society together with a deeperalienation of its several elements. While the Parisian proletariatwas still gloating over the sight of the great perspective that haddisclosed itself to their view, and was indulging in seriously meantdiscussions over the social problems, the old powers of society hadgroomed themselves, had gathered together, had deliberated and foundan unexpected support in the mass of the nation--the peasants and smalltraders--all of whom threw themselves on a sudden upon the politicalstage, after the barriers of the July monarchy had fallen down. 

The second period, from May 4, 1848, to the end of May, 1849, is theperiod of the constitution, of the founding of the bourgeois republicimmediately after the February days, not only was the dynasticopposition surprised by the republicans, and the republicans bythe Socialists, but all France was surprised by Paris. The nationalassembly, that met on May 4, 1848, to frame a constitution, was theoutcome of the national elections; it represented the nation. It was aliving protest against the assumption of the February days, and it wasintended to bring the results of the revolution back to the bourgeoismeasure. In vain did the proletariat of Paris, which forthwithunderstood the character of this national assembly, endeavor, a fewdays after its meeting; on May 15, to deny its existence by force, todissolve it, to disperse the organic apparition, in which the reactingspirit of the nation was threatening them, and thus reduce it back toits separate component parts. As is known, the 15th of May had no otherresult than that of removing Blanqui and his associates, i. E. The realleaders of the proletarian party, from the public scene for the wholeperiod of the cycle which we are here considering. 

Upon the bourgeois monarchy of Louis Philippe, only the bourgeoisrepublic could follow; that is to say, a limited portion of thebourgeoisie having ruled under the name of the king, now the wholebourgeoisie was to rule under the name of the people. The demands of theParisian proletariat are utopian tom-fooleries that have to be done awaywith. To this declaration of the constitutional national assembly, theParis proletariat answers with the June insurrection, the most colossalevent in the history of European civil wars. The bourgeois republicwon. On its side stood the aristocracy of finance, the industrialbourgeoisie; the middle class; the small traders' class; the army; theslums, organized as Guarde Mobile; the intellectual celebrities, theparsons' class, and the rural population. On the side of the Parisianproletariat stood none but itself. Over 3, 000 insurgents were massacred, after the victory 15, 000 were transported without trial. With thisdefeat, the proletariat steps to the background on the revolutionarystage. It always seeks to crowd forward, so soon as the movement seemsto acquire new impetus, but with ever weaker effort and ever smallerresults; So soon as any of the above lying layers of society gets intorevolutionary fermentation, it enters into alliance therewith and thusshares all the defeats which the several parties successively suffer. But these succeeding blows become ever weaker the more generally theyare distributed over the whole surface of society. The more importantleaders of the Proletariat, in its councils, and the press, fall oneafter another victims of the courts, and ever more questionablefigures step to the front. It partly throws itself it upon doctrinaireexperiments, "co-operative banking" and "labor exchange" schemes; inother words, movements, in which it goes into movements in which itgives up the task of revolutionizing the old world with its own largecollective weapons and on the contrary, seeks to bring about itsemancipation, behind the back of society, in private ways, within thenarrow bounds of its own class conditions, and, consequently, inevitablyfails. The proletariat seems to be able neither to find again therevolutionary magnitude within itself nor to draw new energy from thenewly formed alliances until all the classes, with whom it contended inJune, shall lie prostrate along with itself. But in all these defeats, the proletariat succumbs at least with the honor that attaches to greathistoric struggles; not France alone, all Europe trembles before theJune earthquake, while the successive defeats inflicted upon the higherclasses are bought so easily that they need the brazen exaggerationof the victorious party itself to be at all able to pass muster as anevent; and these defeats become more disgraceful the further removed thedefeated party stands from the proletariat. 

True enough, the defeat of the June insurgents prepared, leveled theground, upon which the bourgeois republic could be founded and erected;but it, at the same time, showed that there are in Europe other issuesbesides that of "Republic or Monarchy. " It revealed the fact that herethe Bourgeois Republic meant the unbridled despotism of one class overanother. It proved that, with nations enjoying an older civilization, having developed class distinctions, modern conditions of production, an intellectual consciousness, wherein all traditions of old have beendissolved through the work of centuries, that with such countriesthe republic means only the political revolutionary form of bourgeoissociety, not its conservative form of existence, as is the case in theUnited States of America, where, true enough, the classes already exist, but have not yet acquired permanent character, are in constant flux andreflux, constantly changing their elements and yielding them up to oneanother where the modern means of production, instead of coinciding witha stagnant population, rather compensate for the relative scarcity ofheads and hands; and, finally, where the feverishly youthful life ofmaterial production, which has to appropriate a new world to itself, has so far left neither time nor opportunity to abolish the illusions ofold. [#3 This was written at the beginning of 1852. ]

All classes and parties joined hands in the June days in a "Party ofOrder" against the class of the proletariat, which was designated asthe "Party of Anarchy, " of Socialism, of Communism. They claimed tohave "saved" society against the "enemies of society. " They gave out theslogans of the old social order--"Property, Family, Religion, Order"--asthe passwords for their army, and cried out to the counter-revolutionarycrusaders: "In this sign thou wilt conquer!" From that moment on, sosoon as any of the numerous parties, which had marshaled themselvesunder this sign against the June insurgents, tries, in turn, to take therevolutionary field in the interest of its own class, it goes down inits turn before the cry: "Property, Family, Religion, Order. " Thus ithappens that "society is saved" as often as the circle of its rulingclass is narrowed, as often as a more exclusive interest asserts itselfover the general. Every demand for the most simple bourgeois financialreform, for the most ordinary liberalism, for the most commonplacerepublicanism, for the flattest democracy, is forthwith punished as an"assault upon society, " and is branded as "Socialism. " Finally the HighPriests of "Religion and Order" themselves are kicked off their tripods;are fetched out of their beds in the dark; hurried into patrol wagons, thrust into jail or sent into exile; their temple is razed to theground, their mouths are sealed, their pen is broken, their law torn topieces in the name of Religion, of Family, of Property, and of Order. Bourgeois, fanatic on the point of "Order, " are shot down on their ownbalconies by drunken soldiers, forfeit their family property, andtheir houses are bombarded for pastime--all in the name of Property, of Family, of Religion, and of Order. Finally, the refuse of bourgeoissociety constitutes the "holy phalanx of Order, " and the heroCrapulinsky makes his entry into the Tuileries as the "Savior ofSociety. "

II

Let us resume the thread of events. 

The history of the Constitutional National Assembly from the June dayson, is the history of the supremacy and dissolution of the republicanbourgeois party, the party which is known under several names of"Tricolor Republican, " "True Republican, " "Political Republican, ""Formal Republican, " etc. , etc. Under the bourgeois monarchy of LouisPhilippe, this party had constituted the Official Republican Opposition, and consequently had been a recognized element in the then politicalworld. It had its representatives in the Chambers, and commandedconsiderable influence in the press. Its Parisian organ, the "National, "passed, in its way, for as respectable a paper as the "Journal desDebats. " This position in the constitutional monarchy corresponded toits character. The party was not a fraction of the bourgeoisie, heldtogether by great and common interests, and marked by specialbusiness requirements. It was a coterie of bourgeois with republicanideas-writers, lawyers, officers and civil employees, whose influencerested upon the personal antipathies of the country for Louis Philippe, upon reminiscences of the old Republic, upon the republican faith ofa number of enthusiasts, and, above all, upon the spirit of Frenchpatriotism, whose hatred of the treaties of Vienna and of the alliancewith England kept them perpetually on the alert. The "National" oweda large portion of its following under Louis Philippe to this covertimperialism, that, later under the republic, could stand up against itas a deadly competitor in the person of Louis Bonaparte. The fought thearistocracy of finance just the same as did the rest of the bourgeoisopposition. The polemic against the budget, which in France, was closelyconnected with the opposition to the aristocracy of finance, furnishedtoo cheap a popularity and too rich a material for Puritanical leadingarticles, not to be exploited. The industrial bourgeoisie was thankfulto it for its servile defense of the French tariff system, which, however, the paper had taken up, more out of patriotic than economicreasons the whole bourgeois class was thankful to it for its viciousdenunciations of Communism and Socialism For the rest, the party of the"National" was purely republican, i. E. It demanded a republican insteadof a monarchic form of bourgeois government; above all, it demandedfor the bourgeoisie the lion's share of the government. As to how thistransformation was to be accomplished, the party was far from beingclear. What, however, was clear as day to it and was openly declared atthe reform banquets during the last days of Louis Philippe's reign, wasits unpopularity with the democratic middle class, especially with therevolutionary proletariat. These pure republicans, as pure republicansgo, were at first on the very point of contenting themselves with theregency of the Duchess of Orleans, when the February revolution brokeout, and when it gave their best known representatives a place in theprovisional government. Of course, they enjoyed from the start theconfidence of the bourgeoisie and of the majority of the ConstitutionalNational Assembly. The Socialist elements of the Provisional Governmentwere promptly excluded from the Executive Committee which the Assemblyhad elected upon its convening, and the party of the "National"subsequently utilized the outbreak of the June insurrection to dismissthis Executive Committee also, and thus rid itself of its nearestrivals--the small traders' class or democratic republicans(Ledru-Rollin, etc. ). Cavaignac, the General of the bourgeois republicanparty, who command at the battle of June, stepped into the place of theExecutive Committee with a sort of dictatorial power. Marrast, formereditor-in-chief of the "National", became permanent President of theConstitutional National Assembly, and the Secretaryship of State, together with all the other important posts, devolved upon the purerepublicans. 

The republican bourgeois party, which since long had looked upon itselfas the legitimate heir of the July monarchy, thus found itself surpassedin its own ideal; but it cam to power, not as it had dreamed underLouis Philippe, through a liberal revolt of the bourgeoisie againstthe throne, but through a grape-shot-and-canistered mutiny of theproletariat against Capital. That which it imagined to be the mostrevolutionary, came about as the most counter-revolutionary event. Thefruit fell into its lap, but it fell from the Tree of Knowledge, notfrom the Tree of life. 

The exclusive power of the bourgeois republic lasted only from June24 to the 10th of December, 1848. It is summed up in the framing of arepublican constitution and in the state of siege of Paris. 

The new Constitution was in substance only a republicanized edition ofthe constitutional charter of 1830. The limited suffrage of the Julymonarchy, which excluded even a large portion of the bourgeoisie frompolitical power, was irreconcilable with the existence of the bourgeoisrepublic. The February revolution had forthwith proclaimed direct anduniversal suffrage in place of the old law. The bourgeois republic couldnot annul this act. They had to content themselves with tacking to itthe limitation a six months' residence. The old organization of theadministrative law, of municipal government, of court procedures of thearmy, etc. , remained untouched, or, where the constitution did changethem, the change affected their index, not their subject; their name, not their substance. 

The inevitable "General Staff" of the "freedoms" of 1848--personalfreedom, freedom of the press, of speech, of association and ofassemblage, freedom of instruction, of religion, etc. --received aconstitutional uniform that rendered them invulnerable. Each of thesefreedoms is proclaimed the absolute right of the French citizen, butalways with the gloss that it is unlimited in so far only as it be notcurtailed by the "equal rights of others, " and by the "public safety, "or by the "laws, " which are intended to effect this harmony. Forinstance:

"Citizens have the right of association, of peaceful and unarmedassemblage, of petitioning, and of expressing their opinions throughthe press or otherwise. The enjoyment of these rights has no limitationother than the equal rights of others and the public safety. " (Chap. II. Of the French Constitution, Section 8. )

"Education is free. The freedom of education shall be enjoyed under theconditions provided by law, and under the supervision of the State. "(Section 9. )

"The domicile of the citizen is inviolable, except under the formsprescribed by law. " (Chap. I. , Section 3), etc. , etc. 

The Constitution, it will be noticed, constantly alludes to futureorganic laws, that are to carry out the glosses, and are intended toregulate the enjoyment of these unabridged freedoms, to the end thatthey collide neither with one another nor with the public safety. Later on, the organic laws are called into existence by the "Friends ofOrder, " and all the above named freedoms are so regulated that, in theirenjoyment, the bourgeoisie encounter no opposition from the like rightsof the other classes. Wherever the bourgeoisie wholly interdicted theserights to "others, " or allowed them their enjoyment under conditionsthat were but so many police snares, it was always done only in theinterest of the "public safety, " i. E. , of the bourgeoisie, as requiredby the Constitution. 

Hence it comes that both sides-the "Friends of Order, " who abolishedall those freedoms, as, well as the democrats, who had demanded themall--appeal with full right to the Constitution: Each paragraph ofthe Constitution contains its own antithesis, its own Upper and LowerHouse-freedom as a generalization, the abolition of freedom asa specification. Accordingly, so long as the name of freedom wasrespected, and only its real enforcement was prevented in a legal way, of course the constitutional existence of freedom remained uninjured, untouched, however completely its common existence might beextinguished. 

This Constitution, so ingeniously made invulnerable, was, however, likeAchilles, vulnerable at one point: not in its heel, but in its head, orrather, in the two heads into which it ran out-the Legislative Assembly, on the one hand, and the President on the other. Run through theConstitution and it will be found that only those paragraphs wherein therelation of the President to the Legislative Assembly is defined, areabsolute, positive, uncontradictory, undistortable. 

Here the bourgeois republicans were concerned in securing their ownposition. Articles 45-70 of the Constitution are so framed that theNational Assembly can constitutionally remove the President, but thePresident can set aside the National Assembly only unconstitutionally, he can set it aside only by setting aside the Constitution itself. Accordingly, by these provisions, the National Assembly challenges itsown violent destruction. It not only consecrates, like the characterof 1830, the division of powers, but it extends this feature to anunbearably contradictory extreme. The "play of constitutional powers, "as Guizot styled the clapper-clawings between the legislative and theexecutive powers, plays permanent "vabanque" in the Constitution of1848. On the one side, 750 representatives of the people, elected andqualified for re-election by universal suffrage, who constitute anuncontrollable, indissoluble, indivisible National Assembly, a NationalAssembly that enjoys legislative omnipotence, that decides in the lastinstance over war, peace and commercial treaties, that alone has thepower to grant amnesties, and that, through its perpetuity, continuallymaintains the foreground on the stage; on the other, a President, cladwith all the attributes of royalty, with the right to appoint and removehis ministers independently from the national assembly, holding in hishands all the means of executive power, the dispenser of all posts, andthereby the arbiter of at least one and a half million existences inFrance, so many being dependent upon the 500, 000 civil employees andupon the officers of all grades. He has the whole armed power behindhim. He enjoys the privilege of granting pardons to individualcriminals; suspending the National Guards; of removing with the consentof the Council of State the general, cantonal and municipal Councilmen, elected by the citizens themselves. The initiative and direction ofall negotiations with foreign countries are reserved to him. While theAssembly itself is constantly acting upon the stage, and is exposedto the critically vulgar light of day, he leads a hidden life in theElysian fields, only with Article 45 of the Constitution before his eyesand in his heart daily calling out to him, "Frere, il faut mourir!" [#1Brother, you must die!] Your power expires on the second Sunday of thebeautiful month of May, in the fourth year after your election! Theglory is then at an end; the play is not performed twice; and, if youhave any debts, see to it betimes that you pay them off with the 600, 000francs that the Constitution has set aside for you, unless, perchance, you should prefer traveling to Clichy [#2 The debtors' prison. ] on thesecond Monday of the beautiful month of May. 

While the Constitution thus clothes the President with actual power, itseeks to secure the moral power to the National Assembly. Apart fromthe circumstance that it is impossible to create a moral power throughlegislative paragraphs, the Constitution again neutralizes itself inthat it causes the President to be chosen by all the Frenchmen throughdirect suffrage. While the votes of France are splintered to pieces uponthe 750 members of the National Assembly they are here, on the contrary, concentrated upon one individual. While each separate Representativerepresents only this or that party, this or that city, this orthat dunghill, or possibly only the necessity of electing some oneSeven-hundred-and-fiftieth or other, with whom neither the issue nor theman is closely considered, that one, the President, on the contrary, isthe elect of the nation, and the act of his election is the trump card, that, the sovereign people plays out once every four years. The electedNational Assembly stands in a metaphysical, but the elected President ina personal, relation to the nation. True enough, the National Assemblypresents in its several Representatives the various sides of thenational spirit, but, in the President, this spirit is incarnated. Asagainst the National Assembly, the President possesses a sort of divineright, he is by the grace of the people. 

Thetis, the sea-goddess, had prophesied to Achilles that he would diein the bloom of youth. The Constitution, which had its weak spot, likeAchilles, had also, like Achilles, the presentiment that it would departby premature death. It was enough for the pure republicans, engagedat the work of framing a constitution, to cast a glance from the mistyheights of their ideal republic down upon the profane world in order torealize how the arrogance of the royalists, of the Bonapartists, ofthe democrats, of the Communists, rose daily, together with their owndiscredit, and in the same measure as they approached the completion oftheir legislative work of art, without Thetis having for this purpose toleave the sea and impart the secret to them. They ought to outwitfate by means of constitutional artifice, through Section 111 of theConstitution, according to which every motion to revise the Constitutionhad to be discussed three successive times between each of which a fullmonth was to elapse and required at least a three-fourths majority, withthe additional proviso that not less than 500 members of the NationalAssembly voted. They thereby only made the impotent attempt, still toexercise as a parliamentary minority, to which in their mind's eye theyprophetically saw themselves reduced, a power, that, at this very time, when they still disposed over the parliamentary majority and over allthe machinery of government, was daily slipping from their weak hands. 

Finally, the Constitution entrusts itself for safe keeping, in amelodramatic paragraph, "to the watchfulness and patriotism of the wholeFrench people, and of each individual Frenchman, " after havingjust before, in another paragraph entrusted the "watchful" and the"patriotic" themselves to the tender, inquisitorial attention of theHigh Court, instituted by itself. 

That was the Constitution of 1848, which on, the 2d of December, 1851, was not overthrown by one head, but tumbled down at the touch of a merehat; though, true enough, that hat was a three-cornered Napoleon hat. 

While the bourgeois' republicans were engaged in the Assembly with thework of splicing this Constitution, of discussing and voting, Cavaignac, on the outside, maintained the state of siege of Paris. The state ofsiege of Paris was the midwife of the constitutional assembly, duringits republican pains of travail. When the Constitution is later on sweptoff the earth by the bayonet, it should not be forgotten that it wasby the bayonet, likewise--and the bayonet turned against the people, atthat--that it had to be protected in its mother's womb, and that by thebayonet it had to be planted on earth. The ancestors of these "honestrepublicans" had caused their symbol, the tricolor, to make the tour ofEurope. These, in their turn also made a discovery, which all of itself, found its way over the whole continent, but, with ever renewed love, came back to France, until, by this time, if had acquired the rightof citizenship in one-half of her Departments--the state of siege. Awondrous discovery this was, periodically applied at each succeedingcrisis in the course of the French revolution. But the barrack andthe bivouac, thus periodically laid on the head of French society, tocompress her brain and reduce her to quiet; the sabre and themusket, periodically made to perform the functions of judges and ofadministrators, of guardians and of censors, of police officers and ofwatchmen; the military moustache and the soldier's jacket, periodicallyheralded as the highest wisdom and guiding stars of society;--were notall of these, the barrack and the bivouac, the sabre and the musket, themoustache and the soldier's jacket bound, in the end, to hit upon theidea that they might as well save, society once for all, by proclaimingtheir own regime as supreme, and relieve bourgeois society wholly of thecare of ruling itself? The barrack and the bivouac, the sabre and themusket, the moustache and the soldier's jacket were all the more boundto hit upon this idea, seeing that they could then also expect bettercash payment for their increased deserts, while at the merely periodicstates of siege and the transitory savings of society at the behest ofthis or that bourgeois faction, very little solid matter fell to themexcept some dead and wounded, besides some friendly bourgeois grimaces. Should not the military, finally, in and for its own interest, playthe game of "state of siege, " and simultaneously besiege the bourgeoisexchanges? Moreover, it must not be forgotten, and be it observedin passing, that Col. Bernard, the same President of the MilitaryCommittee, who, under Cavaignac, helped to deport 15, 000 insurgentswithout trial, moves at this period again at the head of the MilitaryCommittees now active in Paris. 

Although the honest, the pure republicans built with the state of siegethe nursery in which the Praetorian guards of December 2, 1851, were tobe reared, they, on the other hand, deserve praise in that, instead ofexaggerating the feeling of patriotism, as under Louis Philippe, now;they themselves are in command of the national power, they crawl beforeforeign powers; instead of making Italy free, they allow her tobe reconquered by Austrians and Neapolitans. The election of LouisBonaparte for President on December 10, 1848, put an end to thedictatorship of Cavaignac and to the constitutional assembly. 

In Article 44 of the Constitution it is said "The President of theFrench Republic must never have lost his status as a French citizen. "The first President of the French Republic, L. N. Bonaparte, had notonly lost his status as a French citizen, had not only been an Englishspecial constable, but was even a naturalized Swiss citizen. 

In the previous chapter I have explained the meaning of the election ofDecember 10. I shall not here return to it. Suffice it here to say thatit was a reaction of the farmers' class, who had been expected to paythe costs of the February revolution, against the other classes of thenation: it was a reaction of the country against the city. It metwith great favor among the soldiers, to whom the republicans ofthe "National" had brought neither fame nor funds; among the greatbourgeoisie, who hailed Bonaparte as a bridge to the monarchy; andamong the proletarians and small traders, who hailed him as a scourge toCavaignac. I shall later have occasion to enter closer into the relationof the farmers to the French revolution. 

The epoch between December 20, 1848, and the dissolution of theconstitutional assembly in May, 1849, embraces the history of thedownfall of the bourgeois republicans. After they had founded a republicfor the bourgeoisie, had driven the revolutionary proletariat from thefield and had meanwhile silenced the democratic middle class, theyare themselves shoved aside by the mass of the bourgeoisie who justlyappropriate this republic as their property. This bourgeois mass wasRoyalist, however. A part thereof, the large landed proprietors, hadruled under the restoration, hence, was Legitimist; the other part, thearistocrats of finance and the large industrial capitalists, had ruledunder the July monarchy, hence, was Orleanist. The high functionaries ofthe Army, of the University, of the Church, in the civil service, of theAcademy and of the press, divided themselves on both sides, although inunequal parts. Here, in the bourgeois republic, that bore neither thename of Bourbon, nor of Orleans, but the name of Capital, they hadfound the form of government under which they could all rule in common. Already the June insurrection had united them all into a "Party ofOrder. " The next thing to do was to remove the bourgeois republicans whostill held the seats in the National Assembly. As brutally as these purerepublicans had abused their own physical power against the people, socowardly, low-spirited, disheartened, broken, powerless did they yield, now when the issue was the maintenance of their own republicanismand their own legislative rights against the Executive power andthe royalists I need not here narrate the shameful history of theirdissolution. It was not a downfall, it was extinction. Their history isat an end for all time. In the period that follows, they figure, whetherwithin or without the Assembly, only as memories--memories that seemagain to come to life so soon as the question is again only the word"Republic, " and as often as the revolutionary conflict threatens to sinkdown to the lowest level. In passing, I might observe that the journalwhich gave to this party its name, the "National, " goes over toSocialism during the following period. 

Before we close this period, we must look back upon the two powers, one of destroys the other on December 2, 1851, while, from December 20, 1848, down to the departure of the constitutional assembly, they livemarital relations. We mean Louis Bonaparte, on the-one hand, on theother, the party of the allied royalists; of Order, and of the largebourgeoisie. 

At the inauguration of his presidency, Bonaparte forthwith framed aministry out of the party of Order, at whose head he placed OdillonBarrot, be it noted, the old leader of the liberal wing of theparliamentary bourgeoisie. Mr. Barrot had finally hunted down a seat inthe ministry, the spook of which had been pursuing him since 1830; andwhat is more, he had the chairmanship in this ministry, although not, as he had imagined under Louis Philippe, the promoted leader of theparliamentary opposition, but with the commission to kill a parliament, and, moreover, as an ally of all his arch enemies, the Jesuits and theLegitimists. Finally he leads the bride home, but only after shehas been prostituted. As to Bonaparte, he seemed to eclipse himselfcompletely. The party of Order acted for him. 

Immediately at the first session of the ministry the expedition toRome was decided upon, which it was there agreed, was to be carried outbehind I the back of the National Assembly, and the funds for which, it was equally agreed, were to be wrung from the Assembly under falsepretences. Thus the start was made with a swindle on the NationalAssembly, together with a secret conspiracy with the absolute foreignpowers against the revolutionary Roman republic. In the same way, andwith a similar maneuver, did Bonaparte prepare his stroke of December 2against the royalist legislature and its constitutional republic. Letit not be forgotten that the same party, which, on December 20, 1848, constituted Bonaparte's ministry, constituted also, on December 2, 1851, the majority of the legislative National Assembly. 

In August the constitutive assembly decided not to dissolve until ithad prepared and promulgated a whole series of organic laws, intendedto supplement the Constitution. The party of Order proposed to theassembly, through Representative Rateau, on January 6, 1849, to letthe Organic laws go, and rather to order its own dissolution. Notthe ministry alone, with Mr. Odillon Barrot at its head, but allthe royalist members of the National Assembly were also at this timehectoring to it that its dissolution was necessary for the restorationof the public credit, for the consolidation of order, to put an end tothe existing uncertain and provisional, and establish a definite stateof things; they claimed that its continued existence hindered theeffectiveness of the new Government, that it sought to prolong its lifeout of pure malice, and that the country was tired of it. Bonapartetook notice of all these invectives hurled at the legislative power, he learned them by heart, and, on December 21, 1851, he showed theparliamentary royalists that he had learned from them. He repeated theirown slogans against themselves. 

The Barrot ministry and the party of Order went further. They called allover France for petitions to the National Assembly in which thatbody was politely requested to disappear. Thus they led the people'sunorganic masses to the fray against the National Assembly, i. E. , theconstitutionally organized expression of people itself. They taughtBonaparte, to appeal from the parliamentary body to the people. Finally, on January 29, 1849, the day arrived when the constitutional assemblywas to decide about its own dissolution. On that day the body found itsbuilding occupied by the military; Changarnier, the General of the partyof Order, in whose hands was joined the supreme command of both theNational Guards and the regulars, held that day a great military review, as though a battle were imminent; and the coalized royalists declaredthreateningly to the constitutional assembly that force would be appliedif it did not act willingly. It was willing, and chaffered only for avery short respite. What else was the 29th of January, 1849, than the"coup d'etat" of December 2, 1851, only executed by the royalists withNapoleon's aid against the republican National Assembly? These gentlemendid not notice, or did not want to notice, that Napoleon utilized the29th of January, 1849, to cause a part of the troops to file before himin front of the Tuileries, and that he seized with avidity this veryfirst open exercise of the military against the parliamentary powerin order to hint at Caligula. The allied royalists saw only their ownChangarnier. 

Another reason that particularly moved the party of Order forcibly toshorten the term of the constitutional assembly were the organic laws, the laws that were to supplement the Constitution, as, for instance, the laws on education, on religion, etc. The allied royalists had everyinterest in framing these laws themselves, and not allowing them to beframed by the already suspicious republicans. Among these organic laws, there was, however, one on the responsibility of the President of therepublic. In 1851 the Legislature was just engaged in framing such a lawwhen Bonaparte forestalled that political stroke by his own of December2. What all would not the coalized royalists have given in their winterparliamentary campaign of 1851, had they but found this "Responsibilitylaw" ready made, and framed at that, by the suspicious, the viciousrepublican Assembly!

After, on January 29, 1849, the constitutive assembly had itself brokenits last weapon, the Barrot ministry and the "Friends of Order" harassedit to death, left nothing undone to humiliate it, and wrung from itsweakness, despairing of itself, laws that cost it the last vestigeof respect with the public. Bonaparte, occupied with his own fixedNapoleonic idea, was audacious enough openly to exploit this degradationof the parliamentary power: When the National Assembly, on May 8, 1849, passed a vote of censure upon the Ministry on account of the occupationof Civita-Vecchia by Oudinot, and ordered that the Roman expeditionbe brought back to its alleged purpose, Bonaparte published that sameevening in the "Moniteur" a letter to Oudinot, in which he congratulatedhim on his heroic feats, and already, in contrast with the quill-pushingparliamentarians, posed as the generous protector of the Army. Theroyalists smiled at this. They took him simply for their dupe. Finally, as Marrast, the President of the constitutional assembly, believed on acertain occasion the safety of the body to be in danger, and, resting onthe Constitution, made a requisition upon a Colonel, together withhis regiment, the Colonel refused obedience, took refuge behind the"discipline, " and referred Marrast to Changarnier, who scornfully senthim off with the remark that he did not like "bayonettes intelligentes. "[#1 Intelligent bayonets] In November, 1851, as the coalized royalistswanted to begin the decisive struggle with Bonaparte, they sought, bymeans of their notorious "Questors Bill, " to enforce the principle ofthe right of the President of the National Assembly to issue directrequisitions for troops. One of their Generals, Leflo, supported themotion. In vain did Changarnier vote for it, or did Thiers render homageto the cautious wisdom of the late constitutional assembly. TheMinister of War, St. Arnaud, answered him as Changarnier had answeredMarrast--and he did so amidst the plaudits of the Mountain. 

Thus did the party of Order itself, when as yet it was not the NationalAssembly, when as yet it was only a Ministry, brand the parliamentaryregime. And yet this party objects vociferously when the 2d of December, 1851, banishes that regime from France!

We wish it a happy journey. 

III

On May 29, 1849, the legislative National Assembly convened. OnDecember 2, 1851, it was broken up. This period embraces the term of theConstitutional or Parliamentary public. 

In the first French revolution, upon the reign of the Constitutionalistssucceeds that of the Girondins; and upon the reign of the Girondinsfollows that of the Jacobins. Each of these parties in succession restsupon its more advanced element. So soon as it has carried the revolutionfar enough not to be able to keep pace with, much less march ahead ofit, it is shoved aside by its more daring allies, who stand behind it, and it is sent to the guillotine. Thus the revolution moves along anupward line. 

Just the reverse in 1848. The proletarian party appears as an appendageto the small traders' or democratic party; it is betrayed by the latterand allowed to fall on April 16, May 15, and in the June days. In itsturn, the democratic party leans upon the shoulders of the bourgeoisrepublicans; barely do the bourgeois republicans believe themselvesfirmly in power, than they shake off these troublesome associates forthe purpose of themselves leaning upon the shoulders of the party ofOrder. The party of Order draws in its shoulders, lets the bourgeoisrepublicans tumble down heels over head, and throws itself upon theshoulders of the armed power. Finally, still of the mind that it issustained by the shoulders of the armed power, the party of Ordernotices one fine morning that these shoulders have turned into bayonets. Each party kicks backward at those that are pushing forward, and leansforward upon those that are crowding backward; no wonder that, in thisludicrous posture, each loses its balance, and, after having cutthe unavoidable grimaces, breaks down amid singular somersaults. Accordingly, the revolution moves along a downward line. It finds itselfin this retreating motion before the last February-barricade is clearedaway, and the first governmental authority of the revolution has beenconstituted. 

The period we now have before us embraces the motliest jumble of cryingcontradictions: constitutionalists, who openly conspire against theConstitution; revolutionists, who admittedly are constitutional;a National Assembly that wishes to be omnipotent yet remainsparliamentary; a Mountain, that finds its occupation in submission, that parries its present defeats with prophecies of future victories;royalists, who constitute the "patres conscripti" of the republic, andare compelled by the situation to uphold abroad the hostile monarchichouses, whose adherents they are, while in France they support therepublic that they hate; an Executive power that finds its strength inits very weakness, and its dignity in the contempt that it inspires;a republic, that is nothing else than the combined infamy of twomonarchies--the Restoration and the July Monarchy--with an imperiallabel; unions, whose first clause is disunion; struggles, whose firstlaw is in-decision; in the name of peace, barren and hollow agitation;in the name of the revolution, solemn sermonizings on peace; passionswithout truth; truths without passion; heroes without heroism; historywithout events; development, whose only moving force seems to be thecalendar, and tiresome by the constant reiteration of the same tensionsand relaxes; contrasts, that seem to intensify themselves periodically, only in order to wear themselves off and collapse without a solution;pretentious efforts made for show, and bourgeois frights at the dangerof the destruction of the world, simultaneous with the carrying on ofthe pettiest intrigues and the performance of court comedies by theworld's saviours, who, in their "laisser aller, " recall the Day ofJudgment not so much as the days of the Fronde; the official collectivegenius of France brought to shame by the artful stupidity of a singleindividual; the collective will of the nation, as often as it speaksthrough the general suffrage, seeking its true expression in theprescriptive enemies of the public interests until it finally finds itin the arbitrary will of a filibuster. If ever a slice from history isdrawn black upon black, it is this. Men and events appear as reversed"Schlemihls, " [#1 The hero In Chamisso's "Peter Schiemihi, " who loseshis own shadow. ] as shadows, the bodies of which have been lost. Therevolution itself paralyzes its own apostles, and equips only itsadversaries with passionate violence. When the "Red Spectre, " constantlyconjured up and exorcised by the counter-revolutionists finally doesappear, it does not appear with the Anarchist Phrygian cap on its head, but in the uniform of Order, in the Red Breeches of the French Soldier. 

We saw that the Ministry, which Bonaparte installed on December 20, 1849, the day of his "Ascension, " was a ministry of the party of Order, of the Legitimist and Orleanist coalition. The Barrot-Falloux ministryhad weathered the republican constitutive convention, whose term of lifeit had shortened with more or less violence, and found itself still atthe helm. Changamier, the General of the allied royalists continued tounite in his person the command-in-chief of the First Military Divisionand of the Parisian National Guard. Finally, the general elections hadsecured the large majority in the National Assembly to the party ofOrder. Here the Deputies and Peers of Louis Phillipe met a saintly crowdof Legitimists, for whose benefit numerous ballots of the nation hadbeen converted into admission tickets to the political stage. TheBonapartist representatives were too thinly sowed to be able to build anindependent parliamentary party. They appeared only as "mauvaise queue"[#2 Practical joke] played upon the party of Order. Thus the partyof Order was in possession of the Government, of the Army, and of thelegislative body, in short, of the total power of the State, morallystrengthened by the general elections, that caused their sovereignty toappear as the will of the people, and by the simultaneous victory of thecounter-revolution on the whole continent of Europe. 

Never did party open its campaign with larger means at its disposal andunder more favorable auspices. 

The shipwrecked pure republicans found themselves in the legislativeNational Assembly melted down to a clique of fifty men, with theAfrican Generals Cavaignac, Lamorciere and Bedeau at its head. Thegreat Opposition party was, however, formed by the Mountain. Thisparliamentary baptismal name was given to itself by the SocialDemocratic party. It disposed of more than two hundred votes out of theseven hundred and fifty in the National Assembly, and, hence, was atleast just as powerful as any one of the three factions of the partyof Order. Its relative minority to the total royalist coalition seemedcounterbalanced by special circumstances. Not only did the Departmentalelection returns show that it had gained a considerable following amongthe rural population, but, furthermore, it numbered almost all theParis Deputies in its camp; the Army had, by the election of threeunder-officers, made a confession of democratic faith; and the leader ofthe Mountain, Ledru-Rollin had in contrast to all the representativesof the party of Order, been raised to the rank of the "parliamentarynobility" by five Departments, who combined their suffrages upon him. Accordingly, in view of the inevitable collisions of the royalistsamong themselves, on the one hand, and of the whole party of Order withBonaparte, on the other, the Mountain seemed on May 29, 1849, to havebefore it all the elements of success. A fortnight later, it had losteverything, its honor included. 

Before we follow this parliamentary history any further, a fewobservations are necessary, in order to avoid certain common deceptionsconcerning the whole character of the epoch that lies before us. According to the view of the democrats, the issue, during the period ofthe legislative National Assembly, was, the same as during the period ofthe constitutive assembly, simply the struggle between republicans androyalists; the movement itself was summed up by them in the catch-wordReaction--night, in which all cats are grey, and allows them to drawlout their drowsy commonplaces. Indeed, at first sight, the party ofOrder presents the appearance of a tangle of royalist factions, that, not only intrigue against each other, each aiming to raise its ownPretender to the throne, and exclude the Pretender of the Oppositeparty, but also are all united in a common hatred for and commonattacks against the "Republic. " On its side, the Mountain appears, incounter-distinction to the royalist conspiracy, as the representativeof the "Republic. " The party of Order seems constantly engaged in a"Reaction, " which, neither more nor less than in Prussia, is directedagainst the press, the right of association and the like, and isenforced by brutal police interventions on the part of the bureaucracy, the police and the public prosecutor--just as in Prussia; the Mountainon the contrary, is engaged with equal assiduity in parrying theseattacks, and thus in defending the "eternal rights of man"--as everyso-called people's party has more or less done for the last hundred andfifty years. At a closer inspection, however, of the situation andof the parties, this superficial appearance, which veils the ClassStruggle, together with the peculiar physiognomy of this period, vanishes wholly. 

Legitimists and Orleanists constituted, as said before, the two largefactions of the party of Order. What held these two factions to theirrespective Pretenders, and inversely kept them apart from each other, what else was it but the lily and the tricolor, the House of Bourbon andthe house of Orleans, different shades of royalty? Under the Bourbons, Large Landed Property ruled together with its parsons and lackeys; underthe Orleanist, it was the high finance, large industry, large commerce, i. E. , Capital, with its retinue of lawyers, professors and orators. TheLegitimate kingdom was but the political expression for the hereditaryrule of the landlords, as the July monarchy was bur the politicalexpression for the usurped rule of the bourgeois upstarts. What, accordingly, kept these two factions apart was no so-called set ofprinciples, it was their material conditions for life--two differentsorts of property--; it was the old antagonism of the City andthe Country, the rivalry between Capital and Landed property. Thatsimultaneously old recollections; personal animosities, fears and hopes;prejudices and illusions; sympathies and antipathies; convictions, faith and principles bound these factions to one House or the other, who denies it? Upon the several forms of property, upon the socialconditions of existence, a whole superstructure is reared of various andpeculiarly shaped feelings, illusions, habits of thought and conceptionsof life. The whole class produces and shapes these out of its materialfoundation and out of the corresponding social conditions. Theindividual unit to whom they flow through tradition and education, mayfancy that they constitute the true reasons for and premises of hisconduct. Although Orleanists and Legitimists, each of these factions, sought to make itself and the other believe that what kept the two apartwas the attachment of each to its respective royal House; nevertheless, facts proved later that it rather was their divided interest thatforbade the union of the two royal Houses. As, in private life, thedistinction is made between what a man thinks of himself and says, andthat which he really is and does, so, all the more, must the phrases andnotions of parties in historic struggles be distinguished from the realorganism, and their real interests, their notions and their reality. Orleanists and Legitimists found themselves in the republic beside eachother with equal claims. Each side wishing, in opposition to the other, to carry out the restoration of its own royal House, meant nothing elsethan that each of the two great Interests into which the bourgeoisie isdivided--Land and Capital--sought to restore its own supremacy and thesubordinacy of the other. We speak of two bourgeois interests becauselarge landed property, despite its feudal coquetry and pride of race, has become completely bourgeois through the development of modernsociety. Thus did the Tories of England long fancy that they wereenthusiastic for the Kingdom, the Church and the beauties of the oldEnglish Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them theadmission that their enthusiasm was only for Ground Rent. 

The coalized royalists carried on their intrigues against each other inthe press, in Ems, in Clarmont--outside of the parliament. Behind thescenes, they don again their old Orleanist and Legitimist liveries, and conduct their old tourneys; on the public stage, however, in theirpublic acts, as a great parliamentary party, they dispose of theirrespective royal houses with mere courtesies, adjourn "in infinitum" therestoration of the monarchy. Their real business is transacted asParty of Order, i. E. , under a Social, not a Political title; asrepresentatives of the bourgeois social system; not as knights oftraveling princesses, but as the bourgeois class against the otherclasses; not as royalists against republicans. Indeed, as party ofOrder they exercised a more unlimited and harder dominion over the otherclasses of society than ever before either under the restoration or theJuly monarchy-a thing possible only under the form of a parliamentaryrepublic, because under this form alone could the two large divisions ofthe French bourgeoisie be united; in other words, only under this formcould they place on the order of business the sovereignty of theirclass, in lieu of the regime of a privileged faction of the same. If, this notwithstanding, they are seen as the party of Order to insultthe republic and express their antipathy for it, it happened not out ofroyalist traditions only: Instinct taught them that while, indeed, therepublic completes their authority, it at the same time undermined theirsocial foundation, in that, without intermediary, without the mask ofthe crown, without being able to turn aside the national interest bymeans of its subordinate struggles among its own conflicting elementsand with the crown, the republic is compelled to stand up sharp againstthe subjugated classes, and wrestle with them. It was a sense ofweakness that caused them to recoil before the unqualified demandsof their own class rule, and to retreat to the less complete, lessdeveloped, and, for that very reason, less dangerous forms of the same. As often, on the contrary, as the allied royalists come into conflictwith the Pretender who stands before them--with Bonaparte--, as oftenas they believe their parliamentary omnipotence to be endangered by theExecutive, in other words, as often as they must trot out thepolitical title of their authority, they step up as Republicans, notas Royalists--and this is done from the Orleanist Thiers, who warnsthe National Assembly that the republic divides them least, down toLegitimist Berryer, who, on December 2, 1851, the scarf of the tricoloraround him, harangues the people assembled before the Mayor's buildingof the Tenth Arrondissement, as a tribune in the name of the Republic;the echo, however, derisively answering back to him: "Henry V. ! HenryV!" [#3 The candidate of the Bourbons, or Legitimists, for the throne. ]

However, against the allied bourgeois, a coalition was made between thesmall traders and the workingmen--the so-called Social Democratic party. The small traders found themselves ill rewarded after the June days of1848; they saw their material interests endangered, and the democraticguarantees, that were to uphold their interests, made doubtful. Hence, they drew closer to the workingmen. On the other hand, theirparliamentary representatives--the Mountain--, after being shoved asideduring the dictatorship of the bourgeois republicans, had, during thelast half of the term of the constitutive convention, regained theirlost popularity through the struggle with Bonaparte and the royalistministers. They had made an alliance with the Socialist leaders. DuringFebruary, 1849, reconciliation banquets were held. A common programwas drafted, joint election committees were empanelled, and fusioncandidates were set up. The revolutionary point was thereby broken offfrom the social demands of the proletariat and a democratic turn givento them; while, from the democratic claims of the small traders' class, the mere political form was rubbed off and the Socialist point waspushed forward. Thus came the Social Democracy about. The new Mountain, the result of this combination, contained, with the exception of somefigures from the working class and some Socialist sectarians, theidentical elements of the old Mountain, only numerically stronger. Inthe course of events it had, however, changed, together with the classthat it represented. The peculiar character of the Social Democracy issummed up in this that democratic-republican institutions aredemanded as the means, not to remove the two extremes--Capital andWage-slavery--, but in order to weaken their antagonism and transformthem into a harmonious whole. However different the methods may be thatare proposed for the accomplishment of this object, however much theobject itself may be festooned with more or less revolutionary fancies, the substance remains the same. This substance is the transformationof society upon democratic lines, but a transformation within theboundaries of the small traders' class. No one must run away withthe narrow notion that the small traders' class means on principle toenforce a selfish class interest. It believes rather that the specialconditions for its own emancipation are the general conditions underwhich alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided. Likewise must we avoid running away with the notion that the DemocraticRepresentatives are all "shopkeepers, " or enthuse for these. Theymay--by education and individual standing--be as distant from them asheaven is from earth. That which makes them representatives of the smalltraders' class is that they do not intellectually leap the bounds whichthat class itself does not leap in practical life; that, consequently, they are theoretically driven to the same problems and solutions, towhich material interests and social standing practically drive thelatter. Such, in fact, is at all times the relation of the "political"and the "literary" representatives of a class to the class theyrepresent. 

After the foregoing explanations, it goes with-out saying that, whilethe Mountain is constantly wrestling for the republic and the so-called"rights of man, " neither the republic nor the "rights of man" is itsreal goal, as little as an army, whose weapons it is sought to depriveit of and that defends itself, steps on the field of battle simply inorder to remain in possession of implements of warfare. 

The party of Order provoked the Mountain immediately upon the conveningof the assembly. The bourgeoisie now felt the necessity of disposingof the democratic small traders' class, just as a year before ithad understood the necessity of putting an end to the revolutionaryproletariat. 

But the position of the foe had changed. The strength of the proletarianparty was on the streets; that of the small traders' class was in theNational Assembly itself. The point was, accordingly, to wheedle themout of the National Assembly into the street, and to have them breaktheir parliamentary power themselves, before time and opportunity couldconsolidate them. The Mountain jumped with loose reins into the trap. 

The bombardment of Rome by the French troops was the bait thrown at theMountain. It violated Article V. Of the Constitution, which forbadethe French republic to use its forces against the liberties of othernations; besides, Article IV. Forbade all declaration of war by theExecutive without the consent of the National Assembly; furthermore, the constitutive assembly had censured the Roman expedition by itsresolution of May 8. Upon these grounds, Ledru-Rollin submitted on June11, 1849, a motion impeaching Bonaparte and his Ministers. Instigated bythe wasp-stings of Thiers, he even allowed himself to be carried away tothe point of threatening to defend the Constitution by all means, evenarms in hand. The Mountain rose as one man, and repeated the challenge. On June 12, the National Assembly rejected the notion to impeach, andthe Mountain left the parliament. The events of June 13 are known: theproclamation by a part of the Mountain pronouncing Napoleon and hisMinisters "outside the pale of the Constitution"; the street parades ofthe democratic National Guards, who, unarmed as they were, flew apart atcontact with the troops of Changarnier; etc. , etc. Part of the Mountainfled abroad, another part was assigned to the High Court of Bourges, and a parliamentary regulation placed the rest under the school-mastersupervision of the President of the National Assembly. Paris was againput under a state of siege; and the democratic portion of the NationalGuards was disbanded. Thus the influence of the Mountain in parliamentwas broken, together with the power; of the small traders' class inParis. 

Lyons, where the 13th of June had given the signal to a bloody laboruprising, was, together with the five surrounding Departments, likewisepronounced in state of siege, a condition that continues down to thismoment. [#4 January, 1852]

The bulk of the Mountain had left its vanguard in the lurch by refusingtheir signatures to the proclamation; the press had deserted: onlytwo papers dared to publish the pronunciamento; the small traders hadbetrayed their Representatives: the National Guards stayed away, or, where they did turn up, hindered the raising of barricades; theRepresentatives had duped the small traders: nowhere were the allegedaffiliated members from the Army to be seen; finally, instead ofgathering strength from them, the democratic party had infected theproletariat with its own weakness, and, as usual with democraticfeats, the leaders had the satisfaction of charging "their people" withdesertion, and the people had the satisfaction of charging their leaderswith fraud. 

Seldom was an act announced with greater noise than the campaigncontemplated by the Mountain; seldom was an event trumpeted ahead withmore certainty and longer beforehand than the "inevitable victory ofthe democracy. " This is evident: the democrats believe in the trombonesbefore whose blasts the walls of Jericho fall together; as often as theystand before the walls of despotism, they seek to imitate the miracle. If the Mountain wished to win in parliament, it should not appeal toarms; if it called to arms in parliament, it should not conduct itselfparliamentarily on the street; if the friendly demonstration was meantseriously, it was silly not to foresee that it would meet with a warlikereception; if it was intended for actual war, it was rather originalto lay aside the weapons with which war had to be conducted. But therevolutionary threats of the middle class and of their democraticrepresentatives are mere attempts to frighten an adversary; when theyhave run themselves into a blind alley, when they have sufficientlycompromised themselves and are compelled to execute their threats, thething is done in a hesitating manner that avoids nothing so much as themeans to the end, and catches at pretexts to succumb. The bray of theoverture, that announces the fray, is lost in a timid growl so soon asthis is to start; the actors cease to take themselves seriously, and theperformance falls flat like an inflated balloon that is pricked with aneedle. 

No party exaggerates to itself the means at its disposal more thanthe democratic, none deceives itself with greater heedlessness on thesituation. A part of the Army voted for it, thereupon the Mountain isof the opinion that the Army would revolt in its favor. And by whatoccasion? By an occasion, that, from the standpoint of the troops, meantnothing else than that the revolutionary soldiers should take the partof the soldiers of Rome against French soldiers. On the other hand, the memory of June, 1848, was still too fresh not to keep alive a deepaversion on the part of the proletariat towards the National Guard, anda strong feeling of mistrust on the part of the leaders of the secretsocieties for the democratic leaders. In order to balance thesedifferences, great common interests at stake were needed. The violationof an abstract constitutional paragraph could not supply such interests. Had not the constitution been repeatedly violated, according to theassurances of the democrats themselves? Had not the most popular papersbranded them as a counter-revolutionary artifice? But the democrat--byreason of his representing the middle class, that is to say, aTransition Class, in which the interests of two other classes aremutually dulled--, imagines himself above all class contrast. Thedemocrats grant that opposed to them stands a privileged class, butthey, together with the whole remaining mass of the nation, constitutethe "PEOPLE. " What they represent is the "people's rights"; theirinterests are the "people's interests. " Hence, they do not considerthat, at an impending struggle, they need to examine the interests andattitude of the different classes. They need not too seriously weightheir own means. All they have to do is to give the signal in order tohave the "people" fall upon the "oppressors" with all its inexhaustibleresources. If, thereupon, in the execution, their interests turn out tobe uninteresting, and their power to be impotence, it is ascribed eitherto depraved sophists, who split up the "undivisible people" into severalhostile camps; or to the army being too far brutalized and blinded toappreciate the pure aims of the democracy as its own best; or to somedetail in the execution that wrecks the whole plan; or, finally, to anunforeseen accident that spoiled the game this time. At all events, thedemocrat comes out of the disgraceful defeat as immaculate as he wentinnocently into it, and with the refreshed conviction that he must win;not that he himself and his party must give up their old standpoint, butthat, on the contrary, conditions must come to his aid. 

For all this, one must not picture to himself the decimated, broken, and, by the new parliamentary regulation, humbled Mountain altogethertoo unhappy. If June 13 removed its leaders, it, on the other hand, maderoom for new ones of inferior capacity, who are flattered by their newposition. If their impotence in parliament could no longer be doubted, they were now justified to limit their activity to outbursts of moralindignation. If the party of Order pretended to see in them, as the lastofficial representatives of the revolution, all the horrors of anarchyincarnated, they were free to appear all the more flat and modestin reality. Over June 13 they consoled themselves with the profoundexpression: "If they but dare to assail universal suffrage . . . Then. . . Then we will show who we are!" Nous verrons. [#5 We shall see. ]

As to the "Mountaineers, " who had fled abroad, it suffices here tosay that Ledru-Rollin--he having accomplished the feat of hopelesslyruining, in barely a fortnight, the powerful party at whose head hestood--, found himself called upon to build up a French government "inpartibus;" that his figure, at a distance, removed from the field ofaction, seemed to gain in size in the measure that the level of therevolution sank and the official prominences of official France becamemore and more dwarfish; that he could figure as republican Pretenderfor 1852, and periodically issued to the Wallachians and other peoplescirculars in which "despot of the continent" is threatened with thefeats that he and his allies had in contemplation. Was Proudhon whollywrong when he cried out to these gentlemen: "Vous n'etes que desblaqueurs"? [#6 You are nothing but fakirs. ]

The party of Order had, on June 13, not only broken up the Mountain, it had also established the Subordination of the Constitution tothe Majority Decisions of the National Assembly. So, indeed, did therepublic understand it, to--wit, that the bourgeois ruled here inparliamentary form, without, as in the monarchy, finding a check inthe veto of the Executive power, or the liability of parliament todissolution. It was a "parliamentary republic, " as Thiers styled it. But if, on June 13, the bourgeoisie secured its omnipotence within theparliament building, did it not also strike the parliament itself, as against the Executive and the people, with incurable weakness byexcluding its most popular part? By giving up numerous Deputies, withoutfurther ceremony to the mercies of the public prosecutor, it abolishedits own parliamentary inviolability. The humiliating regulation, that itsubjected the Mountain to, raised the President of the republic inthe same measure that it lowered the individual Representatives of thepeople. By branding an insurrection in defense of the Constitutionas anarchy, and as a deed looking to the overthrow of society, itinterdicted to itself all appeal to insurrection whenever the Executiveshould violate the Constitution against it. And, indeed, the ironyof history wills it that the very General, who by order of Bonapartebombarded Rome, and thus gave the immediate occasion to theconstitutional riot of June 13, that Oudinot, on December 22, 1851, isthe one imploringly and vainly to be offered to the people by the partyof Order as the General of the Constitution. Another hero of June 13, Vieyra, who earned praise from the tribune of the National Assemblyfor the brutalities that he had committed in the democratic newspaperoffices at the head of a gang of National Guards in the hire of thehigh finance--this identical Vieyra was initiated in the conspiracy ofBonaparte, and contributed materially in cutting off all protection thatcould come to the National Assembly, in the hour of its agony, from theside of the National Guard. 

June 13 had still another meaning. The Mountain had wanted to placeBonaparte under charges. Their defeat was, accordingly, a direct victoryof Bonaparte; it was his personal triumph over his democratic enemies. The party of Order fought for the victory, Bonaparte needed only topocket it. He did so. On June 14, a proclamation was to be read onthe walls of Paris wherein the President, as it were, without hisconnivance, against his will, driven by the mere force of circumstances, steps forward from his cloisterly seclusion like misjudged virtue, complains of the calumnies of his antagonists, and, while seeming toidentify his own person with the cause of order, rather identifies thecause of order with his own person. Besides this, the National Assemblyhad subsequently approved the expedition against Rome; Bonaparte, however, had taken the initiative in the affair. After he had led theHigh Priest Samuel back into the Vatican, he could hope as King David tooccupy the Tuileries. He had won the parson-interests over to himself. 

The riot of June 13 limited itself, as we have seen, to a peacefulstreet procession. There were, consequently, no laurels to be won fromit. Nevertheless, in these days, poor in heroes and events, the party ofOrder converted this bloodless battle into a second Austerlitz. Tribuneand press lauded the army as the power of order against the popularmultitude, and the impotence of anarchy; and Changarnier as the "bulwarkof society"--a mystification that he finally believed in himself. Underhand, however, the corps that seemed doubtful were removed fromParis; the regiments whose suffrage had turned out most democratic werebanished from France to Algiers the restless heads among the troops wereconsigned to penal quarters; finally, the shutting out of the pressfrom the barracks, and of the barracks from contact with the citizenswas systematically carried out. 

We stand here at the critical turning point in the history of the FrenchNational Guard. In 1830, it had decided the downfall of the restoration. Under Louis Philippe, every riot failed, at which the National Guardstood on the side of the troops. When, in the February days of 1848, it showed itself passive against the uprising and doubtful toward LouisPhilippe himself, he gave himself up for lost. Thus the conviction castroot that a revolution could not win without, nor the Army againstthe National Guard. This was the superstitious faith of the Army inbourgeois omnipotence. The June days of 1548, when the whole NationalGuard, jointly with the regular troops, threw down the insurrection, had confirmed the superstition. After the inauguration of Bonaparte'sadministration, the position of the National Guard sank somewhat throughthe unconstitutional joining of their command with the command of theFirst Military Division in the person of Changarnier. 

As the command of the National Guard appeared here merely an attributeof the military commander-in-chief, so did the Guard itself appear onlyas an appendage of the regular troops. Finally, on June 13, the NationalGuard was broken up, not through its partial dissolution only, that fromthat date forward was periodically repeated at all points of France, leaving only wrecks of its former self behind. The demonstration of June13 was, above all, a demonstration of the National Guards. True, theyhad not carried their arms, but they had carried their uniforms againstthe Army--and the talisman lay just in these uniforms. The Army thenlearned that this uniform was but a woolen rag, like any other. Thespell was broken. In the June days of 1848, bourgeoisie and smalltraders were united as National Guard with the Army against theproletariat; on June 13, 1849, the bourgeoisie had the small traders'National Guard broken up; on December 2, 1851, the National Guard ofthe bourgeoisie itself vanished, and Bonaparte attested the fact when hesubsequently signed the decree for its disbandment. Thus the bourgeoisiehad itself broken its last weapon against the army, from the moment whenthe small traders' class no longer stood as a vassal behind, but asa rebel before it; indeed, it was bound to do so, as it was bound todestroy with its own hand all its means of defence against absolutism, so soon as itself was absolute. 

In the meantime, the party of Order celebrated the recovery of a powerthat seemed lost in 1848 only in order that, freed from its trammels in1849, it be found again through invectives against the republic and theConstitution; through the malediction of all future, present and pastrevolutions, that one included which its own leaders had made; and, finally, in laws by which the press was gagged, the right of associationdestroyed, and the stage of siege regulated as an organic institution. The National Assembly then adjourned from the middle of August to themiddle of October, after it had appointed a Permanent Committee for theperiod of its absence. During these vacations, the Legitimists intriguedwith Ems; the Orleanists with Claremont; Bonaparte through princelyexcursions; the Departmental Councilmen in conferences over the revisionof the Constitution;--occurrences, all of which recurred regularly atthe periodical vacations of the National Assembly, and upon which Ishall not enter until they have matured into events. Be it here onlyobserved that the National Assembly was impolitic in vanishing fromthe stage for long intervals, and leaving in view, at the head of therepublic, only one, however sorry, figure--Louis Bonaparte's--, while, to the public scandal, the party of Order broke up into its own royalistcomponent parts, that pursued their conflicting aspirations after therestoration. As often as, during these vacations the confusing noise ofthe parliament was hushed, and its body was dissolved in the nation, itwas unmistakably shown that only one thing was still wanting to completethe true figure of the republic: to make the vacation of the NationalAssembly permanent, and substitute its inscription--"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"--by the unequivocal words, "Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery". 

IV

The National Assembly reconvened in the middle of October. On November1, Bonaparte surprised it with a message, in which he announced thedismissal of the Barrot-Falloux Ministry, and the framing of a new. Never have lackeys been chased from service with less ceremony thanBonaparte did his ministers. The kicks, that were eventually destinedfor the National Assembly, Barrot & Company received in the meantime. 

The Barrot Ministry was, as we have seen, composed of Legitimists andOrleanists; it was a Ministry of the party of Order. Bonaparte neededthat Ministry in order to dissolve the republican constituent assembly, to effect the expedition against Rome, and to break up the democraticparty. He had seemingly eclipsed himself behind this Ministry, yieldedthe reins to the hands of the party of Order, and assumed the modestmask, which, under Louis Philippe, had been worn by the responsibleoverseer of the newspapers--the mask of "homme de paille. " [#1 Man ofstraw] Now he threw off the mask, it being no longer the light curtainbehind which he could conceal, but the Iron Mask, which preventedhim from revealing his own physiognomy. He had instituted the BarrotMinistry in order to break up the republican National Assembly in thename of the party of Order; he now dismissed it in order to declare hisown name independent of the parliament of the party of Order. 

There was no want of plausible pretexts for this dismissal. The BarrotMinistry had neglected even the forms of decency that would have allowedthe president of the republic to appear as a power along with theNational Assembly. For instance, during the vacation of the NationalAssembly, Bonaparte published a letter to Edgar Ney, in which he seemedto disapprove the liberal attitude of the Pope, just as, in oppositionto the constitutive assembly, he had published a letter, in whichhe praised Oudinot for his attack upon the Roman republic; when theNational Assembly came to vote on the budget for the Roman expedition, Victor Hugo, out of pretended liberalism, brought up that letter fordiscussion; the party of Order drowned this notion of Bonaparte's underexclamations of contempt and incredulity as though notions of Bonapartecould not possibly have any political weight;--and none of the Ministerstook up the gauntlet for him. On another occasion, Barrot, with hiswell-known hollow pathos, dropped, from the speakers' tribune in theAssembly, words of indignation upon the "abominable machinations, "which, according to him, went on in the immediate vicinity of thePresident. Finally, while the Ministry obtained from the NationalAssembly a widow's pension for the Duchess of Orleans, it denied everymotion to raise the Presidential civil list;--and, in Bonaparte, be italways remembered, the Imperial Pretender was so closely blended withthe impecunious adventurer, that the great idea of his being destined torestore the Empire was ever supplemented by that other, to-wit, that theFrench people was destined to pay his debts. 

The Barrot-Falloux Ministry was the first and last parliamentaryMinistry that Bonaparte called into life. Its dismissal marks, accordingly, a decisive period. With the Ministry, the party of Orderlost, never to regain, an indispensable post to the maintenance of theparliamentary regime, --the handle to the Executive power. It is readilyunderstood that, in a country like France, where the Executivedisposes over an army of more than half a million office-holders, and, consequently, keeps permanently a large mass of interests and existencesin the completest dependence upon itself; where the Governmentsurrounds, controls, regulates, supervises and guards society, from itsmightiest acts of national life, down to its most insignificant motions;from its common life, down to the private life of each individual;where, due to such extraordinary centralization, this body of parasitesacquires a ubiquity and omniscience, a quickened capacity for motionand rapidity that finds an analogue only in the helpless lack ofself-reliance, in the unstrung weakness of the body social itself;--thatin such a country the National Assembly lost, with the control ofthe ministerial posts, all real influence; unless it simultaneouslysimplified the administration; if possible, reduced the army ofoffice-holders; and, finally, allowed society and public opinion toestablish its own organs, independent of government censorship. But theMaterial Interest of the French bourgeoisie is most intimately boundup in maintenance of just such a large and extensively ramifiedgovernmental machine. There the bourgeoisie provides for its ownsuperfluous membership; and supplies, in the shape of governmentsalaries, what it can not pocket in the form of profit, interest, rentand fees. On the other hand, its Political Interests daily compel it toincrease the power of repression, i. E. , the means and the personnelof the government; it is at the same time forced to conduct anuninterrupted warfare against public opinion, and, full of suspicion, tohamstring and lame the independent organs of society--whenever it doesnot succeed in amputating them wholly. Thus the bourgeoisie of Francewas forced by its own class attitude, on the one hand, to destroy theconditions for all parliamentary power, its own included, and, on theother, to render irresistible the Executive power that stood hostile toit. 

The new Ministry was called the d'Hautpoul Ministry. Not that Generald'Hautpoul had gained the rank of Ministerial President. Along withBarrot, Bonaparte abolished this dignity, which, it must be granted, condemned the President of the republic to the legal nothingness of aconstitutional kind, of a constitutional king at that, without throneand crown, without sceptre and without sword, without irresponsibility, without the imperishable possession of the highest dignity in the State, and, what was most untoward of all--without a civil list. The d'HautpoulMinistry numbered only one man of parliamentary reputation, the JewFould, one of the most notorious members of the high finance. To himfell the portfolio of finance. Turn to the Paris stock quotations, andit will be found that from November 1, 1849, French stocks fall and risewith the falling and rising of the Bonapartist shares. While Bonapartehad thus found his ally in the Bourse, he at the same time tookpossession of the Police through the appointment of Carlier as Prefectof Police. 

But the consequences of the change of Ministry could reveal themselvesonly in the course of events. So far, Bonaparte had taken only onestep forward, to be all the more glaringly driven back. Upon his harshmessage, followed the most servile declarations of submissiveness tothe National Assembly. As often as the Ministers made timid attemptsto introduce his own personal hobbies as bills, they themselves seemedunwilling and compelled only by their position to run the comic errands, of whose futility they were convinced in advance. As often as Bonaparteblabbed out his plans behind the backs of his Ministers, and sportedhis "idees napoleoniennes, " [#2 Napoleonic ideas. ] his own Ministersdisavowed him from the speakers' tribune in the National Assembly. Hisaspirations after usurpation seemed to become audible only to the endthat the ironical laughter of his adversaries should not die out. Hedeported himself like an unappreciated genius, whom the world takes fora simpleton. Never did lie enjoy in fuller measure the contempt ofall classes than at this period. Never did the bourgeoisie rule moreabsolutely; never did it more boastfully display the insignia ofsovereignty. 

It is not here my purpose to write the history of its legislativeactivity, which is summed up in two laws passed during this period:the law reestablishing the duty on wine, and the laws on education, tosuppress infidelity. While the drinking of wine was made difficultto the Frenchmen, all the more bounteously was the water of purelife poured out to them. Although in the law on the duty on winethe bourgeoisie declares the old hated French tariff system to beinviolable, it sought, by means of the laws on education, to secure theold good will of the masses that made the former bearable. One wondersto see the Orleanists, the liberal bourgeois, these old apostles ofVoltarianism and of eclectic philosophy, entrusting the supervisionof the French intellect to their hereditary enemies, the Jesuits. But, while Orleanists and Legitimists could part company on the question ofthe Pretender to the crown, they understood full well that their jointreign dictated the joining of the means of oppression of two distinctepochs; that the means of subjugation of the July monarchy had to besupplemented with and strengthened by the means of subjugation of therestoration. 

The farmers, deceived in all their expectations, more than ever grounddown by the law scale of the price of corn, on the one hand, and, on theother, by the growing load of taxation and mortgages, began to stir inthe Departments. They were answered by the systematic baiting of theschool masters, whom the Government subjected to the clergy; by thesystematic baiting of the Mayors, whom it subjected to the Prefects; andby a system of espionage to which all were subjected. In Paris and thelarge towns, the reaction itself carries the physiognomy of its ownepoch; it irritates more than it cows; in the country, it becomes low, moan, petty, tiresome, vexatious, --in a word, it becomes "gensdarme. " Itis easily understood how three years of the gensdarme regime, sanctifiedby the regime of the clergyman, was bound to demoralize unripe masses. 

Whatever the mass of passion and declamation, that the party of Orderexpended from the speakers' tribune in the National Assembly against theminority, its speech remained monosyllabic, like that of the Christian, whose speech was to be "Aye, aye; nay, nay. " It was monosyllabic, whether from the tribune or the press; dull as a conundrum, whosesolution is known beforehand. Whether the question was the right ofpetition or the duty on wine, the liberty of the press or free trade, clubs or municipal laws, protection of individual freedom or theregulation of national economy, the slogan returns ever again, thetheme is monotonously the same, the verdict is ever ready and unchanged:Socialism! Even bourgeois liberalism is pronounced socialistic;socialistic, alike, is pronounced popular education; and, likewise, socialistic national financial reform. It was socialistic to build arailroad where already a canal was; and it was socialistic to defendoneself with a stick when attacked with a sword. 

This was not a mere form of speech, a fashion, nor yet party tactics. The bourgeoisie perceives correctly that all the weapons, which itforged against feudalism, turn their edges against itself; that allthe means of education, which it brought forth, rebel against its owncivilization; that all the gods, which it made, have fallen awayfrom it. It understands that all its so-called citizens' rights andprogressive organs assail and menace its class rule, both in its socialfoundation and its political superstructure--consequently, have become"socialistic. " It justly scents in this menace and assault the secret ofSocialism, whose meaning and tendency it estimates more correctly thanthe spurious, so-called Socialism, is capable of estimating itself, and which, consequently, is unable to understand how it is that thebourgeoisie obdurately shuts up its ears to it, alike whether itsentimentally whines about the sufferings of humanity; or announces inChristian style the millennium and universal brotherhood; or twaddleshumanistically about the soul, culture and freedom; or doctrinallymatches out a system of harmony and wellbeing for all classes. What, however, the bourgeoisie does not understand is the consequence that itsown parliamentary regime, its own political reign, is also of necessitybound to fall under the general ban of "socialistic. " So long as therule of the bourgeoisie is not fully organized, has not acquired itspurely political character, the contrast with the other classes cannotcome into view in all its sharpness; and, where it does come into view, it cannot take that dangerous turn that converts every conflict withthe Government into a conflict with Capital. When, however, the Frenchbourgeoisie began to realize in every pulsation of society a menace to"peace, " how could it, at the head of society, pretend to uphold theregime of unrest, its own regime, the parliamentary regime, which, according to the expression of one of its own orators, lives instruggle, and through struggle? The parliamentary regime lives ondiscussion, --how can it forbid discussion? Every single interest, everysingle social institution is there converted into general thoughts, istreated as a thought, --how could any interest or institution claim tobe above thought, and impose itself as an article of faith? The orators'conflict in the tribune calls forth the conflict of the rowdies in thepress the debating club in parliament is necessarily supplemented bydebating clubs in the salons and the barrooms; the representatives, whoare constantly appealing to popular opinion, justify popular opinionin expressing its real opinion in petitions. The parliamentary regimeleaves everything to the decision of majorities, --how can the largemajorities beyond parliament be expected not to wish to decide? If, fromabove, they hear the fiddle screeching, what else is to be expected thanthat those below should dance?

Accordingly, by now persecuting as Socialist what formerly it hadcelebrated as Liberal, the bourgeoisie admits that its own interestorders it to raise itself above the danger of self government; that, in order to restore rest to the land, its own bourgeois parliament must, before all, be brought to rest; that, in order to preserve its socialpower unhurt, its political power must be broken; that the privatebourgeois can continue to exploit the other classes and rejoice in"property, " "family, " "religion" and "order" only under the conditionthat his own class be condemned to the same political nullity of theother classes, that, in order to save their purse, the crown must beknocked off their heads, and the sword that was to shield them, must atthe same time be hung over their heads as a sword of Damocles. 

In the domain of general bourgeois interests, the National Assemblyproved itself so barren, that, for instance, the discussion over theParis-Avignon railroad, opened in the winter of 1850, was not yet ripefor a vote on December 2, 1851. Wherever it did not oppress or wasreactionary, the bourgeoisie was smitten with incurable barrenness. 

While Bonaparte's Ministry either sought to take the initiative of lawsin the spirit of the party of Order, or even exaggerated their severityin their enforcement and administration, he, on his part, sought to winpopularity by means of childishly silly propositions, to exhibit thecontrast between himself and the National Assembly, and to hint at asecret plan, held in reserve and only through circumstances temporarilyprevented from disclosing its hidden treasures to the French people. Ofthis nature was the proposition to decree a daily extra pay of foursous to the under-officers; so, likewise, the proposition for a "wordof honor" loan bank for working-men. To have money given and moneyborrowed--that was the perspective that he hoped to cajole the masseswith. Presents and loans--to that was limited the financial wisdom ofthe slums, the high as well as the low; to that were limited the springswhich Bonaparte knew how to set in motion. Never did Pretender speculatemore dully upon the dullness of the masses. 

Again and again did the National Assembly fly into a passion at theseunmistakable attempts to win popularity at its expense, and at thegrowing danger that this adventurer, lashed on by debts and unrestrainedby reputation, might venture upon some desperate act. The strainedrelations between the party of Order and the President had taken on athreatening aspect, when an unforeseen event threw him back, ruefulinto its arms. We mean the supplementary elections of March, 1850. These elections took place to fill the vacancies created in the NationalAssembly, after June 13, by imprisonment and exile. Paris elected onlySocial-Democratic candidates; it even united the largest vote uponone of the insurgents of June, 1848, --Deflotte. In this way the smalltraders' world of Paris, now allied with the proletariat, revengeditself for the defeat of June 13, 1849. It seemed to have disappearedfrom the field of battle at the hour of danger only to step on it againat a more favorable opportunity, with increased forces for the fray, andwith a bolder war cry. A circumstance seemed to heighten the danger ofthis electoral victory. The Army voted in Paris for a June insurgentagainst Lahitte, a Minister of Bonaparte's, and, in the Departments, mostly for the candidates of the Mountain, who, there also, althoughnot as decisively as in Paris, maintained the upper hand over theiradversaries. 

Bonaparte suddenly saw himself again face to face with the revolution. As on January 29, 1849, as on June 13, 1849, on May 10, 1850, hevanished again behind the party of Order. He bent low; he timidlyapologized; he offered to appoint any Ministry whatever at the behestof the parliamentary majority; he even implored the Orleanist andLegitimist party leaders--the Thiers, Berryers, Broglies, Moles, inshort, the so-called burgraves--to take hold of the helm of State inperson. The party of Order did not know how to utilize this opportunity, that was never to return. Instead of boldly taking possession of theproffered power, it did not even force Bonaparte to restore the Ministrydismissed on November 1; it contented itself with humiliating him withits pardon, and with affiliating Mr. Baroche to the d'Hautpoul Ministry. This Baroche had, as Public Prosecutor, stormed before the High Court atBourges, once against the revolutionists of May 15, another time againstthe Democrats of June 13, both times on the charge of "attentats"against the National Assembly. None of Bonaparte's Ministers contributedlater more towards the degradation of the National Assembly; and, afterDecember 2, 1851, we meet him again as the comfortably stalled anddearly paid Vice-President of the Senate. He had spat into the soup ofthe revolutionists for Bonaparte to eat it. 

On its part, the Social Democratic party seemed only to look forpretexts in order to make its own victory doubtful, and to dull itsedge. Vidal, one of the newly elected Paris representatives, wasreturned for Strassburg also. He was induced to decline the seat forParis and accept the one for Strassburg. Thus, instead of givinga definite character to their victory at the hustings, and therebycompelling the party of Order forthwith to contest it in parliament;instead of thus driving the foe to battle at the season of popularenthusiasm and of a favorable temper in the Army, the democratic partytired out Paris with a new campaign during the months of March andApril; it allowed the excited popular passions to wear themselves outin this second provisional electoral play it allowed the revolutionaryvigor to satiate itself with constitutional successes, and lose itsbreath in petty intrigues, hollow declamation and sham moves; itgave the bourgeoisie time to collect itself and make its preparationsfinally, it allowed the significance of the March elections to find asentimentally weakening commentary at the subsequent April election inthe victory of Eugene Sue. In one word, it turned the 10th of March intoan April Fool. 

The parliamentary majority perceived the weakness of its adversary. Its seventeen burgraves--Bonaparte had left to it the direction of andresponsibility for the attack--, framed a new election law, the movingof which was entrusted to Mr. Faucher, who had applied for the honor. On May 8, he introduced the new law whereby universal suffrage wasabolished; a three years residence in the election district imposed asa condition for voting; and, finally, the proof of this residence madedependent, for the working-man, upon the testimony of his employer. 

As revolutionarily as the democrats had agitated and stormed during theconstitutional struggles, so constitutionally did they, now, when itwas imperative to attest, arms in hand, the earnestness of their lateelectoral victories, preach order, "majestic calmness, " lawful conduct, i. E. , blind submission to the will of the counter-revolution, whichrevealed itself as law. During the debate, the Mountain put the partyof Order to shame by maintaining the passionless attitude ofthe law-abiding burger, who upholds the principle of law againstrevolutionary passions; and by twitting the party of Order with thefearful reproach of proceeding in a revolutionary manner. Even the newlyelected deputies took pains to prove by their decent and thoughtfuldeportment what an act of misjudgment it was to decry them asanarchists, or explain their election as a victory of the revolution. The new election law was passed on May 31. The Mountain contenteditself with smuggling a protest into the pockets of the President ofthe Assembly. To the election law followed a new press law, whereby therevolutionary press was completely done away with. It had deserved itsfate. The "National" and the "Presse, " two bourgeois organs, remainedafter this deluge the extreme outposts of the revolution. 

We have seen how, during March and April, the democratic leaders dideverything to involve the people of Paris in a sham battle, and how, after May 8, they did everything to keep it away from a real battle. We may not here forget that the year 1850 was one of the most brilliantyears of industrial and commercial prosperity; consequently, that theParisian proletariat was completely employed. But the election law ofMay 31, 1850 excluded them from all participation in political power; itcut the field of battle itself from under them; it threw the workingmenback into the state of pariahs, which they had occupied before theFebruary revolution. In allowing themselves, in sight of suchan occurrence, to be led by the democrats, and in forgetting therevolutionary interests of their class through temporary comfort, the workingmen abdicated the honor of being a conquering power; theysubmitted to their fate; they proved that the defeat of June, 1848, hadincapacitated them from resistance for many a year to come finally, thatthe historic process must again, for the time being, proceed over theirheads. As to the small traders' democracy, which, on June 13, had criedout: "If they but dare to assail universal suffrage . . . Then . . . Then we will show who we are!"--they now consoled themselves with thethought that the counter-revolutionary blow, which had struck them, wasno blow at all, and that the law of May 31 was no law. On May 2, 1852, according to them, every Frenchman would appear at the hustings, in onehand the ballot, in the other the sword. With this prophecy they settheir hearts at ease. Finally, the Army was punished by its superiorsfor the elections of May and April, 1850, as it was punished forthe election of May 29, 1849. This time, however, it said to itselfdeterminately: "The revolution shall not cheat us a third time. "

The law of May 31, 1850, was the "coup d'etat" of the bourgeoisie. All its previous conquests over the revolution had only a temporarycharacter: they became uncertain the moment the National Assemblystepped off the stage; they depended upon the accident of generalelections, and the history of the elections since 1848 provedirrefutably that, in the same measure as the actual reign of thebourgeoisie gathered strength, its moral reign over the masses wore off. Universal suffrage pronounced itself on May 10 pointedly against thereign of the bourgeoisie; the bourgeoisie answered with the banishmentof universal suffrage. The law of May 31 was, accordingly, one of thenecessities of the class struggle. On the other hand, the constitutionrequired a minimum of two million votes for the valid ejection of thePresident of the republic. If none of the Presidential candidates polledthis minimum, then the National Assembly was to elect the President outof the three candidates polling the highest votes. At the time that theconstitutive body made this law, ten million voters were registeredon the election rolls. In its opinion, accordingly, one-fifth of thequalified voters sufficed to make a choice for President valid. The lawof May 31 struck at least three million voters off the rolls, reducedthe number of qualified voters to seven millions, and yet, notwithstanding, it kept the lawful minimum at two millions for theelection of a President. Accordingly, it raised the lawful minimum froma fifth to almost a third of the qualified voters, i. E. , it did allit could to smuggle the Presidential election out of the hands of thepeople into those of the National Assembly. Thus, by the election law ofMay 31, the party of Order seemed to have doubly secured its empire, in that it placed the election of both the National Assembly and thePresident of the republic in the keeping of the stable portion ofsociety. 

V

The strife immediately broke out again between the National Assemblyand Bonaparte, so soon as the revolutionary crisis was weathered, anduniversal suffrage was abolished. 

The Constitution had fixed the salary of Bonaparte at 600, 000 francs. Barely half a year after his installation, he succeeded in raisingthis sum to its double: Odillon Barrot had wrung from the constitutiveassembly a yearly allowance of 600, 000 francs for so-calledrepresentation expenses. After June 13, Bonaparte hinted at similarsolicitations, to which, however, Barrot then turned a deaf ear. Now, after May 31, he forthwith utilized the favorable moment, and causedhis ministers to move a civil list of three millions in the NationalAssembly. A long adventurous, vagabond career had gifted him with thebest developed antennae for feeling out the weak moments when he couldventure upon squeezing money from his bourgeois. He carried on regularblackmail. The National Assembly had maimed the sovereignty of thepeople with his aid and his knowledge: he now threatened to denounce itscrime to the tribunal of the people, if it did not pull out its purseand buy his silence with three millions annually. It had robbed threemillion Frenchmen of the suffrage: for every Frenchman thrown "out ofcirculation, " he demanded a franc "in circulation. " He, the elect ofsix million, demanded indemnity for the votes he had been subsequentlycheated of. The Committee of the National Assembly turned theimportunate fellow away. The Bonapartist press threatened: Could theNational Assembly break with the President of the republic at a timewhen it had broken definitely and on principle with the mass of thenation? It rejected the annual civil list, but granted, for this once, an allowance of 2, 160, 000 francs. Thus it made itself guilty of thedouble weakness of granting the money, and, at the same time, showingby its anger that it did so only unwillingly. We shall presently seeto what use Bonaparte put the money. After this aggravating after-play, that followed upon the heels of the abolition of universal suffrage, and in which Bonaparte exchanged his humble attitude of the days ofthe crisis of March and April for one of defiant impudence towards theusurping parliament, the National Assembly adjourned for three months, from August 11, to November 11. It left behind in its place a PermanentCommittee of 18 members that contained no Bonapartist, but did containa few moderate republicans. The Permanent Committee of the year 1849 hadnumbered only men of order and Bonapartists. At that time, however, theparty of Order declared itself in permanence against the revolution;now the parliamentary republic declared itself in permanence against thePresident. After the law of May 31, only this rival still confronted theparty of Order. 

When the National Assembly reconvened in November, 1850, instead of itsformer petty skirmishes with the President, a great headlong struggle, a struggle for life between the two powers, seemed to have becomeinevitable. 

As in the year 1849, the party of Order had during this year's vacation, dissolved into its two separate factions, each occupied with its ownrestoration intrigues, which had received new impetus from the deathof Louis Philippe. The Legitimist King, Henry V, had even appointed aregular Ministry, that resided in Paris, and in which sat members ofthe Permanent Committee. Hence, Bonaparte was, on his part, justifiedin making tours through the French Departments, and--according to thedisposition of the towns that he happened to be gladdening with hispresence--some times covertly, other times more openly blabbing outhis own restoration plans, and gaining votes for himself On theseexcursions, which the large official "Moniteur" and the small private"Moniteurs" of Bonaparte were, of course, bound to celebrate astriumphal marches, he was constantly accompanied by affiliated membersof the "Society of December 10" This society dated from the year1849. Under the pretext of founding a benevolent association, theslum-proletariat of Paris was organized into secret sections, eachsection led by Bonapartist agents, with a Bonapartist General at thehead of all. Along with ruined roues of questionable means of supportand questionable antecedents, along with the foul and adventures-seekingdregs of the bourgeoisie, there were vagabonds, dismissed soldiers, discharged convicts, runaway galley slaves, sharpers, jugglers, lazzaroni, pickpockets, sleight-of-hand performers, gamblers, procurers, keepers of disorderly houses, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, scissors grinders, tinkers, beggars--in short, that wholeundefined, dissolute, kicked-about mass that the Frenchmen style "laBoheme" With this kindred element, Bonaparte formed the stock of the"Society of December 10, " a "benevolent association" in so far as, likeBonaparte himself, all its members felt the need of being benevolent tothemselves at the expense of the toiling nation. The Bonaparte, who hereconstitutes himself Chief of the Slum-Proletariat; who only here findsagain in plenteous form the interests which he personally pursues; who, in this refuse, offal and wreck of all classes, recognizes the onlyclass upon which he can depend unconditionally;--this is the realBonaparte, the Bonaparte without qualification. An old and crafty roue, he looks upon the historic life of nations, upon their great and publicacts, as comedies in the ordinary sense, as a carnival, where thegreat costumes, words and postures serve only as masks for the pettiestchicaneries. So, on the occasion of his expedition against Strassburgwhen a trained Swiss vulture impersonated the Napoleonic eagle; so, again, on the occasion of his raid upon Boulogne, when he struck a fewLondon lackeys into French uniform: they impersonated the army; [#1Under the reign of Louis Philippe, Bonaparte made two attempts torestore the throne of Napoleon: one in October, 1836, in an expeditionfrom Switzerland upon Strassburg and one in August, 1840, in anexpedition from England upon Boulogne. ] and so now, in his "Societyof December 10, " he collects 10, 000 loafers who are to impersonatethe people as Snug the Joiner does the lion. At a period when thebourgeoisie itself is playing the sheerest comedy, but in the mostsolemn manner in the world, without doing violence to any of thepedantic requirements of French dramatic etiquette, and is itself partlydeceived by, partly convinced of, the solemnity of its own public acts, the adventurer, who took the comedy for simple comedy, was bound to win. Only after he has removed his solemn opponent, when he himself takesseriously his own role of emperor, and, with the Napoleonic mask on, imagines he impersonates the real Napoleon, only then does he become thevictim of his own peculiar conception of history--the serious clown, whono longer takes history for a comedy, but a comedy for history. What thenational work-shops were to the socialist workingmen, what the "Gardesmobiles" were to the bourgeois republicans, that was to Bonaparte the"Society of December 10, "--a force for partisan warfare peculiar tohimself. On his journeys, the divisions of the Society, packed awayon the railroads, improvised an audience for him, performed publicenthusiasm, shouted "vive l'Empereur, " insulted and clubbed therepublicans, --all, of course, under the protection of the police. Onhis return stages to Paris, this rabble constituted his vanguard, it forestalled or dispersed counter-demonstrations. The "Society ofDecember 10" belonged to him, it was his own handiwork, his own thought. Whatever else he appropriates, the power of circumstances places in hishands; whatever else he does, either circumstances do for him, or heis content to copy from the deeds of others, but he posing before thecitizens with the official phrases about "Order, " "Religion, " "Family, ""Property, " and, behind him, the secret society of skipjacks andpicaroons, the society of disorder, of prostitution, and of theft, --thatis Bonaparte himself as the original author; and the history of the"Society of December 10" is his own history. Now, then, it happened thatRepresentatives belonging to the party of order occasionally got underthe clubs of the Decembrists. Nay, more. Police Commissioner Yon, whohad been assigned to the National Assembly, and was charged with theguardianship of its safety, reported to the Permanent Committee upon thetestimony of one Alais, that a Section of the Decembrists had decidedon the murder of General Changarnier and of Dupin, the President of theNational Assembly, and had already settled upon the men to execute thedecree. One can imagine the fright of Mr. Dupin. A parliamentaryinquest over the "Society of December 10, " i. E. , the profanation ofthe Bonapartist secret world now seemed inevitable. Just before thereconvening of the National Assembly, Bonaparte circumspectly dissolvedhis Society, of course, on paper only. As late as the end of 1851, Police Prefect Carlier vainly sought, in an exhaustive memorial, to movehim to the real dissolution of the Decembrists. 

The "Society of December 10" was to remain the private army of Bonaparteuntil he should have succeeded in converting the public Army into a"Society of December 10. " Bonaparte made the first attempt in thisdirection shortly after the adjournment of the National Assembly, and hedid so with the money which he had just wrung from it. As a fatalist, he lives devoted to the conviction that there are certain Higher Powers, whom man, particularly the soldier, cannot resist. First among thesePowers he numbers cigars and champagne, cold poultry and garlic-sausage. Accordingly, in the apartments of the Elysee, he treated first theofficers and under-officers to cigars and champagne, to cold poultry andgarlic-sausage. On October 3, he repeats this manoeuvre with the rankand file of the troops by the review of St. Maur; and, on October 10, the same manoeuvre again, upon a larger scale, at the army parade ofSatory. The Uncle bore in remembrance the campaigns of Alexander inAsia: the Nephew bore in remembrance the triumphal marches of Bacchusin the same country. Alexander was, indeed, a demigod; but Bacchus wasa full-fledged god, and the patron deity, at that, of the "Society ofDecember 10. "

After the review of October 3, the Permanent Committee summoned theMinister of War, d'Hautpoul, before it. He promised that such breachesof discipline should not recur. We have seen how, on October 10th, Bonaparte kept d'Hautpoul's word. At both reviews Changarnier hadcommanded as Commander-in-chief of the Army of Paris. He, at once memberof the Permanent Committee, Chief of the National Guard, the "Savior"of January 29, and June 13, the "Bulwark of Society, " candidate of theParty of Order for the office of President, the suspected Monk of twomonarchies, --he had never acknowledged his subordination to the Ministerof War, had ever openly scoffed at the republican Constitution, and hadpursued Bonaparte with a protection that was ambiguously distinguished. Now he became zealous for the discipline in opposition to Bonaparte. While, on October 10, a part of the cavalry cried: "Vive Napoleon!Vivent les saucissons;" [#2 Long live Napoleon! Long live the sausages!]Changarnier saw to it that at least the infantry, which filed by underthe command of his friend Neumeyer, should observe an icy silence. In punishment, the Minister of War, at the instigation of Bonaparte, deposed General Neumeyer from his post in Paris, under the pretext ofproviding for him as Commander-in-chief of the Fourteenth and FifteenthMilitary Divisions. Neumeyer declined the exchange, and had, inconsequence, to give his resignation. On his part, Changarnier publishedon November 2, an order, wherein he forbade the troops to indulge, whileunder arms, in any sort of political cries or demonstrations. The papersdevoted to the Elysee interests attacked Changarnier; the papers of theparty of Order attacked Bonaparte; the Permanent Committee held frequentsecret sessions, at which it was repeatedly proposed to declare thefatherland in danger; the Army seemed divided into two hostile camps, with two hostile staffs; one at the Elysee, where Bonaparte, the otherat the Tuileries, where Changarnier resided. All that seemed wantingfor the signal of battle to sound was the convening of the NationalAssembly. The French public looked upon the friction betweenBonaparte and Changarnier in the light of the English journalist, whocharacterized it in these words: "The political servant girls of Franceare mopping away the glowing lava of the revolution with old mops, andthey scold each other while doing their work. "

Meanwhile, Bonaparte hastened to depose the Minister of War, d'Hautpoul;to expedite him heels over head to Algiers; and to appoint in his placeGeneral Schramm as Minister of War. On November 12, he sent to theNational Assembly a message of American excursiveness, overloaded withdetails, redolent of order, athirst for conciliation, resignful to theConstitution, dealing with all and everything, only not with the burningquestions of the moment. As if in passing he dropped the words thataccording to the express provisions of the Constitution, the Presidentalone disposes over the Army. The message closed with the followinghigh-sounding protestations:

"France demands, above all things, peace . . . Alone bound by an oath, Ishall keep myself within the narrow bounds marked out by it to me . . . As to me, elected by the people, and owing my power to it alone, I shallalways submit to its lawfully expressed will. Should you at thissession decide upon the revision of the Constitution, a ConstitutionalConvention will regulate the position of the Executive power. If youdo not, then, the people will, in 1852, solemnly announce its decision. But, whatever the solution may be that the future has in store, let usarrive at an understanding to the end that never may passion, surpriseor violence decide over the fate of a great nation. . . . That which, above all, bespeaks my attention is, not who will, in 1852, rule overFrance, but to so devote the time at my disposal that the interval maypass by with-out agitation and disturbance. I have straightforwardlyopened my heart to you, you will answer my frankness with yourconfidence, my good efforts with your co-operation. God will do therest. "

The honnete, hypocritically temperate, commonplace-virtuous languageof the bourgeoisie reveals its deep meaning in the mouth of theself-appointed ruler of the "Society of December 10, " and of thepicnic-hero of St. Maur and Satory. 

The burgraves of the party of Order did not for a moment deceivethemselves on the confidence that this unbosoming deserved. Theywere long blase on oaths; they numbered among themselves veterans andvirtuosi of perjury. The passage about the army did not, however, escapethem. They observed with annoyance that the message, despite its prolixenumeration of the lately enacted laws, passed, with affected silence, over the most important of all, the election law, and, moreover, incase no revision of the Constitution was held, left the choice ofthe President, in 1852, with the people. The election law was theball-and-chain to the feet of the party of Order, that hindered themfrom walking, and now assuredly from storming. Furthermore, by theofficial disbandment of the "Society of December 10, " and the dismissalof the Minister of War, d'Hautpoul, Bonaparte had, with his own hands, sacrificed the scapegoats on the altar of the fatherland. He had turnedoff the expected collision. Finally, the party of Order itself anxiouslysought to avoid every decisive conflict with the Executive, to weakenand to blur it over. Fearing to lose its conquests over the revolution, it let its rival gather the fruits thereof. "France demands, aboveall things, peace, " with this language had the party of Order beenapostrophizing the revolution, since February; with this languagedid Bonaparte's message now apostrophize the party of Order: "Francedemands, above all things, peace. " Bonaparte committed acts that aimedat usurpation, but the party of Order committed a "disturbance ofthe peace, " if it raised the hue and cry, and explained themhypochrondriacally. The sausages of Satory were mouse-still whennobody talked about them;--France demands, above all things, "peace. "Accordingly, Bonaparte demanded that he be let alone; and theparliamentary party was lamed with a double fear: the fear ofre-conjuring up the revolutionary disturbance of the peace, and the fearof itself appearing as the disturber of the peace in the eyes of its ownclass, of the bourgeosie. Seeing that, above all things, France demandedpeace, the party of Order did not dare, after Bonaparte had said "peace"in his message, to answer "war. " The public, who had promised to itselfthe pleasure of seeing great scenes of scandal at the opening of theNational Assembly, was cheated out of its expectations. The oppositiondeputies, who demanded the submission of the minutes of the PermanentCommittee over the October occurrences, were outvoted. All debate thatmight excite was fled from on principle. The labors of the NationalAssembly during November and December, 1850, were without interest. 

Finally, toward the end of December, began a guerilla warfare aboutcertain prerogatives of the parliament. The movement sank into the mireof petty chicaneries on the prerogative of the two powers, since, withthe abolition of universal suffrage, the bourgeoisie had done away withthe class struggle. 

A judgment for debt had been secured against Mauguin, one of theRepresentatives. Upon inquiry by the President of the Court, theMinister of Justice, Rouher, declared that an order of arrest should bemade out without delay. Manguin was, accordingly, cast into thedebtors' prison. The National Assembly bristled up when it heard ofthe "attentat. " It not only ordered his immediate release, but had himforcibly taken out of Clichy the same evening by its own greffier. Inorder, nevertheless, to shield its belief in the "sacredness of privateproperty, " and also with the ulterior thought of opening, in caseof need, an asylum for troublesome Mountainers, it declared theimprisonment of a Representative for debt to be permissible upon itsprevious consent. It forgot to decree that the President also couldbe locked up for debt. By its act, it wiped out the last semblance ofinviolability that surrounded the members of its own body. 

It will be remembered that, upon the testimony of one Allais, PoliceCommissioner Yon had charged a Section of Decembrists with a planto murder Dupin and Changarnier. With an eye upon that, the questorsproposed at the very first session, that the parliament organize apolice force of its own, paid for out of the private budget of theNational Assembly itself, and wholly independent of the Police Prefects. The Minister of the Interior, Baroche, protested against this trespasson his preserves. A miserable compromise followed, according to whichthe Police Commissioner of the Assembly was to be paid out of its ownprivate budget and was to be subject to the appointment and dismissal ofits own questors, but only upon previous agreement with the Ministerof the Interior. In the meantime Allais had been prosecuted by theGovernment. It was an easy thing in Court, to present his testimonyin the light of a mystification, and, through the mouth of the PublicProsecutor, to throw Dupin, Changarnier, Yon, together with the wholeNational Assembly, into a ridiculous light. Thereupon, on December29, Minister Baroche writes a letter to Dupin, in which he demands thedismissal of Yon. The Committee of the National Assembly decides to keepYon in office; nevertheless, the National Assembly, frightened by itsown violence in the affair of Mauguin, and accustomed, every time it hasshied a blow at the Executive, to receive back from it two in exchange, does not sanction this decision. It dismisses Yon in reward for his zealin office, and robs itself of a parliamentary prerogative, indispensableagainst a person who does not decide by night to execute by day, butdecides by day and executes by night. 

We have seen how, during the months of November and December, undergreat and severe provocations, the National Assembly evaded and refusedthe combat with the Executive power. Now we see it compelled to acceptit on the smallest occasions. In the affair of Mauguin, it confirms inprinciple the liability of a Representative to imprisonment for debt, but to itself reserves the power of allowing the principle to be appliedonly to the Representatives whom it dislikes, -and for this infamousprivilege we see it wrangling with the Minister of Justice. Instead ofutilizing the alleged murder plan to the end of fastening an inquestupon the "Society of December 10, " and of exposing Bonaparte beyondredemption before France and his true figure, as the head of theslum-proletariat of Paris, it allows the collision to sink to a pointwhere the only issue between itself and the Minister of the Interioris. Who has jurisdiction over the appointment and dismissal of a PoliceCommissioner? Thus we see the party of Order, during this whole period, compelled by its ambiguous position to wear out and fritter away itsconflict with the Executive power in small quarrels about jurisdiction, in chicaneries, in pettifogging, in boundary disputes, and to turn thestalest questions of form into the very substance of its activity. It dares not accept the collision at the moment when it involves aprinciple, when the Executive power has really given itself a blank, and when the cause of the National Assembly would be the cause of thenation. It would thereby have issued to the nation an order of march;and it feared nothing so much as that the nation should move. Hence, onthese occasions, it rejects the motions of the Mountain, and proceedsto the order of the day. After the issue has in this way lost allmagnitude, the Executive power quietly awaits the moment when it cantake it up again upon small and insignificant occasions; when, so tosay, the issue offers only a parliamentary local interest. Then does therepressed valor of the party of Order break forth, then it tears awaythe curtain from the scene, then it denounces the President, then itdeclares the republic to be in danger, --but then all its pathos appearsstale, and the occasion for the quarrel a hypocritical pretext, or notat all worth the effort. The parliamentary tempest becomes a tempest ina tea-pot, the struggle an intrigue, the collision a scandal. While therevolutionary classes gloat with sardonic laughter over the humiliationof the National Assembly--they, of course, being as enthusiastic for theprerogatives of the parliament as that body is for public freedom--thebourgeoisie, outside of the parliament, does not understand how thebourgeoisie, inside of the parliament, can squander its time with suchpetty bickerings, and can endanger peace by such wretched rivalries withthe President. It is puzzled at a strategy that makes peace the verymoment when everybody expects battles, and that attacks the very momenteverybody believes peace has been concluded. 

On December 20, Pascal Duprat interpellated the Minister of the Interioron the "Goldbar Lottery. " This lottery was a "Daughter from Elysium";Bonaparte, together with his faithful, had given her birth; and PolicePrefect Carlier had placed her under his official protection, althoughthe French law forbade all lotteries, with the exception of games forbenevolent purposes. Seven million tickets, a franc a piece, and theprofit ostensibly destined to the shipping of Parisian vagabonds toCalifornia. Golden dreams were to displace the Socialist dreams of theParisian proletariat; the tempting prospect of a prize was to displacethe doctrinal right to labor. Of course, the workingmen of Paris didnot recognize in the lustre of the California gold bars the lack-lustrefrancs that had been wheedled out of their pockets. In the main, however, the scheme was an unmitigated swindle. The vagabonds, who meantto open California gold mines without taking the pains to leave Paris, were Bonaparte himself and his Round Table of desperate insolvents. Thethree millions granted by the National Assembly were rioted away; theTreasury had to be refilled somehow or another. In vain did Bonaparteopen a national subscription, at the head of which he himself figuredwith a large sum, for the establishment of so-called "cites ouvrieres. "[#3 Work cities. ] The hard-hearted bourgeois waited, distrustful, forthe payment of his own shares; and, as this, of course, never tookplace, the speculation in Socialist castles in the air fell flat. Thegold bars drew better. Bonaparte and his associates did not contentthemselves with putting into their own pockets part of the surplus ofthe seven millions over and above the bars that were to be drawn; theymanufactured false tickets; they sold, of Number 10 alone, fifteen totwenty lots--a financial operation fully in the spirit of the "Societyof December 10"! The National Assembly did not here have before it thefictitious President of the Republic, but Bonaparte himself in fleshand blood. Here it could catch him in the act, not in conflict withthe Constitution, but with the penal code. When, upon Duprat'sinterpellation, the National Assembly went over to the order of the day, this did not happen simply because Girardin's motion to declareitself "satisfied" reminded the party of Order of its own systematiccorruption: the bourgeois, above all the bourgeois who has been inflatedinto a statesman, supplements his practical meanness with theoreticalpompousness. As statesman, he becomes, like the Government facing him, asuperior being, who can be fought only in a higher, more exalted manner. 

Bonaparte-who, for the very reason of his being a "bohemian, " a princelyslum-proletarian, had over the scampish bourgeois the advantage that hecould carry on the fight after the Assembly itself had carried him withits own hands over the slippery ground of the military banquets, of thereviews, of the "Society of December 10, " and, finally, of the penalcode-now saw that the moment had arrived when he could move from theseemingly defensive to the offensive. He was but little troubled by theintermediate and trifling defeats of the Minister of Justice, ofthe Minister of War, of the Minister of the Navy, of the Ministerof Finance, whereby the National Assembly indicated its growlingdispleasure. Not only did he prevent the Ministers from resigning, and thus recognizing the subordination of the executive power to theParliament; he could now accomplish what during the vacation of theNational Assembly he had commenced, the separation of the military powerfrom the Assembly--the deposition of Changarnier. 

An Elysee paper published an order, issued during the month of May, ostensibly to the First Military Division, and, hence, proceedingfrom Changarnier, wherein the officers were recommended, in case ofan uprising, to give no quarter to the traitors in their own ranks, to shoot them down on the spot, and to refuse troops to the NationalAssembly, should it make a requisition for such. On January 3, 1851, the Cabinet was interpellated on this order. The Cabinet demands for theexamination of the affair at first three months, then one week, finally only twenty-four hours' time. The Assembly orders an immediateexplanation Changarnier rises and declares that this order neverexisted; he adds that he would ever hasten to respond to the calls ofthe National Assembly, and that, in case of a collision, they couldcount upon him. The Assembly receives his utterances with inexpressibleapplause, and decrees a vote of confidence to him. It thereby resign itsown powers; it decrees its own impotence and the omnipotence of the Armyby committing itself to the private protection of a general. But thegeneral, in turn, deceives himself when he places at the Assembly'sdisposal and against Bonaparte a power that he holds only as a fief fromthat same Bonaparte, and when, on his part, he expects protection fromthis Parliament, from his protege', itself needful of protection. ButChangarnier has faith in the mysterious power with which since January, 1849, he had been clad by the bourgeoisie. He takes himself for theThird Power, standing beside the other Powers of Government. He sharesthe faith of all the other heroes, or rather saints, of this epoch, whose greatness consists but in the interested good opinion that theirown party holds of them, and who shrink into every-day figures so soonas circumstances invite them to perform miracles. Infidelity is, indeed, the deadly enemy of these supposed heroes and real saints. Hence theirvirtuously proud indignation at the unenthusiastic wits and scoffers. 

That same evening the Ministers were summoned to the Elysee; Bonapartepresses the removal of Changarnier; five Ministers refuse to sign theorder; the "Moniteur" announces a Ministerial crisis; and the party ofOrder threatens the formation of a Parliamentary army under the commandof Changarnier. The party of Order had the constitutional power hereto. It needed only to elect Changarnier President of the National Assemblyin order to make a requisition for whatever military forces it neededfor its own safety. It could do this all the more safely, seeing thatChangarnier still stood at the head of the Army and of the ParisianNational Guard, and only lay in wait to be summoned, together with theArmy. The Bonapartist press did not even dare to question the right ofthe National Assembly to issue a direct requisition for troops;--a legalscruple, that, under the given circumstances, did not promise success. That the Army would have obeyed the orders of the National Assembly isprobable, when it is considered that Bonaparte had to look eight daysall over Paris to find two generals--Baraguay d'Hilliers and St. Jean d'Angley--who declared themselves ready to countersign the ordercashiering Changamier. That, however, the party of Order would havefound in its own ranks and in the parliament the requisite vote for sucha decision is more than doubtful, when it is considered that, eight dayslater, 286 votes pulled away from it, and that, as late as December, 1851, at the last decisive hour, the Mountain rejected a similarproposition. Nevertheless, the burgraves might still have succeededin driving the mass of their party to an act of heroism, consisting infeeling safe behind a forest of bayonets, and in accepting the servicesof the Army, which found itself deserted in its camp. Instead of this, the Messieurs Burgraves betook themselves to the Elysee on the eveningof January 6, with the view of inducing Bonaparte, by means of politicwords and considerations, to drop the removal of Changarnier. Him whomwe must convince we recognize as the master of the situation. Bonaparte, made to feel secure by this step, appoints on January 12 a new Ministry, in which the leaders of the old, Fould and Baroche, are retained. StJean d'Angley becomes Minister of War; the "Moniteur" announces thedecree cashiering Changarnier; his command is divided up betweenBaraguay d'Hilliers, who receives the First Division, and Perrot, who isplaced over the National Guard. The "Bulwark of Society" is turned down;and, although no dog barks over the event, in the Bourses the stockquotations rise. 

By repelling the Army, that, in Changarnier's person, put itself at itsdisposal, and thus irrevocably stood up against the President, the partyof Order declares that the bourgeoisie has lost its vocation to reign. Already there was no parliamentary Ministry. By losing, furthermore, thehandle to the Army and to the National Guard, what instrument of forcewas there left to the National Assembly in order to maintain both theusurped power of the parliament over the people, and its constitutionalpower over the President? None. All that was left to it was the appealto peaceful principles, that itself had always explained as "generalrules" merely, to be prescribed to third parties, and only in orderto enable itself to move all the more freely. With the removal ofChangarnier, with the transfer of the military power to Bonaparte, closes the first part of the period that we are considering, the periodof the struggle between the party of Order and the Executive power. The war between the two powers is now openly declared; it is conductedopenly; but only after the party of Order has lost both arms andsoldier. With-out a Ministry, without any army, without a people, without the support of public opinion; since its election law of May31, no longer the representative of the sovereign nation sans eyes, sansears, sans teeth, sans everything, the National Assembly had graduallyconverted itself into a French Parliament of olden days, that mustleave all action to the Government, and content itself with growlingremonstrances "post festum. " [#4 After the act is done; after the fact. ]

The party of Order receives the new Ministry with a storm ofindignation. General Bedeau calls to mind the mildness of the PermanentCommittee during the vacation, and the excessive prudence with which ithad renounced the privilege of disclosing its minutes. Now, the Ministerof the Interior himself insists upon the disclosure of these minutes, that have now, of course, become dull as stagnant waters, reveal nonew facts, and fall without making the slightest effect upon the blasepublic. Upon Remusat's proposition, the National Assembly retreats intoits Committees, and appoints a "Committee on Extraordinary Measures. "Paris steps all the less out of the ruts of its daily routine, seeingthat business is prosperous at the time, the manufactories busy, theprices of cereals low, provisions abundant, the savings banks receivingdaily new deposits. The "extraordinary measures, " that the parliamentso noisily announced fizzle out on January 18 in a vote of lack ofconfidence against the Ministry, without General Changarnier's namebeing even mentioned. The party of Order was forced to frame its motionin that way so as to secure the votes of the republicans, because, ofall the acts of the Ministry, Changarnier's dismissal only was the veryone they approved, while the party of Order cannot in fact, condemn theother Ministerial acts which it had itself dictated. The January 18 voteof lack of confidence was decided by 415 ayes against 286 nays. It was, accordingly put through by a coalition of the uncompromising Legitimistsand Orleanists with the pure republicans and the Mountain. Thus itrevealed the fact that, in its conflicts with Bonaparte, not only theMinistry, not only the Army, but also its independent parliamentarymajority; that a troop of Representatives had deserted its camp out of afanatic zeal for harmony, out of fear of fight, out of lassitude, outof family considerations for the salaries of relatives in office, outof speculations on vacancies in the Ministry (Odillon Barrot), or outof that unmitigated selfishness that causes the average bourgeois to beever inclined to sacrifice the interests of his class to this or thatprivate motive. The Bonapartist Representatives belonged from the startto the party of Order only in the struggle against the revolution. The leader of the Catholic party, Montalembert, already then threw hisinfluence in the scale of Bonaparte, since he despaired of the vitalityof the parliamentary party. Finally, the leaders of this party itself, Thiers and Berryer--the Orleanist and the Legitimist--were compelledto proclaim themselves openly as republicans; to admit that their heartfavored royalty, but their head the republic; that their parliamentaryrepublic was the only possible form for the rule of the bourgeoisie Thuswere they compelled to brand, before the eyes of the bourgeoisclass itself, as an intrigue--as dangerous as it was senseless--therestoration plans, which they continued to pursue indefatigably behindthe back of the parliament. 

The January 18 vote of lack of confidence struck the Ministers, not thePresident. But it was not the Ministry, it was the President who haddeposed Changarnier. Should the party of Order place Bonaparte himselfunder charges? On account of his restoration hankerings? These onlysupplemented their own. On account of his conspiracy at the militaryreviews and of the "Society of December 10"? They had long since buriedthese subjects under simple orders of business. On account of thedischarge of the hero of January 29 and June 13, of the man who, in May, 1850, threatened, in case of riot, to set Paris on fire at all its fourcorners? Their allies of the Mountain and Cavaignac did not evenallow them to console the fallen "Bulwark of Society" with an officialtestimony of their sympathy. They themselves could not deny theconstitutional right of the President to remove a General. They stormedonly because he made an unparliamentary use of his constitutional right. Had they not themselves constantly made an unconstitutional use oftheir parliamentary prerogative, notably by the abolition of universalsuffrage? Consequently they were reminded to move exclusively withinparliamentary bounds. Indeed, it required that peculiar disease, a disease that, since 1848, has raged over the whole continent, "Parliamentary Idiocy, "--that fetters those whom it infects to animaginary world, and robs them of all sense, all remembrance, all understanding of the rude outside world;--it required this"Parliamentary Idiocy" in order that the party of Order, which had, withits own hands, destroyed all the conditions for parliamentary power, and, in its struggle with the other classes, was obliged to destroythem, still should consider its parliamentary victories as victories, and imagine it hit the President by striking his Ministers. They onlyafforded him an opportunity to humble the National Assembly anew in theeyes of the nation. On January 20, the "Moniteur" announced that thewhole the dismissal of the whole Ministry was accepted. Under thepretext that none of the parliamentary parties had any longer themajority--as proved by the January 18 vote, that fruit of thecoalition between mountain and royalists--, and, in order to await there-formation of a majority, Bonaparte appointed a so-called transitionMinistry, of whom no member belonged to the parliament-altogether whollyunknown and insignificant individuals; a Ministry of mere clerks andsecretaries. The party of Order could now wear itself out in the gamewith these puppets; the Executive power no longer considered it worththe while to be seriously represented in the National Assembly. Bythis act Bonaparte concentrated the whole executive power all the moresecurely in his own person; he had all the freer elbow-room toexploit the same to his own ends, the more his Ministers became meresupernumeraries. 

The party of Order, now allied with the Mountain, revenged itself byrejecting the Presidential endowment project of 1, 800. 000 francs, whichthe chief of the "Society of December 10" had compelled his Ministerialclerks to present to the Assembly. This time a majority of only 102votes carried the day accordingly since January 18, 27 more votes hadfallen off: the dissolution of the party of Order was making progress. Lest any one might for a moment be deceived touching the meaning of itscoalition with the Mountain, the party of Order simultaneously scornedeven to consider a motion, signed by 189 members of the Mountain, for ageneral amnesty to political criminals. It was enough that the Ministerof the Interior, one Baisse, declared that the national tranquility wasonly in appearance, in secret there reigned deep agitation, in secret, ubiquitous societies were organized, the democratic papers werepreparing to reappear, the reports from the Departments wereunfavorable, the fugitives of Geneva conducted a conspiracy via Lyonsthrough the whole of southern France, France stood on the verge of anindustrial and commercial crisis, the manufacturers of Roubaix wereworking shorter hours, the prisoners of Belle Isle had mutinied;--it wasenough that even a mere Baisse should conjure up the "Red Spectre" forthe party of Order to reject without discussion a motion that would havegained for the National Assembly a tremendous popularity, and thrownBonaparte back into its arms. Instead of allowing itself to beintimidated by the Executive power with the perspective of freshdisturbances, the party of Order should rather have allowed a littleelbow-room to the class struggle, in order to secure the dependence ofthe Executive upon itself. But it did not feel itself equal to the taskof playing with fire. 

Meanwhile, the so-called transition Ministry vegetated along until themiddle of April. Bonaparte tired out and fooled the National Assemblywith constantly new Ministerial combinations. Now he seemed to intendconstructing a republican Ministry with Lamartine and Billault; then, a parliamentary one with the inevitable Odillon Barrot, whose name mustnever be absent when a dupe is needed; then again, a Legitimist, with Batismenil and Lenoist d'Azy; and yet again, an Orleansist, withMalleville. While thus throwing the several factions of the party ofOrder into strained relations with one another, and alarming them allwith the prospect of a republican Ministry, together with the there-uponinevitable restoration of universal suffrage, Bonaparte simultaneouslyraises in the bourgeoisie the conviction that his sincere efforts for aparliamentary Ministry are wrecked upon the irreconcilable antagonismof the royalist factions. All the while the bourgeoisie was clamoringlouder and louder for a "strong Government, " and was finding it lessand less pardonable to leave France "without an administration, " inproportion as a general commercial crisis seemed to be under way andmaking recruits for Socialism in the cities, as did the ruinously lowprice of grain in the rural districts. Trade became daily duller;the unemployed hands increased perceptibly; in Paris, at least 10, 000workingmen were without bread; in Rouen, Muehlhausen, Lyons, Roubaix, Tourcoign, St. Etienue, Elbeuf, etc. , numerous factories stood idle. Under these circumstances Bonaparte could venture to restore, on April11, the Ministry of January 18; Messieurs Rouher, Fould, Baroche, etc. , reinforced by Mr. Leon Faucher, whom the constitutive assemblyhad, during its last days, unanimously, with the exception of fiveMinisterial votes, branded with a vote of censure for circulating falsetelegraphic dispatches. Accordingly, the National Assembly had won avictory on January 18 over the Ministry, it had, for the period of threemonths, been battling with Bonaparte, and all this merely to the endthat, on April 11, Fould and Baroche should be able to take up thePuritan Faucher as third in their ministerial league. 

In November, 1849, Bonaparte had satisfied himself with anUnparliamentary, in January, 1851, with an Extra-Parliamentary, on April11, he felt strong enough to form an Anti-Parliamentary Ministry, thatharmoniously combined within itself the votes of lack of confidence ofboth assemblies-the constitutive and the legislative, the republican andthe royalist. This ministerial progression was a thermometer by whichthe parliament could measure the ebbing temperature of its own life. This had sunk so low by the end of April that, at a personal interview, Persigny could invite Changarnier to go over to the camp of thePresident. Bonaparte, he assured Changarnier, considered the influenceof the National Assembly to be wholly annihilated, and already theproclamation was ready, that was to be published after the steadilycontemplated, but again accidentally postponed "coup d'etat. "Changarnier communicated this announcement of its death to the leadersof the party of Order; but who was there to believe a bed-bug bitecould kill? The parliament, however beaten, however dissolved, howeverdeath-tainted it was, could not persuade itself to see, in the duel withthe grotesque chief of the "Society of December 10, " anything but a duelwith a bed-bug. But Bonaparte answered the party of Order as Agesilausdid King Agis: "I seem to you an ant; but shall one day be a lion. "

VI

The coalition with the Mountain and the pure republicans, to which theparty of Order found itself condemned in its fruitless efforts to keeppossession of the military and to reconquer supreme control overthe Executive power, proved conclusively that it had forfeited itsindependent parliamentary majority. The calendar and clock merelygave, on May 29, the signal for its complete dissolution. With May 29commenced the last year of the life of the National Assembly. It nowhad to decide for the unchanged continuance or the revision of theConstitution. But a revision of the Constitution meant not only thedefinitive supremacy of either the bourgeoisie of the small traders'democracy, of either democracy or proletarian anarchy, of either aparliamentary republic or Bonaparte, it meant also either Orleans orBourbon! Thus fell into the very midst of the parliament the apple ofdiscord, around which the conflict of interests, that cut up theparty of Order into hostile factions, was to kindle into an openconflagration. The party of Order was a combination of heterogeneoussocial substances. The question of revision raised a politicaltemperature, in which the product was reduced to its originalcomponents. 

The interest of the Bonapartists in the revision was simple: theywere above all concerned in the abolition of Article 45, which forbadeBonaparte's reelection and the prolongation of his term. Not lesssimple seemed to be the position of the republicans; they rejected allrevision, seeing in that only a general conspiracy against the republic;as they disposed over more than one-fourth of the votes in the NationalAssembly, and, according to the Constitution, a three-fourths majoritywas requisite to revise and to call a revisory convention, they neededonly to count their own votes to be certain of victory. Indeed, theywere certain of it. 

Over and against these clear-cut positions, the party of Order founditself tangled in inextricable contradictions. If it voted against therevision, it endangered the "status quo, " by leaving to Bonaparte onlyone expedient--that of violence and handing France over, on May 2, 1852, at the very time of election, a prey to revolutionary anarchy, witha President whose authority was at an end; with a parliament thatthe party had long ceased to own, and with a people that it meant tore-conquer. If it voted constitutionally for a revision, it knew thatit voted in vain and would constitutionally have to go under before theveto of the republicans. If, unconstitutionally, it pronounced a simplemajority binding, it could hope to control the revolution only in caseit surrendered unconditionally to the domination of the Executive power:it then made Bonaparte master of the Constitution, of the revisionand of itself. A merely partial revision, prolonging the term of thePresident, opened the way to imperial usurpation; a general revision, shortening the existence of the republic, threw the dynastic claims intoan inevitable conflict: the conditions for a Bourbon and those for anOrleanist restoration were not only different, they mutually excludedeach other. 

The parliamentary republic was more than a neutral ground on which thetwo factions of the French bourgeoisie--Legitimists and Orleanists, large landed property and manufacture--could lodge together with equalrights. It was the indispensable condition for their common reign, the only form of government in which their common class interest coulddominate both the claims of their separate factions and all theother classes of society. As royalists, they relapsed into their oldantagonism into the struggle for the overlordship of either landedproperty or of money; and the highest expression of this antagonism, itspersonification, were the two kings themselves, their dynasties. Hencethe resistance of the party of Order to the recall of the Bourbons. 

The Orleanist Representative Creton moved periodically in 1849, 1850 and1851 the repeal of the decree of banishment against the royal families;as periodically did the parliament present the spectacle of an Assemblyof royalists who stubbornly shut to their banished kings the doorthrough which they could return home. Richard III murdered Henry VI, with the remark that he was too good for this world, and belonged inheaven. They declared France too bad to have her kings back again. Forced by the power of circumstances, they had become republicans, andrepeatedly sanctioned the popular mandate that exiled their kings fromFrance. 

The revision of the Constitution, and circumstances compelled itsconsideration, at once made uncertain not only the republic itself, butalso the joint reign of the two bourgeois factions; and it revived, withthe possibility of the monarchy, both the rivalry of interests whichthese two factions had alternately allowed to preponderate, and thestruggle for the supremacy of the one over the other. The diplomatsof the party of Order believed they could allay the struggle by acombination of the two dynasties through a so-called fusion of theroyalist parties and their respective royal houses. The true fusion ofthe restoration and the July monarchy was, however, the parliamentaryrepublic, in which the Orleanist and Legitimist colors were dissolved, and the bourgeois species vanished in the plain bourgeois, in thebourgeois genus. Now however, the plan was to turn the OrleanistLegitimist and the Legitimist Orleanist. The kingship, in which theirantagonism was personified, was to incarnate their unity, the expressionof their exclusive faction interests was to become the expression oftheir common class interest; the monarchy was to accomplish what onlythe abolition of two monarchies--the republic could and did accomplish. This was the philosopher's stone, for the finding of which thedoctors of the party of Order were breaking their heads. As thoughthe Legitimate monarchy ever could be the monarchy of the industrialbourgeoisie, or the bourgeois monarchy the monarchy of the hereditarylanded aristocracy! As though landed property and industry couldfraternize under one crown, where the crown could fall only upon onehead, the head of the older or the younger brother! As though industrycould at all deal upon a footing of equality with landed property, solong as landed property did not decide itself to become industrial. IfHenry V were to die tomorrow, the Count of Paris would not, therefore, become the king of the Legitimists, unless he ceased to be the King ofthe Orleanists. Nevertheless, the fusion philosophers, who became louderin the measure that the question of revision stepped to the fore, whohad provided themselves with a daily organ in the "Assemblee Nationale, "who, even at this very moment (February, 1852) are again at work, explained the whole difficulty by the opposition and rivalries of thetwo dynasties. The attempts to reconcile the family of Orleans withHenry V. , begun since the death of Louis Philippe, but, as all thesedynastic intrigues carried on only during the vacation of the NationalAssembly, between acts, behind the scenes, more as a sentimentalcoquetry with the old superstition than as a serious affair, were nowraised by the party of Order to the dignity of a great State question, and were conducted upon the public stage, instead of, as heretofore inthe amateurs' theater. Couriers flew from Paris to Venice, from Veniceto Claremont, from Claremont to Paris. The Duke of Chambord issuesa manifesto in which he announces not his own, but the "national"restoration, "with the aid of all the members of his family. " TheOleanist Salvandy throws himself at the feet of Henry V. The Legitimistleaders Berryer, Benoit d'Azy, St. Priest travel to Claremont, topersuade the Orleans; but in vain. The fusionists learn too latethat the interests of the two bourgeois factions neither lose inexclusiveness nor gain in pliancy where they sharpen to a point in theform of family interests, of the interests of the two royal houses. When Henry V. Recognized the Count of Paris as his successor--theonly success that the fusion could at best score--the house of Orleansacquired no claim that the childlessness of Henry V. Had not alreadysecured to it; but, on the other hand, it lost all the claims that ithad conquered by the July revolution. It renounced its original claims, all the title, that, during a struggle nearly one hundred years long, ithad wrested from the older branch of the Bourbons; it bartered awayits historic prerogative, the prerogative of its family-tree. Fusion, accordingly, amounted to nothing else than the resignation of the houseof Orleans, its Legitimist resignation, a repentful return from theProtestant State Church into the Catholic;--a return, at that, that didnot even place it on the throne that it had lost, but on the steps ofthe throne on which it was born. The old Orleanist Ministers Guizot, Duchatel, etc. , who likewise hastened to Claremont, to advocate thefusion, represented in fact only the nervous reaction of the Julymonarchy; despair, both in the citizen kingdom and the kingdom ofcitizens; the superstitious belief in legitimacy as the last amuletagainst anarchy. Mediators, in their imagination, between Orleans andBourbon, they were in reality but apostate Orleanists, and as such werethey received by the Prince of Joinville. The virile, bellicose partof the Orleanists, on the contrary--Thiers, Baze, etc. --, persuaded thefamily of Louis Philippe all the easier that, seeing every plan for theimmediate restoration of the monarchy presupposed the fusion of the twodynasties, and every plan for fusion the resignation of the house ofOrleans, it corresponded, on the contrary, wholly with the tradition ofits ancestors to recognize the republic for the time being, and to waituntil circumstances permitted I the conversion of the Presidential chairinto a throne. Joinville's candidacy was set afloat as a rumor, publiccuriosity was held in suspense, and a few months later, after therevision was rejected, openly proclaimed in September. 

Accordingly, the essay of a royalist fusion between Orleanists andLegitimists did not miscarry only, it broke up their parliamentaryfusion, the republican form that they had adopted in common, and itdecomposed the party of Order into its original components. But thewider the breach became between Venice and Claremont, the further theydrifted away from each I other, and the greater the progress made bythe Joinville agitation, all the more active and earnest became thenegotiations between Faucher, the Minister of Bonaparte, and theLegitimists. 

The dissolution of the party of Order went beyond its original elements. Each of the two large factions fell in turn into new fragments. It wasas if all the old political shades, that formerly fought and crowded oneanother within each of the two circles--be it that of the Legitimistsor that of the Orleanists--, had been thawed out like dried infusoriaby contact with water; as if they had recovered enough vitality tobuild their own groups and assert their own antagonisms. The Legitimistsdreamed they were back amidst the quarrels between the Tuileries and thepavilion Marsan, between Villele and Polignac; the Orleanists lived anewthrough the golden period of the tourneys between Guizot, Mole, Broglie, Thiers, and Odillon Barrot. 

That portion of the party of Order--eager for a revision of theConstitution but disagreed upon the extent of revision--made up ofthe Legitimists under Berryer and Falloux and of those under LarocheJacquelein, together with the tired-out Orleanists under Mole, Broglie, Montalembert and Odillon Barrot, united with the BonapartistRepresentatives in the following indefinite and loosely drawn motion:

"The undersigned Representatives, with the end in view of restoringto the nation the full exercise of her sovereignty, move that theConstitution be revised. "

At the same time, however, they unanimously declared through theirspokesman, Tocqueville, that the National Assembly had not the right tomove the abolition of the republic, that right being vested only ina Constitutional Convention. For the rest, the Constitution couldbe revised only in a "legal" way, that is to say, only in case athree-fourths majority decided in favor of revision, as prescribed bythe Constitution. After a six days' stormy debate, the revision wasrejected on July 19, as was to be foreseen. In its favor 446 votes werecast, against it 278. The resolute Oleanists, Thiers, Changarnier, etc. , voted with the republicans and the Mountain. 

Thus the majority of the parliament pronounced itself against theConstitution, while the Constitution itself pronounced itself for theminority, and its decision binding. But had not the party of Order onMay 31, 1850, had it not on June 13, 1849, subordinated the Constitutionto the parliamentary majority? Did not the whole republic they hadbeen hitherto having rest upon the subordination of the Constitutionalclauses to the majority decisions of the parliament? Had they not leftto the democrats the Old Testament superstitious belief in the letterof the law, and had they not chastised the democrats therefor? At thismoment, however, revision meant nothing else than the continuance of thePresidential power, as the continuance of the Constitution meant nothingelse than the deposition of Bonaparte. The parliament had pronounceditself for him, but the Constitution pronounced itself against theparliament. Accordingly, he acted both in the sense of the parliamentwhen he tore up the Constitution, and in the sense of the Constitutionwhen he chased away the parliament. 

The parliament pronounced the Constitution, and, thereby, also, itsown reign, "outside of the pale of the majority"; by its decision, itrepealed the Constitution, and continued the Presidential power, and itat once declared that neither could the one live nor the other die solong as itself existed. The feet of those who were to bury it stoodat the door. While it was debating the subject of revision, Bonaparteremoved General Baraguay d'Hilliers, who showed himself irresolute, fromthe command of the First Military Division, and appointed in his placeGeneral Magnan, the conqueror of Lyon; the hero of the December days, one of his own creatures, who already under Louis Philippe, on theoccasion of the Boulogne expedition, had somewhat compromised himself inhis favor. 

By its decision on the revision, the party of Order proved that it knewneither how to rule nor how to obey; neither how to live nor how to die;neither how to bear with the republic nor how to overthrow it; neitherhow to maintain the Constitution nor how to throw it overboard; neitherhow to co-operate with the President nor how to break with him. Fromwhat quarter did it then, look to for the solution of all the existingperplexities? From the calendar, from the course of events. It ceased toassume the control of events. It, accordingly, invited events to don itsauthority and also the power to which in its struggle with the people, it had yielded one attribute after another until it finally stoodpowerless before the same. To the end that the Executive be able all themore freely to formulate his plan of campaign against it, strengthen hismeans of attack, choose his tools, fortify his positions, the party ofOrder decided, in the very midst of this critical moment, to step offthe stage, and adjourn for three months, from August 10 to November 4. 

Not only was the parliamentary party dissolved into its two greatfactions, not only was each of these dissolved within itself, but theparty of Order, inside of the parliament, was at odds with the party ofOrder, outside of the parliament. The learned speakers and writersof the bourgeoisie, their tribunes and their press, in short, theideologists of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie itself, therepresentatives and the represented, stood estranged from, and no longerunderstood one another. 

The Legitimists in the provinces, with their cramped horizon and theirboundless enthusiasm, charged their parliamentary leaders Berryer andFalloux with desertion to the Bonapartist camp, and with apostacy fromHenry V. Their lilymind [#1 An allusion to the lilies of the Bourboncoat-of-arms] believed in the fall of man, but not in diplomacy. 

More fatal and completer, though different, was the breach between thecommercial bourgeoisie and its politicians. It twitted them, not as theLegitimists did theirs, with having apostatized from their principle, but, on the contrary, with adhering to principles that had becomeuseless. 

I have already indicated that, since the entry of Fould in the Ministry, that portion of the commercial bourgeoisie that had enjoyed the lion'sshare in Louis Philippe's reign, to-wit, the aristocracy of finance, hadbecome Bonapartist. Fould not only represented Bonaparte's interestsat the Bourse, he represented also the interests of the Bourse withBonaparte. A passage from the London "Economist, " the European organ ofthe aristocracy of finance, described most strikingly the attitude ofthis class. In its issue of February 1, 1851, its Paris correspondentwrites: "Now we have it stated from numerous quarters that France wishesabove all things for repose. The President declares it in his message tothe Legislative Assembly; it is echoed from the tribune; it is assertedin the journals; it is announced from the pulpit; it is demonstratedby the sensitiveness of the public funds at the least prospect ofdisturbance, and their firmness the instant it is made manifest thatthe Executive is far superior in wisdom and power to the factiousex-officials of all former governments. "

In its issue of November 29, 1851, the "Economist" declares editorially:"The President is now recognized as the guardian of order on every StockExchange of Europe. " Accordingly, the Aristocracy of Finance condemnedthe parliamentary strife of the party of Order with the Executive as a"disturbance of order, " and hailed every victory of the President overits reputed representatives as a "victory of order. " Under "aristocracyof finance" must not, however, be understood merely the large bondnegotiators and speculators in government securities, of whom it maybe readily understood that their interests and the interests of theGovernment coincide. The whole modern money trade, the whole bankingindustry, is most intimately interwoven with the public credit. Partof their business capital requires to be invested in interest-bearinggovernment securities that are promptly convertible into money; theirdeposits, i. E. , the capital placed at their disposal and by themdistributed among merchants and industrial establishments, flow partlyout of the dividends on government securities. The whole money market, together with the priests of this market, is part and parcel of this"aristocracy of finance" at every epoch when the stability of thegovernment is to them synonymous with "Moses and his prophets. " This isso even before things have reached the present stage when every delugethreatens to carry away the old governments themselves. 

But the industrial Bourgeoisie also, in its fanaticism for order, wasannoyed at the quarrels of the Parliamentary party of Order with theExecutive. Thiers, Anglas, Sainte Beuve, etc. , received, after theirvote of January 18, on the occasion of the discharge of Changarnier, public reprimands from their constituencies, located in the industrialdistricts, branding their coalition with the Mountain as an act of hightreason to the cause of order. Although, true enough, the boastful, vexatious and petty intrigues, through which the struggle of the partyof Order with the President manifested itself, deserved no betterreception, yet notwithstanding, this bourgeois party, that expectsof its representatives to allow the military power to pass withoutresistance out of the hands of their own Parliament into those of anadventurous Pretender, is not worth even the intrigues that were wastedin its behalf. It showed that the struggle for the maintenance of theirpublic interests, of their class interests, of their political poweronly incommoded and displeased them, as a disturbance of their privatebusiness. 

The bourgeois dignitaries of the provincial towns, the magistrates, commercial judges, etc. , with hardly any exception, received Bonaparteeverywhere on his excursions in the most servile manner, even when, asin Dijon, he attacked the National Assembly and especially the party ofOrder without reserve. 

Business being brisk, as still at the beginning of 1851, the commercialbourgeoisie stormed against every Parliamentary strife, lest businessbe put out of temper. Business being dull, as from the end of February, 1851, on, the bourgeoisie accused the Parliamentary strifes as the causeof the stand-still, and clamored for quiet in order that business mayrevive. The debates on revision fell just in the bad times. Seeingthe question now was the to be or not to be of the existing form ofgovernment, the bourgeoisie felt itself all the more justified indemanding of its Representatives that they put an end to this tormentingprovisional status, and preserve the "status quo. " This was nocontradiction. By putting an end to the provisional status, itunderstood its continuance, the indefinite putting off of the momentwhen a final decision had to be arrived at. The "status quo" couldbe preserved in only one of two ways: either by the prolongation ofBonaparte's term of office or by his constitutional withdrawal and theelection of Cavaignac. A part of the bourgeoisie preferred the lattersolution, and knew no better advice to give their Representatives thanto be silent, to avoid the burning point. If their Representatives didnot speak, so argued they, Bonaparte would not act. They desired anostrich Parliament that would hide its head, in order not to be seen. Another part of the bourgeoisie preferred that Bonaparte, being once inthe Presidential chair, be left in the Presidential chair, in order thateverything might continue to run in the old ruts. They felt indignantthat their Parliament did not openly break the Constitution and resignwithout further ado. The General Councils of the Departments, theseprovisional representative bodies of the large bourgeoisie, who hadadjourned during the vacation of the National Assembly since August 25, pronounced almost unanimously for revision, that is to say, against theParliament and for Bonaparte. 

Still more unequivocally than in its falling out with its ParliamentaryRepresentatives, did the bourgeoisie exhibit its wrath at its literaryRepresentatives, its own press. The verdicts of the bourgeois juries, inflicting excessive fines and shameless sentences of imprisonment forevery attack of the bourgeois press upon the usurping aspirations ofBonaparte, for every attempt of the press to defend the political rightsof the bourgeoisie against the Executive power, threw, not France alone, but all Europe into amazement. 

While on the one hand, as I have indicated, the Parliamentary party ofOrder ordered itself to keep the peace by screaming for peace; and whileit pronounced the political rule of the bourgeoisie irreconcilable withthe safety and the existence of the bourgeoisie, by destroying withits own hands in its struggle with the other classes of society all theconditions for its own, the Parliamentary regime; on the other hand, themass of the bourgeoisie, outside of the Parliament, urged Bonaparte--byits servility towards the President, by its insults to the Parliament, by the brutal treatment of its own press--to suppress and annihilateits speaking and writing organs, its politicians and its literati, itsorators' tribune and its press, to the end that, under the protectionof a strong and unhampered Government, it might ply its own privatepursuits in safety. It declared unmistakably that it longed to be rid ofits own political rule, in order to escape the troubles and dangers ofruling. 

And this bourgeoisie, that had rebelled against even the Parliamentaryand literary contest for the supremacy of its own class, that hadbetrayed its leaders in this contest, it now has the effrontery toblame the proletariat for not having risen in its defence in a bloodystruggle, in a struggle for life! Those bourgeois, who at every turnsacrificed their common class interests to narrow and dirty privateinterests, and who demanded a similar sacrifice from their ownRepresentatives, now whine that the proletariat has sacrificed theiridea-political to its own material interests! This bourgeois class nowstrikes the attitude of a pure soul, misunderstood and abandoned, ata critical moment, by the proletariat, that has been misled by theSocialists. And its cry finds a general echo in the bourgeois world. Of course, I do not refer to German crossroad politicians and kindredblockheads. I refer, for instance, to the "Economist, " which, as lateas November 29, 1851, that is to say, four days before the "coup d'etat"pronounced Bonaparte the "Guardian of Order" and Thiers and Berryer"Anarchists, " and as early as December 27, 1851, after Bonaparte hadsilenced those very Anarchists, cries out about the treason committedby "the ignorant, untrained and stupid proletaires against the skill, knowledge, discipline, mental influence, intellectual resources anmoral weight of the middle and upper ranks. " The stupid, ignorant andcontemptible mass was none other than the bourgeoisie itself. 

France had, indeed; experienced a sort of commercial crisis in 1851. Atthe end of February, there was a falling off of exports as compared with1850; in March, business languished and factories shut down; in April, the condition of the industrial departments seemed as desperate as afterthe February days; in May, business did not yet pick up; as late asJune 28, the reports of the Bank of France revealed through a tremendousincrease of deposits and an equal decrease of loans on exchange notes, the standstill of production; not until the middle of October did asteady improvement of business set in. The French bourgeoisie accountedfor this stagnation of business with purely political reasons; itimputed the dull times to the strife between the Parliament and theExecutive power, to the uncertainty of a provisional form of government, to the alarming prospects of May 2, 1852. I shall not deny that allthese causes did depress some branches of industry in Paris and in theDepartments. At any rate, this effect of political circumstances wasonly local and trifling. Is there any other proof needed than thatthe improvement in business set in at the very time when the politicalsituation was growing worse, when the political horizon was growingdarker, and when at every moment a stroke of lightning was expected outof the Elysee--in the middle of October? The French bourgeois, whose"skill, knowledge, mental influence and intellectual resources, " reachno further than his nose, could, moreover, during the whole period ofthe Industrial Exposition in London, have struck with his nose thecause of his own business misery. At the same time that, in France, thefactories were being closed, commercial failures broke out in England. While the industrial panic reached its height during April and May inFrance, in England the commercial panic reached its height in April andMay. The same as the French, the English woolen industries suffered, and, as the French, so did the English silk manufacture. Though theEnglish cotton factories went on working, it, nevertheless, was not withthe same old profit of 1849 and 1850. The only difference was this: thatin France, the crisis was an industrial, in England it was a commercialone; that while in France the factories stood still, they spreadthemselves in England, but under less favorable circumstances thanthey had done the years just previous; that, in France, the export, inEngland, the import trade suffered the heaviest blows. The common cause, which, as a matter of fact, is not to be looked for with-in the boundsof the French political horizon, was obvious. The years 1849 and 1850were years of the greatest material prosperity, and of an overproductionthat did not manifest itself until 1851. This was especially promoted atthe beginning of 1851 by the prospect of the Industrial Exposition; and, as special causes, there were added, first, the failure of the cottoncrop of 1850 and 1851; second, the certainty of a larger cotton cropthan was expected: first, the rise, then the sudden drop; in short, theoscillations of the cotton market. The crop of raw silk in France hadbeen below the average. Finally, the manufacture of woolen goods hadreceived such an increment since 1849, that the production of wool couldnot keep step with it, and the price of the raw material rose greatlyout of proportion to the price of the manufactured goods. Accordingly, we have here in the raw material of three staple articles athreefold material for a commercial crisis. Apart from these specialcircumstances, the seeming crisis of the year 1851 was, after all, nothing but the halt that overproduction and overspeculation makeregularly in the course of the industrial cycle, before pulling alltheir forces together in order to rush feverishly over the last stretch, and arrive again at their point of departure--the General CommercialCrisis. At such intervals in the history of trade, commercial failuresbreak out in England, while, in France, industry itself is stopped, partly because it is compelled to retreat through the competition ofthe English, that, at such times becomes resistless in all markets, and partly because, as an industry of luxuries, it is affected withpreference by every stoppage of trade. Thus, besides the generalcrisis, France experiences her own national crises, which, how-ever, are determined by and conditioned upon the general state of the world'smarket much more than by local French influences. It will not be devoidof interest to contrast the prejudgment of the French bourgeois with thejudgment of the English bourgeois. One of the largest Liverpool firmswrites in its yearly report of trade for 1851: "Few years have morecompletely disappointed the expectations entertained at their beginningthan the year that has just passed; instead of the great prosperity, that was unanimously looked forward to, it proved itself one of the mostdiscouraging years during the last quarter of a century. This applies, of course, only to the mercantile, not to the industrial classes. Andyet, surely there were grounds at the beginning of the year from whichto draw a contrary conclusion; the stock of products was scanty, capitalwas abundant, provisions cheap, a rich autumn was assured, there wasuninterrupted peace on the continent and no political and financialdisturbances at home; indeed, never were the wings of trade moreunshackled. . . . What is this unfavorable result to be ascribed to?We believe to excessive trade in imports as well as exports. If ourmerchants do not themselves rein in their activity, nothing can keep usgoing, except a panic every three years. "

Imagine now the French bourgeois, in the midst of this business panic, having his trade-sick brain tortured, buzzed at and deafened with rumorsof a "coup d'etat" and the restoration of universal suffrage; with thestruggle between the Legislature and the Executive; with theFronde warfare between Orleanists and Legitimists; with communisticconspiracies in southern France; with alleged Jacqueries [#2 Peasantrevolts] in the Departments of Nievre and Cher; with the advertisementsof the several candidates for President; with "social solutions"huckstered about by the journals; with the threats of the republicans touphold, arms in hand, the Constitution and universal suffrage; with thegospels, according to the emigrant heroes "in partibus, " who announcedthe destruction of the world for May 2, --imagine that, and one canunderstand how the bourgeois, in this unspeakable and noisy confusionof fusion, revision, prorogation, constitution, conspiracy, coalition, emigration, usurpation and revolution, blurts out at his parliamentaryrepublic: "Rather an End With Fright, Than a Fright Without End. "

Bonaparte understood this cry. His perspicacity was sharpened by thegrowing anxiety of the creditors' class, who, with every sunset, thatbrought nearer the day of payment, the 2d of May, 1852, saw in themotion of the stars a protest against their earthly drafts. They hadbecome regular astrologers The National Assembly had cut off Bonaparte'shope of a constitutional prolongation of his term; the candidature ofthe Prince of Joinville tolerated no further vacillation. 

If ever an event cast its shadow before it long before its occurrence, it was Bonaparte's "coup d'etat. " Already on January 29, 1849, barelya month after his election, he had made to Changarnier a proposition tothat effect. His own Prime Minister. Odillon Barrot, had covertly, in1849, and Thiers openly in the winter of 1850, revealed the schemeof the "coup d'etat. " In May, 1851, Persigny had again sought to winChangarnier over to the "coup, " and the "Miessager de l'Assemblee"newspaper had published this conversation. At every parliamentary storm, the Bonapartist papers threatened a "coup, " and the nearer the crisisapproached, all the louder grew their tone. At the orgies, thatBonaparte celebrated every night with a swell mob of males and females, every time the hour of midnight drew nigh and plenteous libations hadloosened the tongues and heated the minds of the revelers, the "coup"was resolved upon for the next morning. Swords were then drawn, glassesclinked, the Representatives were thrown out at the windows, theimperial mantle fell upon the shoulders of Bonaparte, until the nextmorning again drove away the spook, and astonished Paris learned, fromnot very reserved Vestals and indiscreet Paladins, the danger it hadonce more escaped. During the months of September and October, therumors of a "coup d'etat" tumbled close upon one another's heels. Atthe same time the shadow gathered color, like a confused daguerreotype. Follow the issues of the European daily press for the months ofSeptember and October, and items like this will be found literally:

"Rumors of a 'coup' fill Paris. The capital, it is said, is to be filledwith troops by night and the next morning decrees are to be issueddissolving the National Assembly, placing the Department of the Seinein state of siege restoring universal suffrage, and appealing to thepeople. Bonaparte is rumored to be looking for Ministers to executethese illegal decrees. "

The newspaper correspondence that brought this news always closeominously with "postponed. " The "coup" was ever the fixed idea ofBonaparte. With this idea he had stepped again upon French soil. Ithad such full possession of him that he was constantly betraying andblabbing it out. He was so weak that he was as constantly giving it upagain. The shadow of the "coup" had become so familiar a spectre to theParisians, that they refused to believe it when it finally did appear inflesh and blood. Consequently, it was neither the reticent backwardnessof the chief of the "Society of December 10, " nor an unthought ofsurprise of the National Assembly that caused the success of the "coup. "When it succeeded, it did so despite his indiscretion and with itsanticipation--a necessary, unavoidable result of the development thathad preceded. 

On October 10, Bonaparte announced to his Ministers his decisionto restore universal suffrage; on the 16th day they handed in theirresignations; on the 26th Paris learned of the formation of the ThorignyMinistry. The Prefect of Police, Carlier, was simultaneously replacedby Maupas; and the chief of the First Military Division Magnan, concentrated the most reliable regiments in the capital. On November 4, the National Assembly re-opened its sessions. There was nothing leftfor it to do but to repeat, in short recapitulation, the course ithad traversed, and to prove that it had been buried only after it hadexpired. The first post that it had forfeited in the struggle withthe Executive was the Ministry. It had solemnly to admit this loss byaccepting as genuine the Thorigny Ministry, which was but a pretence. The permanent Committee had received Mr. Giraud with laughter when heintroduced himself in the name of the new Ministers. So weak a Ministryfor so strong a measure as the restoration of universal suffrage! Thequestion, however, then was to do nothing in, everything against theparliament. 

On the very day of its re-opening, the National Assembly received themessage from Bonaparte demanding the restoration of universal suffrageand the repeal of the law of May 31, 1850. On the same day, hisMinisters introduced a decree to that effect. The Assembly promptlyrejected the motion of urgency made by the Ministers, but repealed thelaw itself, on November 13, by a vote of 355 against 348. Thus it oncemore tore to pieces its own mandate, once more certified to the factthat it had transformed itself from a freely chosen representative bodyof the nation into the usurpatory parliament of a class; it once moreadmitted that it had itself severed the muscles that connected theparliamentary head with the body of the nation. 

While the Executive power appealed from the National Assembly to thepeople by its motion for the restoration of universal suffrage, theLegislative power appealed from the people to the Army by its "Questors'Bill. " This bill was to establish its right to immediate requisitionsfor troops, to build up a parliamentary army. By thus appointing theArmy umpire between itself and the people, between itself and Bonaparte;by thus recognizing the Army as the decisive power in the State, theNational Assembly was constrained to admit that it had long given upall claim to supremacy. By debating the right to make requisitions fortroops, instead of forthwith collecting them, it betrayed its own doubtstouching its own power. By thus subsequently rejecting the "Questors'Bill, " it publicly confessed it impotence. The bill fell through with aminority of 108 votes; the Mountain had, accordingly, thrown the castingvote It now found itself in the predicament of Buridan's donkey, not, indeed, between two sacks of hay, forced to decide which of the two wasthe more attractive, but between two showers of blows, forced to decidewhich of the two was the harder; fear of Changarnier, on one side, fearof Bonaparte, on the other. It must be admitted the position was not aheroic one. 

On November 18, an amendment was moved to the Act, passed by the partyof Order, on municipal elections to the effect that, instead of threeyears, a domicile of one year should suffice. The amendment was lost bya single vote--but this vote, it soon transpired, was a mistake. Owingto the divisions within its own hostile factions, the party of Order hadlong since forfeited its independent parliamentary majority. It wasnow plain that there was no longer any majority in the parliament. TheNational Assembly had become impotent even to decide. Its atomic partswere no longer held together by any cohesive power; it had expended itslast breath, it was dead. 

Finally, the mass of the bourgeoisie outside of the parliament was oncemore solemnly to confirm its rupture with the bourgeoisie inside of theparliament a few days before the catastrophe. Thiers, as a parliamentaryhero conspicuously smitten by that incurable disease--ParliamentaryIdiocy--, had hatched out jointly with the Council of State, after thedeath of the parliament, a new parliamentary intrigue in the shape of a"Responsibility Law, " that was intended to lock up the President withinthe walls of the Constitution. The same as, on September 15, Bonapartebewitched the fishwives, like a second Massaniello, on the occasion oflaying the corner-stone for the Market of Paris, --though, it must beadmitted, one fishwife was equal to seventeen Burgraves in real power--;the same as, after the introduction of the "Questors' Bill, " he enthusedthe lieutenants, who were being treated at the Elysee;--so, likewise, did he now, on November 25, carry away with him the industrialbourgeoisie, assembled at the Circus, to receive from his hands theprize-medals that had been awarded at the London Industrial Exposition. I here reproduce the typical part of his speech, from the "Journal desDebats":

"With such unhoped for successes, I am justified to repeat how greatthe French republic would be if she were only allowed to pursue herreal interests, and reform her institutions, instead of being constantlydisturbed in this by demagogues, on one side, and, on the other, bymonarchic hallucinations. (Loud, stormy and continued applause fromall parts of the amphitheater). The monarchic hallucinations hamper allprogress and all serious departments of industry. Instead of progress, we have struggle only. Men, formerly the most zealous supporters ofroyal authority and prerogative, become the partisans of a conventionthat has no purpose other than to weaken an authority that is born ofuniversal suffrage. (Loud and prolonged applause). We see men, whohave suffered most from the revolution and complained bitterest of it, provoking a new one for the sole purpose of putting fetters on the willof the nation. . . . I promise you peace for the future. " (Bravo! Bravo!Stormy bravos. )

Thus the industrial bourgeoisie shouts its servile "Bravo!" to the "coupd'etat" of December 2, to the destruction of the parliament, to thedownfall of their own reign, to the dictatorship of Bonaparte. The rearof the applause of November 25 was responded to by the roar of cannon onDecember 4, and the house of Mr. Sallandrouze, who had been loudest inapplauding, was the one demolished by most of the bombs. 

Cromwell, when he dissolved the Long Parliament, walked alone into itsmidst, pulled out his watch in order that the body should not continueto exist one minute beyond the term fixed for it by him, and droveout each individual member with gay and humorous invectives. Napoleon, smaller than his prototype, at least went on the 18th Brumaire intothe legislative body, and, though in a tremulous voice, read to it itssentence of death. The second Bonaparte, who, moreover, found himselfin possession of an executive power very different from that of eitherCromwell or Napoleon, did not look for his model in the annals ofuniversal history, but in the annals of the "Society of December 10, "in the annals of criminal jurisprudence. He robs the Bank of France oftwenty-five million francs; buys General Magnan with one million andthe soldiers with fifteen francs and a drink to each; comes secretlytogether with his accomplices like a thief by night; has the houses ofthe most dangerous leaders in the parliament broken into; Cavalignac, Lamorciere, Leflo, Changarnier, Charras, Thiers, Baze, etc. , takenout of their beds; the principal places of Paris, the building of theparliament included, occupied with troops; and, early the nextmorning, loud-sounding placards posted on all the walls proclaiming thedissolution of the National Assembly and of the Council of State, therestoration of universal suffrage, and the placing of the Departmentof the Seine under the state of siege. In the same way he shortlyafter sneaked into the "Moniateur" a false document, according to whichinfluential parliamentary names had grouped themselves round him in aCommittee of the Nation. 

Amidst cries of "Long live the Republic!", the rump-parliament, assembled at the Mayor's building of the Tenth Arrondissement, andcomposed mainly of Legitimists and Orleanists, resolves to deposeBonaparte; it harangues in vain the gaping mass gathered before thebuilding, and is finally dragged first, under the escort of Africansharpshooters, to the barracks of Orsay, and then bundled into convicts'wagons and transported to the prisons of Mazas, Ham and Vincennes. Thusended the party of Order, the Legislative Assembly and the Februaryrevolution. 

Before hastening to the end, let us sum up shortly the plan of itshistory:

I. --First Period. From February 24 to May 4, 1848. February period. Prologue. Universal fraternity swindle. 

II. --Second Period. Period in which the republic is constituted, and ofthe Constitutive National Assembly. 

1. May 4 to June 25, 1848. Struggle of all the classes against the houseof Mr. Proletariat. Defeat of the proletariat in the June days. 

2. June 25 to December 10, 1848. Dictatorship of the pure bourgeoisrepublicans. Drafting of the Constitution. The state of siege hangsover Paris. The Bourgeois dictatorship set aside on December 10 by theelection of Bonaparte as President. 

3. December 20, 1848, to May 20, 1849. Struggle of the ConstitutiveAssembly with Bonaparte and with the united party of Order. Death of theConstitutive Assembly. Downfall of the republican bourgeoisie. 

III. --Third Period. Period of the constitutional republic and of theLegislative National Assembly. 

1. May 29 to June 13, 1849. Struggle of the small traders', middle classwith the bourgeoisie and with Bonaparte. Defeat of the small traders'democracy. 

2. June 13, 1849, to May, 1850. Parliamentary dictatorship of the partyof Order. Completes its reign by the abolition of universal suffrage, but loses the parliamentary Ministry. 

3. May 31, 1850, to December 2, 1851. Struggle between the parliamentarybourgeoisie and Bonaparte. 

a. May 31, 1850, to January 12, 1851. The parliament loses the supremecommand over the Army. 

b. January 12 to April 11, 1851. The parliament succumbs in the attemptsto regain possession of the administrative power. The party of Orderloses its independent parliamentary majority. Its coalition with therepublicans and the Mountain. 

c. April 11 to October 9, 1851. Attempts at revision, fusion andprorogation. The party of Order dissolves into its component parts. Thebreach between the bourgeois parliament and the bourgeois press, on theone hand, and the bourgeois mass, on the other, becomes permanent. 

d. October 9 to December 2, 1851. Open breach between the parliamentand the executive power. It draws up its own decree of death, and goesunder, left in the lurch by its own class, by the Army, and by all theother classes. Downfall of the parliamentary regime and of the reignof the bourgeoisie. Bonaparte's triumph. Parody of the imperialistrestoration. 

VII

The Social Republic appeared as a mere phrase, as a prophecy on thethreshold of the February Revolution; it was smothered in the blood ofthe Parisian proletariat during the days of 1848 but it stalks aboutas a spectre throughout the following acts of the drama. The DemocraticRepublic next makes its bow; it goes out in a fizzle on June 13, 1849, with its runaway small traders; but, on fleeing, it scatters behindit all the more bragging announcements of what it means do to. TheParliamentary Republic, together with the bourgeoisie, then appropriatesthe whole stage; it lives its life to the full extent of its being; butthe 2d of December, 1851, buries it under the terror-stricken cry of theallied royalists: "Long live the Republic!"

The French bourgeoisie reared up against the reign of the workingproletariat;--it brought to power the slum-proletariat, with thechief of the "Society of December 10" at its head. It kept France inbreathless fear over the prospective terror of "red anarchy;"--Bonapartediscounted the prospect when, on December 4, he had the leading citizensof the Boulevard Montmartre and the Boulevard des Italiens shot downfrom their windows by the grog-inspired "Army of Order. " It made theapotheosis of the sabre; now the sabre rules it. It destroyed therevolutionary press;--now its own press is annihilated. It placed publicmeetings under police surveillance;--now its own salons are subject topolice inspection. It disbanded the democratic National Guards;--now itsown National Guard is disbanded. It instituted the state of siege;--nowitself is made subject thereto. It supplanted the jury by militarycommissions;--now military commissions supplant its own juries. Itsubjected the education of the people to the parsons' interests;--theparsons' interests now subject it to their own systems. It orderedtransportations without trial;--now itself is transported without trial. It suppressed every movement of society with physical force;--nowevery movement of its own class is suppressed by physical force. Outof enthusiasm for the gold bag, it rebelled against its own politicalleaders and writers;--now, its political leaders and writers are setaside, but the gold hag is plundered, after the mouth of the bourgeoisiehas been gagged and its pen broken. The bourgeoisie tirelessly shoutedto the revolution, in the language of St. Orsenius to the Christians:"Fuge, Tace, Quiesce!"--flee, be silent, submit!--; Bonaparte shouts tothe bourgeoisie: "Fuge, Tace, Oniesce!"--flee, be silent, submit!

The French bourgeoisie had long since solved Napoleon's dilemma: "Danscinquante ans l'Europe sera republicaine ou cosaque. " [#1 Withinfifty years Europe will be either republican or Cossack. ] It found thesolution in the "republique cosaque. " [#2 Cossack republic. ] No Circedistorted with wicked charms the work of art of the bourgeois republicinto a monstrosity. That republic lost nothing but the appearance ofdecency. The France of to-day was ready-made within the womb of theParliamentary republic. All that was wanted was a bayonet thrust, inorder that the bubble burst, and the monster leap forth to sight. 

Why did not the Parisian proletariat rise after the 2d of December?

The downfall of the bourgeoisie was as yet merely decreed; the decreewas not yet executed. Any earnest uprising of the proletariat wouldhave forthwith revived this bourgeoisie, would have brought on itsreconciliation with the army, and would have insured a second June routto the workingmen. 

On December 4, the proletariat was incited to fight by Messrs. Bourgeois& Small-Trader. On the evening of that day, several legions of theNational Guard promised to appear armed and uniformed on the placeof battle. This arose from the circumstance that Messrs. Bourgeois &Small-Trader had got wind that, in one of his decrees of December 2, Bonaparte abolished the secret ballot, and ordered them to enterthe words "Yes" and "No" after their names in the official register. Bonaparte took alarm at the stand taken on December 4. During the nighthe caused placards to be posted on all the street corners of Paris, announcing the restoration of the secret ballot. Messrs. Bourgeois &Small-Trader believed they had gained their point. The absentees, thenext morning, were Messieurs. Bourgeois & Small-Trader. 

During the night of December 1 and 2, the Parisian proletariat wasrobbed of its leaders and chiefs of barricades by a raid of Bonaparte's. An army without officers, disinclined by the recollections of June, 1848and 1849, and May, 1850, to fight under the banner of the Montagnards, it left to its vanguard, the secret societies, the work of saving theinsurrectionary honor of Paris, which the bourgeoisie had yielded to thesoldiery so submissively that Bonaparte was later justified in disarmingthe National Guard upon the scornful ground that he feared their armswould be used against themselves by the Anarchists!

"C'est Ic triomphe complet et definitif du Socialism!"' Thus did Guizotcharacterize the 2d of December. But, although the downfall of theparliamentary republic carries with it the germ of the triumph ofthe proletarian revolution, its immediate and tangible result wasthe triumph of Bonaparte over parliament, of the Executive over theLegislative power, of force without phrases over the force of phrases. In the parliament, the nation raised its collective will to the dignityof law, i. E. , it raised the law of the ruling class to the dignity ofits collective will. Before the Executive power, the nation abdicatesall will of its own, and submits to the orders of an outsider ofAuthority. In contrast with the Legislative, the Executive powerexpresses the heteronomy of the nation in contrast with its autonomy. Accordingly, France seems to have escaped the despotism of a classonly in order to fall under the despotism of an individual, under theauthority, at that of an individual without authority The struggle seemsto settle down to the point where all classes drop down on their knees, equally impotent and equally dumb. 

All the same, the revolution is thoroughgoing. It still is on itspassage through purgatory. It does its work methodically: Down toDecember 2, 1851, it had fulfilled one-half of its programme, it nowfulfils the other half. It first ripens the power of the Legislatureinto fullest maturity in order to be able to overthrow it. Now that ithas accomplished that, the revolution proceeds to ripen the power ofthe Executive into equal maturity; it reduces this power to its purestexpression; isolates it; places it before itself as the sole subject forreproof in order to concentrate against it all the revolutionary forcesof destruction. When the revolution shall have accomplished this secondpart of its preliminary programme, Europe will jump up from her seat toexclaim: "Well hast thou grubbed, old mole!"

The Executive power, with its tremendous bureaucratic and militaryorganization; with its wide-spreading and artificial machinery ofgovernment--an army of office-holders, half a million strong, togetherwith a military force of another million men--; this fearful bodyof parasites, that coils itself like a snake around French society, stopping all its pores, originated at the time of the absolute monarchy, along with the decline of feudalism, which it helped to hasten. The princely privileges of the landed proprietors and cities weretransformed into so many at-tributes of the Executive power; the feudaldignitaries into paid office-holders; and the confusing design ofconflicting medieval seigniories, into the well regulated plan of agovernment, work is subdivided and centralized as in the factory. Thefirst French revolution, having as a mission to sweep away all local, territorial, urban and provincial special privileges, with the objectof establishing the civic unity of the nation, was hound to develop whatthe absolute monarchy had begun--the work of centralization, togetherwith the range, the attributes and the menials of government. Napoleoncompleted this governmental machinery. The Legitimist and the JulyMonarchy contribute nothing thereto, except a greater subdivision oflabor, that grew in the same measure as the division and subdivision oflabor within bourgeois society raised new groups and interests, i. E. , new material for the administration of government. Each Common interestwas in turn forthwith removed from society, set up against it as ahigher Collective interest, wrested from the individual activity ofthe members of society, and turned into a subject for governmentaladministration, from the bridges, the school house and the communalproperty of a village community, up to the railroads, the nationalwealth and the national University of France. Finally, the parliamentaryrepublic found itself, in its struggle against the revolution, compelled, with its repressive measures, to strengthen the means and thecentralization of the government. Each overturn, instead of breaking up, carried this machine to higher perfection. The parties, that alternatelywrestled for supremacy, looked upon the possession of this tremendousgovernmental structure as the principal spoils of their victory. 

Nevertheless, under the absolute monarchy, was only the means wherebythe first revolution, and under Napoleon, to prepare the class rule ofthe bourgeoisie; under the restoration, under Louis Philippe, and underthe parliamentary republic, it was the instrument of the ruling class, however eagerly this class strained after autocracy. Not before theadvent of the second Bonaparte does the government seem to have madeitself fully independent. The machinery of government has by this timeso thoroughly fortified itself against society, that the chief of the"Society of December 10" is thought good enough to be at its head; afortune-hunter, run in from abroad, is raised on its shield by a drunkensoldiery, bought by himself with liquor and sausages, and whom he isforced ever again to throw sops to. Hence the timid despair, the senseof crushing humiliation and degradation that oppresses the breast ofFrance and makes her to choke. She feels dishonored. 

And yet the French Government does not float in the air. Bonaparterepresents an economic class, and that the most numerous in thecommonweal of France--the Allotment Farmer. [#4 The first FrenchRevolution distributed the bulk of the territory of France, held at thetime by the feudal lords, in small patches among the cultivators of thesoil. This allotment of lands created the French farmer class. ]

As the Bourbons are the dynasty of large landed property, as the Orleansare the dynasty of money, so are the Bonapartes the dynasty of thefarmer, i. E. Of the French masses. Not the Bonaparte, who threw himselfat the feet of the bourgeois parliament, but the Bonaparte, who sweptaway the bourgeois parliament, is the elect of this farmer class. Forthree years the cities had succeeded in falsifying the meaning ofthe election of December 10, and in cheating the farmer out of therestoration of the Empire. The election of December 10, 1848, is notcarried out until the "coup d'etat" of December 2, 1851. 

The allotment farmers are an immense mass, whose individual memberslive in identical conditions, without, however, entering into manifoldrelations with one another. Their method of production isolates themfrom one another, instead of drawing them into mutual intercourse. Thisisolation is promoted by the poor means of communication in France, together with the poverty of the farmers themselves. Their field ofproduction, the small allotment of land that each cultivates, allows noroom for a division of labor, and no opportunity for the applicationof science; in other words, it shuts out manifoldness of development, diversity of talent, and the luxury of social relations. Every singlefarmer family is almost self-sufficient; itself produces directly thegreater part of what it consumes; and it earns its livelihood more bymeans of an interchange with nature than by intercourse with society. Wehave the allotted patch of land, the farmer and his family; alongside ofthat another allotted patch of land, another farmer and another family. A bunch of these makes up a village; a bunch of villages makes up aDepartment. Thus the large mass of the French nation is constituted bythe simple addition of equal magnitudes--much as a bag with potatoesconstitutes a potato-bag. In so far as millions of families live undereconomic conditions that separate their mode of life, their interestsand their culture from those of the other classes, and that place themin an attitude hostile toward the latter, they constitute a class; inso far as there exists only a local connection among these farmers, aconnection which the individuality and exclusiveness of their interestsprevent from generating among them any unity of interest, nationalconnections, and political organization, they do not constitute a class. Consequently, they are unable to assert their class interests in theirown name, be it by a parliament or by convention. They can not representone another, they must themselves be represented. Their representativemust at the same time appear as their master, as an authority overthem, as an unlimited governmental power, that protects them fromabove, bestows rain and sunshine upon them. Accordingly, the politicalinfluence of the allotment farmer finds its ultimate expression in anExecutive power that subjugates the commonweal to its own autocraticwill. 

Historic tradition has given birth to the superstition among the Frenchfarmers that a man named Napoleon would restore to them all manner ofglory. Now, then, an individual turns I up, who gives himself out asthat man because, obedient to the "Code Napoleon, " which provides that"La recherche de la paternite est interdite, " [#5 The inquiry intopaternity is forbidden. ] he carries the name of Napoleon. [#6 L. N. Bonaparte is said to have been an illegitimate son. ] After a vagabondageof twenty years, and a series of grotesque adventures, the myth isverified, and that man becomes the Emperor of the French. The rootedthought of the Nephew becomes a reality because it coincided with therooted thought of the most numerous class among the French. 

"But, " I shall be objected to, "what about the farmers' uprisings overhalf France, the raids of the Army upon the farmers, the wholesaleimprisonment and transportation of farmers?"

Indeed, since Louis XIV. , France has not experienced such persecutionsof the farmer on the ground of his demagogic machinations. 

But this should be well understood: The Bonaparte dynasty does notrepresent the revolutionary, it represents the conservative farmer;it does not represent the farmer, who presses beyond his own economicconditions, his little allotment of land it represents him ratherwho would confirm these conditions; it does not represent the ruralpopulation, that, thanks to its own inherent energy, wishes, jointlywith the cities to overthrow the old order, it represents, on thecontrary, the rural population that, hide-bound in the old order, seeksto see itself, together with its allotments, saved and favored bythe ghost of the Empire; it represents, not the intelligence, but thesuperstition of the farmer; not his judgment, but his bias; not hisfuture, but his past; not his modern Cevennes; [#7 The Cevennes werethe theater of the most numerous revolutionary uprisings of thefarmer class. ] but his modern Vendee. [#8 La Vendee was the theater ofprotracted reactionary uprisings of the farmer class under the firstRevolution. ]

The three years' severe rule of the parliamentary republic had freeda part of the French farmers from the Napoleonic illusion, and, thougheven only superficially; had revolutionized them The bourgeoisie threwthem, however, violently back every time that they set themselves inmotion. Under the parliamentary republic, the modern wrestled with thetraditional consciousness of the French farmer. The process went on inthe form of a continuous struggle between the school teachers and theparsons;--the bourgeoisie knocked the school teachers down. For thefirst time, the farmer made an effort to take an independent stand inthe government of the country; this manifested itself in the prolongedconflicts of the Mayors with the Prefects;--the bourgeoisie deposedthe Mayors. Finally, during period of the parliamentary republic, the farmers of several localities rose against their own product, the Army;--the bourgeoisie punished them with states of siege andexecutions. And this is the identical bourgeoisie, that now howls overthe "stupidity of the masses, " over the "vile multitude, " which, itclaims, betrayed it to Bonaparte. Itself has violently fortified theimperialism of the farmer class; it firmly maintained the conditionsthat Constitute the birth-place of this farmer-religion. Indeed, thebourgeoisie has every reason to fear the stupidity of the masses--solong as they remain conservative; and their intelligence--so soon asthey become revolutionary. 

In the revolts that took place after the "coup d'etat" a part of theFrench farmers protested, arms in hand, against their own vote ofDecember 10, 1848. The school house had, since 1848, sharpened theirwits. But they had bound themselves over to the nether world of history, and history kept them to their word. Moreover, the majority of thispopulation was still so full of prejudices that, just in the "reddest"Departments, it voted openly for Bonaparte. The National Assemblyprevented, as it thought, this population from walking; the farmers nowsnapped the fetters which the cities had struck upon the will of thecountry districts. In some places they even indulged the grotesquehallucination of a "Convention together with a Napoleon. "

After the first revolution had converted the serf farmers intofreeholders, Napoleon fixed and regulated the conditions under which, unmolested, they could exploit the soil of France, that had just falleninto their hands, and expiate the youthful passion for property. Butthat which now bears the French farmer down is that very allotment ofland, it is the partition of the soil, the form of ownership, whichNapoleon had consolidated. These are the material condition that turnedFrench feudal peasant into a small or allotment farmer, and Napoleoninto an Emperor. Two generations have sufficed to produce the inevitableresult the progressive deterioration of agriculture, and the progressiveencumbering of the agriculturist The "Napoleonic" form of ownership, which, at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the condition forthe emancipation and enrichment of the French rural population, has, inthe course of the century, developed into the law of their enslavementand pauperism. Now, then, this very law is the first of the "ideesNapoleoniennes, " which the second Bonaparte must uphold. If he stillshares with the farmers the illusion of seeking, not in the system ofthe small allotment itself, but outside of that system, in the influenceof secondary conditions, the cause of their ruin, his experimentsare bound to burst like soap-bubbles against the modern system ofproduction. 

The economic development of the allotment system has turned bottomupward the relation of the farmer to the other classes of society. Under Napoleon, the parceling out of the agricultural lands into smallallotments supplemented in the country the free competition and theincipient large production of the cities. The farmer class wasthe ubiquitous protest against the aristocracy of land, just thenoverthrown. The roots that the system of small allotments cast into thesoil of France, deprived feudalism of all nutriment. Its boundary-postsconstituted the natural buttress of the bourgeoisie against every strokeof the old overlords. But in the course of the nineteenth century, theCity Usurer stepped into the shoes of the Feudal Lord, the Mortgagesubstituted the Feudal Duties formerly yielded by the soil, bourgeoisCapital took the place of the aristocracy of Landed Property. The formerallotments are now only a pretext that allows the capitalist class todraw profit, interest and rent from agricultural lands, and to leave tothe farmer himself the task of seeing to it that he knock out his wages. The mortgage indebtedness that burdens the soil of France imposes uponthe French farmer class they payment of an interest as great as theannual interest on the whole British national debt. In this slavery ofcapital, whither its development drives it irresistibly, the allotmentsystem has transformed the mass of the French nation into troglodytes. Sixteen million farmers (women and children included), house in hovelsmost of which have only one opening, some two, and the few most favoredones three. Windows are to a house what the five senses are to the head. The bourgeois social order, which, at the beginning of the century, placed the State as a sentinel before the newly instituted allotment, and that manured this with laurels, has become a vampire that sucks outits heart-blood and its very brain, and throws it into the alchemist'spot of capital. The "Code Napoleon" is now but the codex of execution, of sheriff's sales and of intensified taxation. To the four million(children, etc. , included) official paupers, vagabonds, criminals andprostitutes, that France numbers, must be added five million souls whohover over the precipice of life, and either sojourn in the countryitself, or float with their rags and their children from the country tothe cities, and from the cities back to the country. Accordingly, theinterests of the farmers are no longer, as under Napoleon, in harmonybut in conflict with the interests of the bourgeoisie, i. E. , withcapital; they find their natural allies and leaders among the urbanproletariat, whose mission is the overthrow of the bourgeois socialorder. But the "strong and unlimited government"--and this is the secondof the "idees Napoleoniennes, " which the second Napoleon has to carriedout--, has for its mission the forcible defence of this very "material"social order, a "material order" that furnishes the slogan inBonaparte's proclamations against the farmers in revolt. 

Along with the mortgage, imposed by capital upon the farmer's allotment, this is burdened by taxation. Taxation is the fountain of life to thebureaucracy, the Army, the parsons and the court, in short to the wholeapparatus of the Executive power. A strong government, and heavy taxesare identical. The system of ownership, involved in the system ofallotments lends itself by nature for the groundwork of a powerful andnumerous bureaucracy: it produces an even level of conditions and ofpersons over the whole surface of the country; it, therefore, allows theexercise of an even influence upon all parts of this even mass from ahigh central point downwards: it annihilates the aristocratic gradationsbetween the popular masses and the Government; it, consequently, callsfrom all sides for the direct intervention of the Government and for theintervention of the latter's immediate organs; and, finally, it producesan unemployed excess of population, that finds no room either in thecountry or in the cities, that, consequently, snatches after publicoffice as a sort of dignified alms, and provokes the creation of furtheroffices. With the new markets, which he opened at the point of thebayonet, and with the plunder of the continent, Napoleon returned to thefarmer class with interest the taxes wrung from them. These taxes werethen a goad to the industry of the farmer, while now, on the contrary, they rob his industry of its last source of support, and completely saphis power to resist poverty. Indeed, an enormous bureaucracy, richlygallooned and well fed is that "idee Napoleonienne" that above allothers suits the requirements of the second Bonaparte. How else shouldit be, seeing he is forced to raise alongside of the actual classes ofsociety, an artificial class, to which the maintenance of his own regimemust be a knife-and-fork question? One of his first financial operationswas, accordingly, the raising of the salaries of the governmentemployees to their former standard and the creation of new sinecures. 

Another "idee Napoleonienne" is the rule of the parsons as an instrumentof government. But while the new-born allotment, in harmony withsociety, in its dependence upon the powers of nature, and in itssubordination to the authority that protected it from above, wasnaturally religious, the debt-broken allotment, on the contrary, at oddswith society and authority, and driven beyond its own narrow bounds, becomes as naturally irreligious. Heaven was quite a pretty gift thrownin with the narrow strip of land that had just been won, all the more asit makes the weather; it, however, becomes an insult from the moment itis forced upon the farmer as a substitute for his allotment. Thenthe parson appears merely as the anointed blood-hound of the earthlypolice, --yet another "idee Napoleonienne. " The expedition against Romewill next time take place in France, but in a reverse sense from that ofM. De Montalembert. 

Finally, the culminating point of the "idees Napoleoniennes" is thepreponderance of the Army. The Army was the "point of honor" with theallotment farmers: it was themselves turned into masters, defendingabroad their newly established property, glorifying their recentlyconquered nationality, plundering and revolutionizing the world. Theuniform was their State costume; war was their poetry; the allotment, expanded and rounded up in their phantasy, was the fatherland; andpatriotism became the ideal form of property. But the foe, against whomthe French farmer must now defend his property, are not the Cossacks, they are the sheriffs and the tax collectors. The allotment no longerlies in the so-called fatherland, but in the register of mortgages. TheArmy itself no longer is the flower of the youth of the farmers, itis the swamp-blossom of the slum-proletariat of the farmer class. Itconsists of "remplacants, " substitutes, just as the second Bonapartehimself is but a "remplacant, " a substitute, for Napoleon. Its feats ofheroism are now performed in raids instituted against farmers and in theservice of the police;--and when the internal contradictions of his ownsystem shall drive the chief of the "Society of December 10" across theFrench frontier, that Army will, after a few bandit-raids, gather nolaurels but only hard knocks. 

It is evident that all the "idees Napoleoniennes" are the ideas of theundeveloped and youthfully fresh allotment; they are an absurdity forthe allotment that now survives. They are only the hallucinations ofits death struggle; words turned to hollow phrases, spirits turned tospooks. But this parody of the Empire was requisite in order to free themass of the French nation from the weight of tradition, and to elaboratesharply the contrast between Government and Society. Along with theprogressive decay of the allotment, the governmental structure, rearedupon it, breaks down. The centralization of Government, requiredby modern society, rises only upon the ruins of the military andbureaucratic governmental machinery that was forged in contrast tofeudalism. 

The conditions of the French farmers' class solve to us the riddleof the general elections of December 20 and 21, that led the secondBonaparte to the top of Sinai, not to receive, but to decree laws. 

The bourgeoisie had now, manifestly, no choice but to elect Bonaparte. When at the Council of Constance, the puritans complained of the sinfullife of the Popes, and moaned about the need of a reform in morals, Cardinal d'Ailly thundered into their faces: "Only the devil in his Ownperson can now save the Catholic Church, and you demand angels. " So, likewise, did the French bourgeoisie cry out after the "coup d'etat":"Only the chief of the 'Society of December 10' can now save bourgeoissociety, only theft can save property, only perjury religion, onlybastardy the family, only disorder order!"

Bonaparte, as autocratic Executive power, fulfills his mission to secure"bourgeois order. " But the strength of this bourgeois order lies in themiddle class. He feels himself the representative of the middle class, and issues his decrees in that sense. Nevertheless, he is somethingonly because he has broken the political power of this class, and dailybreaks it anew. Hence he feels himself the adversary of the politicaland the literary power of the middle class. But, by protecting theirmaterial, he nourishes anew their political power. Consequently, thecause must be kept alive, but the result, wherever it manifests itself, swept out of existence. But this procedure is impossible without slightmistakings of causes and effects, seeing that both, in their mutualaction and reaction, lose their distinctive marks. Thereupon, newdecrees, that blur the line of distinction. Bonaparte, furthermore, feels himself, as against the bourgeoisie, the representative of thefarmer and the people in general, who, within bourgeois society, is torender the lower classes of society happy. To this end, new decrees, intended to exploit the "true Socialists, " together with theirgovernmental wisdom. But, above all, Bonaparte feels himself thechief of the "Society of December 10, " the representative of theslum-proletariat, to which he himself, his immediate surroundings, hisGovernment, and his army alike belong, the main object with all of whomis to be good to themselves, and draw Californian tickets out of thenational treasury. An he affirms his chieftainship of the "Society ofDecember 10" with decrees, without decrees, and despite decrees. 

This contradictory mission of the man explains the contradictions of hisown Government, and that confused groping about, that now seeks to win, then to humiliate now this class and then that, and finishes by arrayingagainst itself all the classes; whose actual insecurity constitutesa highly comical contrast with the imperious, categoric style of theGovernment acts, copied closely from the Uncle. 

Industry and commerce, i. E. , the business of the middle class, are to bemade to blossom in hot-house style under the "strong Government. " Loansfor a number of railroad grants. But the Bonapartist slum-proletariat isto enrich itself. Peculation is carried on with railroad concessionson the Bourse by the initiated; but no capital is forthcoming for therailroads. The bank then pledges itself to make advances upon railroadstock; but the bank is itself to be exploited; hence, it must becajoled; it is released of the obligation to publish its reports weekly. Then follows a leonine treaty between the bank and the Government. Thepeople are to be occupied: public works are ordered; but the publicworks raise the tax rates upon the people; thereupon the taxes arereduced by an attack upon the national bond-holders through theconversion of the five per cent "rentes" [#9 The name of the Frenchnational bonds. ] into four-and-halves. Yet the middle class must againbe tipped: to this end, the tax on wine is doubled for the people, whobuy it at retail, and is reduced to one-half for the middle class, thatdrink it at wholesale. Genuine labor organizations are dissolved, butpromises are made of future wonders to accrue from organization. Thefarmers are to be helped: mortgage-banks are set up that must promotethe indebtedness; of the farmer and the concentration of property butagain, these banks are to be utilized especially to the end of squeezingmoney out of the confiscated estates of the House of Orleans; nocapitalist will listen to this scheme, which, moreover, is not mentionedin the decree; the mortgage bank remains a mere decree, etc. , etc. 

Bonaparte would like to appear as the patriarchal benefactor of allclasses; but he can give to none without taking from the others. As wassaid of the Duke of Guise, at the time of the Fronde, that he was themost obliging man in France because he had converted all his estatesinto bonds upon himself for his Parisians, so would Napoleon like to bethe most obliging man in France and convert all property and all laborof France into a personal bond upon himself. He would like to steal thewhole of France to make a present thereof to France, or rather to beable to purchase France back again with French money;--as chief of the"Society of December 10, " he must purchase that which is to be his. All the State institutions, the Senate, the Council of State, theLegislature, the Legion of Honor, the Soldiers' decorations, the publicbaths, the public buildings, the railroads, the General Staff of theNational Guard, exclusive of the rank and file, the confiscated estatesof the House of Orleans, --all are converted into institutions forpurchase and sale. Every place in the Army and the machinery ofGovernment becomes a purchasing power. The most important thing, however, in this process, whereby France is taken to be given back toherself, are the percentages that, in the transfer, drop into thehands of the chief and the members of the "Society of December 10. "The witticisms with which the Countess of L. , the mistress of de Morny, characterized the confiscations of the Orleanist estates: "C'est lepremier vol de l'aigle, " [#10 "It is the first flight of the eagle" TheFrench word "vol" means theft as well as flight. ] fits every fight ofthe eagle that is rather a crow. He himself and his followers daily callout to themselves, like the Italian Carthusian monk in the legend doesto the miser, who displayfully counted the goods on which he could livefor many years to come: "Tu fai conto sopra i beni, bisogna prima far ilconto sopra gli anni. " [#11 "You count your property you should rathercount the years left to you. "] In order not to make a mistake in theyears, they count by minutes. A crowd of fellows, of the best among whomall that can be said is that one knows not whence he comes--a noisy, restless "Boheme, " greedy after plunder, that crawls about in galloonedfrocks with the same grotesque dignity as Soulonque's [#12 Soulonque wasthe negro Emperor of the short-lived negro Empire of Hayti. ] Imperialdignitaries--, thronged the court crowded the ministries, and pressedupon the head of the Government and of the Army. One can picture tohimself this upper crust of the "Society of December 10" by consideringthat Veron Crevel [#13 Crevel is a character of Balzac, drawn after Dr. Veron, the proprietor of the "Constitutional" newspaper, as a type ofthe dissolute Parisian Philistine. ] is their preacher of morality, andGranier de Cassagnac their thinker. When Guizot, at the time he wasMinister, employed this Granier on an obscure sheet against the dynasticopposition, he used to praise him with the term: "C'est le roi desdroles. " [#14 "He Is the king of the clowns. "] It were a mistake torecall the days of the Regency or of Louis XV. By the court and the kitof Louis Bonaparte's: "Often did France have a mistress-administration, but never yet an administration of kept men. " [#15 Madame de Girardin. ]

Harassed by the contradictory demands of his situation, and compelled, like a sleight-of-hands performer, to keep, by means of constantsurprises, the eyes of the public riveted upon himself as the substituteof Napoleon, compelled, consequently, everyday to accomplish a sort of"coup" on a small scale, Bonaparte throws the whole bourgeois socialsystem into disorder; he broaches everything that seemed unbroachableby the revolution of 1848; he makes one set people patient under therevolution and another anxious for it; he produces anarchy itself in thename of order by rubbing off from the whole machinery of Government theveneer of sanctity, by profaning it, by rendering it at once nauseatingand laughable. He rehearses in Paris the cult of the sacred coat ofTrier with the cult of the Napoleonic Imperial mantle. But when theImperial Mantle shall have finally fallen upon the shoulders of LouisBonaparte, then will also the iron statue of Napoleon drop down from thetop of the Vendome column. [#16 A prophecy that a few years later, afterBonaparte's coronation as Emperor, was literally fulfilled. By orderof Emperor Louis Napoleon, the military statue of the Napoleon thatoriginally surmounted the Vendome was taken down and replaced by one offirst Napoleon in imperial robes. ]