"Your questions are very pertinent," answered the Vicomte, courteously,
"and my answer shall be very frank. I am against absolute rule, whether
under a Buonaparte or a Bourbon. I am for a free State, whether under a
constitutional hereditary sovereign like the English or Belgian, or
whether, republican in name, it be less democratic than constitutional
monarchy in practice, like the American. But as a man interested in the
fate of _le Sens Commun_, I hold in profound disdain all crotchets for
revolutionising the elements of Human Nature. Enough of this abstract
talk. To the point. You are of course aware of the violent meetings
held by the Socialists, nominally against the plebiscite, really against
the Emperor himself?"

"Yes, I know at least that the working class are extremely discontented;
the numerous strikes last month were not on a mere question of wages--
they were against the existing forms of society. And the articles by
Pierre Firmin which brought me into collision with the Government, seemed
to differ from what you now say. They approve those strikes; they
appeared to sympathise with the revolutionary meetings at Belleville and
Montmartre."

"Of course--we use coarse tools for destroying; we cast them aside for
finer ones when we want to reconstruct.

"I attended one of those meetings last night. See, I have a pass for all
such assemblies, signed by some dolt who cannot even spell the name he
assumes--'Pom-de-Tair.' A commissary of police sat yawning at the end of
the orchestra, his secretary by his side, while the orators stammer out
fragments of would-be thunderbolts. Commissary of police yawns more
wearily than before, secretary disdains to use his pen, seizes his