e-Dame. After that we shall have fine doings. Expect an imperial
spectacle. Expect caprices, surprises, stupefying, bewildering things,
the most unexpected combinations of words, the most fearless cacophony?
Expect Prince Troplong, Duc Maupas, Duc Mimerel, Marquis Leboeuf, Baron
Baroche. Form in line, courtiers; hats off, senators; the stable-door
opens, monseigneur the horse is consul. Gild the oats of his highness
Incitatus.

Everything will be swallowed; the public hiatus will be prodigious. All
the enormities will pass away. The old fly-catchers will disappear and
make room for the swallowers of whales.

To our minds the Empire exists from this moment, and without waiting
for the interlude of the senatus consultum and the comedy of the
plebiscite, we despatch this bulletin to Europe:--

"The treason of the 2nd of December is delivered of the Empire.

"The mother and child are indisposed."

IX

OMNIPOTENCE

Let us forget this man's origin and his 2nd of December, and look to
his political capacity. Shall we judge him by the eight months he has
reigned? On the one hand look at his power, and on the other at his
acts. What can he do? Everything. What has he done? Nothing. With his
unlimited power a man of genius, in eight months, would have changed
the whole face of France, of Europe, perhaps. He would not, certainly,
have effaced the crime of his starting-point, but he might have covered
it. By dint of material improvements he might have succeeded, perhaps,
in masking from the nation his moral abasement. Indeed, we must admit
that for a dictator of genius the thing was not difficult. A certain
number of social problems, elaborated during these last few years by
several powerful minds, seemed to be ripe, and might receive immediate,
practical solution, to the great profit and satisfaction of the nation.
Of this, Louis Bonaparte does not appear to have had any idea. He has
not approached, he has not had a glimpse of one of them. He has not
even found at the Elysee any old remains of the socialist meditations
of Ham. He has added several new crimes to his first one, and in this
he has been logical. With the exception of these crimes he has produced
nothing. Absolute power, no initiative! He has taken France and does
not know what to do with it. In truth, we are tempted to pity this
eunuch struggling with omnipotence.

It is true, however, that this dictator keeps in motion; let us do him
this justice; h