not deign to cast to us, as of yore the Roman Senate cast to the suburban
plebeians, our food for the day-bread and vaudevilles--'panem et
circenses'. Yes, Monsieur, let us turn from the past to the present--
to France of to-day! A nation of forty millions of people who await each
morning from Paris the signal to know whether it is day or night, or
whether, indeed, they shall laugh or weep! A great people, once the
noblest, the cleverest in the world, repeating the same day, at the same
hour, in all the salons, and at all the crossways in the empire, the same
imbecile gabble engendered the evening before in the mire of the
boulevards. I tell you? Monsieur, it is humiliating that all Europe,
once jealous of us, should now shrug her shoulders in our faces.--
Besides, it is fatal even for Paris, which, permit me to add, drunk with
prosperity in its haughty isolation and self-fetishism, not a little
resembles the Chinese Empire-a focus of warmed-over, corrupt, and
frivolous civilization! As for the future, my dear sir, may God preserve
me from despair, since it concerns my country! This age has already seen
great things, great marvels, in fact; for I beg you to remember I am by
no means an enemy to my time. I approve the Revolution, liberty,
equality, the press, railways, and the telegraph; and as I often say to
Monsieur le Cure, every cause that would live must accommodate itself
cheerfully to the progress of its epoch, and study how to serve itself
by it. Every cause that is in antagonism with its age commits suicide.
Indeed, Monsieur, I trust this century will see one more great event,
the end of this Parisian tyranny, and the resuscitation of provincial
life; for I must repeat, my dear sir, that your centralization, which was
once an excellent remedy, is a detestable regimen! It is a horrible
instrument of oppression and tyranny, ready-made for all hands, suitable
for every despotism, and under it France stifles and wastes away. You
must agree with me yourself, Durocher; in this sense the Revolution
overshot its mark, and placed in jeopardy even its purposes; for you, who