XX.

This expression of public opinion, thus organised into a permanent
association at every point in the empire, gave an electric shock which
nothing could resist. A motion made in Paris was echoed from club to
club to the extremest provinces. The same spark lighted at once the same
passion in millions of souls. All the societies corresponded with one
another and with the mother society. The impulse was communicated and
the response was felt every day. It was the government of factions
enfolding in their nets the government of the law; but the law was mute
and invisible, whilst faction was erect and eloquent. Let us imagine one
of these sittings, at which the citizens, already agitated by the stormy
air of the period, took their places at the close of day in one of those
naves recently devoted to another worship. Some candles, brought by the
affiliated, scarcely lighted up the gloomy place; naked walls, wooden
benches, a tribune instead of an altar. Around this tribune some
favoured orators pressed in order to speak. A crowd of citizens of all
classes, of all costumes, rich, poor, soldiers, workpeople; women, to
create excitement, enthusiasm, tenderness, tears whenever they enter;
children, whom they raise in their arms as if to make them inspire, with
their earliest breath, the feelings of an irritated people: a gloomy
silence interrupted by shouts, applause, or hisses, just as the speaker
is loved or hated: then inflammatory discourses shaking to the very
centre by phrases of magical effect, the passions of this mob new to all
the effects of eloquence. The enthusiasm real in some, feigned in
others; stirring propositions, patriotic gifts, civic crowns, busts of
leading republicans paraded round, symbols of superstition, and
aristocracy burnt, songs loudly vociferated by demagogues in chorus at
the opening of each sitting. What people, even in a time of