wealth, station, and political repute, from whom he obtained the funds
necessary for the darker purposes of conspiracy, into the elaboration of
which they did not inquire; and these men, though belonging like himself
to the Liberal party, were no hot-blooded democrats. Most of them were
in favour of constitutional monarchy; all of them for forms of government
very different from any republic in which socialists or communists could
find themselves uppermost. Among these politicians were persons
ambitious and able, who, in scheming for the fall of the Empire, had been
prepared to undertake the task of conducting to ends compatible with
modern civilisation the revolution they were willing to allow a mob at
Paris to commence. The opening of the war necessarily suspended their
designs. How completely the events of the 4th September mocked the
calculations of their ablest minds, and paralysed the action of their
most energetic spirits, will appear in the conversation I am about to
record. It takes place between Victor de Mauleon and the personage to
whom he had addressed the letter written on the night before the
interview with Louvier, in which Victor had announced his intention of
reappearing in Paris in his proper name and rank. I shall designate this
correspondent as vaguely as possible; let me call him the Incognito. He
may yet play so considerable a part in the history of France as a potent
representative of the political philosophy of De Tocqueville--that is,
of Liberal principles incompatible with the absolute power either of a
sovereign or a populace, and resolutely opposed to experiments on the
foundations of civilised society--that it would be unfair to himself and
his partisans if, in a work like this, a word were said that could lead
malignant conjecture to his identity with any special chief of the
opinions of which I here present him only as a type.

The Incognito, entering Victor's apartment: