that his will, clearly and resolutely expressed, would not prevail in his
Council and silence opposition in the Chambers. Is it so? I ask for
information."

The three men were walking on towards the Palais Royal side by side while
this conversation proceeded.

"That all depends," replied Duplessis, "upon what may be the increase of
popular excitement at Paris. If it slackens, the Emperor, no doubt,
could turn to wise account that favourable pause in the fever. But if it
continues to swell, and Paris cries, 'War,' in a voice as loud as it
cried to Louis Philippe 'Revolution,' do you think that the Emperor could
impose on his ministers the wisdom of peace? His ministers would be too
terrified by the clamour to undertake the responsibility of opposing it--
they would resign. Where is the Emperor to find another Cabinet? a peace
Cabinet? What and who are the orators for peace?--whom a handful!--who?
Gambetta, Jules Favre, avowed Republicans,--would they even accept the
post of ministers to Louis Napoleon? If they did, would not their first
step be the abolition of the Empire? Napoleon is therefore so far a
constitutional monarch in the same sense as Queen Victoria, that the
popular will in the country (and in France in such matters Paris is the
country) controls the Chambers, controls the Cabinet; and against the
Cabinet the Emperor could not contend. I say nothing of the army--
a power in France unknown to you in England, which would certainly
fraternise with no peace party. If war is proclaimed,--let England blame
it if she will--she can't lament it more than I should: but let England
blame the nation; let her blame, if she please, the form of the
government, which rests upon popular suffrage; but do not let her blame
our sovereign more than the French would blame her own, if compelled by
the conditions on which she holds her crown to sign a declaration of war,