the rest against. In
every country--even in China, where all are highly educated--a few must
be yet more highly educated than the many. Monsieur Rameau, I desire to
overthrow the Empire: in order to do that, it is not enough to have
on my side the educated men, I must have the canaille--the canaille
of Paris and of the manufacturing towns. But I use the canaille for
my purpose--I don't mean to enthrone it. You comprehend?--the canaille
quiescent is simply mud at the bottom of a stream; the canaille agitated
is mud at the surface. But no man capable of three ideas builds the
palaces and senates of civilised society out of mud, be it at the top or
the bottom of an ocean. Can either you or I desire that the destinies
of France shall be swayed by coxcombical artisans who think themselves
superior to every man who writes grammar, and whose idea of a
common-wealth is the confiscation of private property?" Rameau,
thoroughly puzzled by this discourse, bowed his head, and replied
whisperingly, "Proceed. You are against the Empire, yet against the
populace!--What are you for? not, surely, the Legitimists?--are you
Republican? Orleanist? or what?"

"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 t