ocqueville, 'that our working classes are in a
much worse frame of mind than they were in 1848. Socialist opinions--the
doctrine that the profits of capitalists are so much taken fraudulently
or oppressively from the wages of labourers, and that it is unjust that
one man should have more of the means of happiness than another--are
extending every day. The workpeople believe that the rich are their
enemies and that the Emperor is their friend, and that he will join them
in an attempt to get their fair share, that is, an equal share, of the
property of the country--and I am not sure that they are mistaken.'

'Nor am I,' said Beaumont '_Celui-ci_ fully sympathises with their
feelings, and I do not think that he has intelligence enough to see the
absurdity of their theories.'

'You do not deny him,' I said, 'intelligence?'

'Not,' said Beaumont, 'for some purposes, and to some extent, practical
intelligence. His ends are bad, but he is often skilful in inventing and
pertinacious in employing means for effecting those bad ends. But I
deny him theoretic intelligence. I do not think that he has comprehension
or patience to work out, or even to follow, a long train of reasoning;
such a train as that by which economical errors and fallacies are
detected.'

'Are there strikes,' I asked, 'among your workmen?'

'They are beginning,' said Beaumont. 'We have had one near us, and the
authorities were afraid to interfere.'

'I suppose,' I said, that they are illegal?'

'They are illegal,' he answered, 'and I think that they ought to be so.
They are always oppressive and tyrannical. The workman who does not join
in a strike is made miserable. They are generally mischievous to
the combined workmen themselves, and always to those of other trades.
Your toleration of them appears to me one of the worst symptoms of your
political state of health. It shows among your public men an ignorance or
a cowardice, or a desire of ill-earned popularity, which is generally a
precursor of a democratic revolution.'

'It is certain,' said Ampere, 'that the masters are becoming afraid of
their workmen. Pereire brings his from their residences to the Barriere
Malesherbes in carriages. You are not actually insulted in the streets
of Paris, but you are treated with rude neglect. A _fiacre_ likes to
splash you, a _paveur_ to scatter you with mud. Louis Napoleon began with
Chauvinism. He excited all the bad international passions of the
multitude. He h