ime, he
enters the Tuileries; the working-man does his duty, he ascends the
scaffold. Who set up the working-man's scaffold? The prince!

Yes, this man who, had he been beaten in December, could have escaped
the death penalty only by the omnipotence of progress, and by an
enlargement, too liberal certainly, of the principle that human life is
sacred; this man, this Louis Bonaparte, this prince who carries the
practices of Poulmann and Soufflard into politics, he it is who
rebuilds the scaffold! Nor does he tremble! Nor does he turn pale! Nor
does he feel that it is a fatal ladder, that he is at liberty to
refrain from erecting it, but that, when once it is erected, he is not
at liberty to take it down, and that he who sets it up for another,
afterwards finds it for himself. It knows him again, and says to him,
"Thou didst place me here, and I have awaited thee."

No, this man does not reflect, he has longings, he has whims, and they
must be satisfied. They are the longings of a dictator. Unlimited power
would be tasteless without this seasoning. Go to,--cut off Charlet's
head, and the others. M. Bonaparte is Prince-President of the French
Republic; M. Bonaparte has sixteen millions a year, forty-four thousand
francs a day, twenty-four cooks in his household, and as many
aides-de-camp; he has the right of fishing in the ponds of Saclay and
Saint-Quentin; of hunting in the forests of Laigne, Ourscamp,
Carlemont, Champagne and Barbeau; he has the Tuileries, the Louvre, the
Elysee, Rambouillet, Saint-Cloud, Versailles, Compiegne; he has his
imperial box at every theatre, feasting and music every day, M.
Sibour's smile, and the arm of the Marchioness of Douglas on which to
enter the ballroom; but all this is not enough; he must have the
guillotine to boot; he must have some of those red baskets among his
baskets of champagne.

Oh! hide we our faces with both our hands! This man, this hideous
butcher of the law and of justice, still had his apron round his waist
and his hands in the smoking bowels of the Constitution, and his feet
in the blood of all the slaughtered laws, when you, judges, when you,
magistrates, men of the law, men of the right...! But I pause; I shall
meet you hereafter with your black robes and your red robes, your robes
of the colour of ink, and your robes of the colour of blood; and I
shall find them, too, and having chastised them once, will chastise
them again--those lieutenants of yours, those judic