tered. I am not only
(as has been pretended) the Emperor of the soldiers; I am that of the
peasants of the plebeians of France. Accordingly, in spite of all that
has happened, you see the people come back to me. There is sympathy
between us. It is not as with the privileged classes. The noblesse have
been in my service; they thronged in crowds into my antechambers. There
is no place that they have not accepted or solicited. I have had the
Montmorencys, the Noailles, the Rohans, the Beauveaus, the Montemarts,
in my train. But there never was any cordiality between us. The steed
made his curvets--he was well broken in, but I felt him quiver under me.
With the people it is another thing. The popular fibre responds to mine.
I have risen from the ranks of the people: my voice seta mechanically
upon them. Look at those conscripts, the sons of peasants: I never
flattered them; I treated them roughly. They did not crowd round me the
less; they did not on that account cease to cry, 'Vive l'Empereur!'
It is that between them and me there is one and the same nature. They
look to me as their support, their safeguard against the nobles. I have
but to make a sign, or even to look another way, and the nobles would be
massacred in every province. So well have they managed matters in the
last ten months! but I do not desire to be the King of a mob. If there
are the means to govern by a constitution well and good. I wished for
the empire of the world, and to ensure it complete liberty of action was
necessary to me. To govern France merely it is possible that a
constitution may be better. I wished for the empire of the world, as who
would not have done in my place? The world invited me to rule over it.
Sovereigns and subjects alike emulously bowed the neck under my sceptre.
I have seldom met with opposition in France, but still I have encountered
more of it from some obscure and unarmed Frenchmen than from all these
Kings so resolute, just now, no longer to have a man of the people for
their equal! See then what appears to you possible; let me know your
ideas. Public discussion, free elections, responsible ministers, the
liberty of the press, I have no objection to all that, the liberty of the
press especially; to stifle it is absurd. I am convinced on this point.
I am the man of the people: if the people really wish for liberty let
them have it. I have acknowledged their sovereignty. It is just that I
should lend an ear to their will, nay,