progress was to declare himself a philosopher in all things and a
puritan in politics; it declared him in favor of railroads,
mackintoshes, penitentiaries, wooden pavements, Negro freedom,
savings-banks, seamless shoes, lighting by gas, asphalt pavements,
universal suffrage, and reduction of the civil list. In short, it
meant pronouncing himself against the treaties of 1815, against the
Eldest Branch, against the colossus of the North, perfidious Albion,
against all enterprises, good or bad, of the government. Thus we see
that the word _progress_ might signify "No," as well as "Yes." It was
gilding put upon the word _liberalism_, a new pass-word for new
ambitions.

"If I have rightly understood what this meeting is for," said Jean
Violette, a stocking-maker, who had recently bought the Beauvisage
house, "it is to pledge ourselves to support, by employing every means
in our power, Monsieur Simon Giguet at the elections as deputy in
place of Comte Francois Keller. If each of us intends to coalesce in
this manner we have only to say plainly Yes or No on that point."

"That is going too quickly to the point! Political affairs do not
advance in that way, or there would be no politics at all!" cried
Pigoult, whose old grandfather, eighty-six years old, had just entered
the room. "The last speaker undertakes to decide what seems to me,
according to my feeble lights, the very object we are met to discuss.
I demand permission to speak."

"Monsieur Achille Pigoult has the floor," said Beauvisage, at last
able to pronounce that phrase with all his municipal and
constitutional dignity.