s.
Pardon me, I mean that your salary suffers in proportion as the Sens
Commun declines in sale."

"She has not accepted them. I advised her not to do so until she could
compare them with those offered by the proprietor of the Sens Commun."

"And your advice guides her? Ah, cher confrere, you are a happy
man!--you have influence over this young aspirant to the fame of a De
Stael or a Georges Sand."

"I flatter myself that I have some," answered Rameau, smiling loftily
as he helped himself to another tumbler of. Volnay wine--excellent, but
rather heady.

"So much the better. I leave you free to arrange terms with Mademoiselle
Cicogna, higher than she can obtain elsewhere, and kindly contrive my
own personal introduction to her--you have breakfasted already?--permit
me to offer you a cigar--excuse me if I do not bear you company; I
seldom smoke--never of a morning. Now to business, and the state of
France. Take that easy-chair, seat yourself comfortably. So! Listen! If
ever Mephistopheles revisit the earth, how he will laugh at Universal
Suffrage and Vote by Ballot in an old country like France, as things to
be admired by educated men, and adopted by friends of genuine freedom!"

"I don't understand you," said Rameau.

"In this respect at least, let me hope that I can furnish you with
understanding.

"The Emperor has resorted to a plebiscite--viz., a vote by ballot and
universal suffrage--as to certain popular changes which circumstances
compel him to substitute for his former personal rule. Is there a single
intelligent Liberal who is not against that plebiscite?--is there any
such who does not know that the appeal of the Emperor to universal
suffrage and vote by ballot must result in a triumph over all the
variations of free thought, by the unity which belongs to Order,
represented through an able man at the head of the State? The multitude
never comprehend principles; principles are complex ideas; they
comprehend a single idea, and the simplest idea is, a Name that rids
their action of all responsibility to thought.

"Well, in France there are principles superabundant which you can pit
against the principle of Imperial rule. But there is not one name you
can pit against Napoleon the Third; therefore, I steer our little bark
in the teeth of the popular gale when I denounce the plebiscite, and
Le Sens Commun will necessarily fall in sale--it is beginning to fall
already. We shall have the educated men with us,