the eternal monument of his reign. In so doing, he sought to create
artificial modes of content for revolutionary workmen. Never has any
ruler had such tender heed of manual labour to the disparagement of
intellectual culture. Paris is embellished; Paris is the wonder of the
world; other great towns have followed its example; they, too, have their
rows of palaces and temples. Well, the time comes when the magician can
no longer give work to the spirits he raises; then they must fall on him
and rend: out of the very houses he built for the better habitation of
workmen will flock the malcontents who cry, 'Down with the Empire!' On
the 21st of May you witnessed the pompous ceremony which announces to the
Empire a vast majority of votes, that will be utterly useless to it
except as food for gunpowder in the times that are at hand. Seven days
before, on the 14th of May, there was a riot in the Faubourg d'Temple--
easily put down--you scarcely hear of it. That riot was not the less
necessary to those who would warn the Empire that it is mortal. True,
the riot disperses--but it is unpunished; riot unpunished is a revolution
begun. The earthquake is nearer than you think; and for that earthquake
what are the pills you quacks advertise? They prate of an age too
enlightened for war; they would mutilate the army--nay, disband it if
they could--with Prussia next door to France. Prussia, desiring, not
unreasonably, to take that place in the world which France now holds,
will never challenge France; if she did, she would be too much in the
wrong to find a second: Prussia knowing that she has to do with the
vainest, the most conceited, the rashest antagonist that ever flourished
a rapier in the face of a _spadassin_--Prussia will make France challenge
her.

"And how do _ces messieurs_ deal with the French army? Do they dare to
say to the ministers, 'Reform it'? Do they dare say, 'Prefer for men
whose first duty it is to obey, discipline to equality--insist on the