lembert, and all those religious men, a priceless,
ancient race, but largely increased and recruited since the landholders'
terrors of 1848, who pray in this wise: "O, my God! send up the Lyons
shares! Dear Lord Jesus, see to it that I make a profit of twenty-five
per cent, on my Rothschild-Neapolitan bonds! Holy Apostles, sell my
wines for me! Blessed Martyrs, double my rents! Holy Mary, Mother of
God, immaculate Virgin, Star of the Sea, Enclosed Garden, _Hortus
Conclusus_, deign to cast a favouring eye on my little business at the
corner of Rue Tire-chape and Rue Quincampoix! Tower of Ivory, cause the
shop over the way to lose trade!"

These really and incontestably voted for M. Bonaparte: first category,
the office-holder; second category, the idiot; third category, the
religious Voltairian--land-owner--tradesman.

The human understanding in general, and the bourgeois intellect in
particular, present singular enigmas. We know, and we have no desire to
conceal it, that from the shopkeeper up to the banker, from the petty
trader up to the stockbroker, great numbers of the commercial and
industrial men of France,--that is to say, great numbers of the men who
know what well-placed confidence is, what a trust faithfully
administered is, what a key placed in safe hands is,--voted after the
2nd of December for M. Bonaparte. The vote given, you might have
accosted one of these men of business, the first you met by chance; and
this is the dialogue that you might have exchanged with him:

'You have elected Louis Bonaparte President of the Republic?"

"Yes."

"Would you engage him as your cashier?"

"Certainly not!"

V

CONCESSION

And this is the ballot,--let us repeat it--insist on it--never be tired
of uttering it; "I cry the same things a hundred times," says Isaiah,
"so that they may be heard once;" this is the ballot, this is the
plebiscite, this is the vote, this is the sovereign decree of
"Universal Suffrage," beneath whose shadow take shelter--of which they
make a patent of authority, a diploma of government--those men who now
hold France, who command, who dominate, who administer, who judge, who
reign: their arms in gold up to the elbows, their legs in blood up to
the knees!

And now, to have done with it, let us make a concession to M.
Bonaparte. No more quibbling. His ballot of the 20th of December was
free; it was intelligent; all the newspapers printed whatever they
pleased; he who says the c