st take it by the arm, we must shake it, we
must speak to it; we must scour the fields, enter the villages, go into
the barracks, speak to the soldier who no longer knows what he is
doing, speak to the labourer who has in his cabin an engraving of the
Emperor, and who, for that reason, votes for everything they ask; we
must remove the radiant phantom that dazzles their eyes; this whole
situation is nothing but a huge and deadly joke. We must expose this
joke, probe it to the bottom, disabuse the people,--the country people
above all,--excite them, agitate them, stir them up, show them the
empty houses, the yawning graves, and make them touch with their finger
the horror of this regime. The people are good and honest; they will
comprehend. Yes, peasant, there are two, the great and the little, the
illustrious and the infamous,--Napoleon and Naboleon!

Let us sum up this government! Who is at the Elysee and the Tuileries?
Crime. Who is established at the Luxembourg? Baseness. Who at the
Palais Bourbon? Imbecility. Who at the Palais d'Orsay? Corruption. Who
at the Palais de Justice? Prevarication. And who are in the prisons, in
the fortresses, in the dungeons, in the casemates, in the hulks, at
Lambessa, at Cayenne, in exile? Law, honour, intelligence, liberty, and
the right.

Oh! ye proscribed, of what do you complain? You have the better part.

BOOK III

THE CRIME

But this government, this horrible, hypocritical, and stupid
government,--this government which causes us to hesitate between a
laugh and a sob, this gibbet-constitution on which all our liberties
are hung, this great universal suffrage and this little universal
suffrage, the first naming the President, and the other the
legislators; the little one saying to the great one: "_Monseigneur,
accept these millions_," and the great one saying to the little one:
"_Be assured of my consideration_;" this Senate,--this Council of
State--whence do they all come? Great Heaven! have we already reached
the point that it is necessary to remind the reader of their source?

Whence comes this government? Look! It is still flowing, it is still
smoking,--it is blood!

The dead are far away, the dead are dead.

Ah! it is horrible to think and to say, but is it possible that we no
longer think of it?

Is it possible that, because we still eat and drink, because the
coachmakers' trade is flourishing, because you, labourer, have work in
the Bois de Boulogne,