of intrepid devotions besiege the Elysee, and collect about the
man. Junot, beside the first Bonaparte, defied the splashing of shells,
these fellows beside the second, defy the splashing of mud. What care
they about sharing his ignominy, provided they share his fortune? The
competition is to see who shall carry on this traffic in himself most
cynically; and among these creatures there are young men with pure
limpid eyes, and all the appearance of generous youth; and there are
old men, who have but one fear, which is, that the office solicited may
not reach them in time, and that they may not succeed in dishonouring
themselves before they die. One would sell himself for a prefecture,
another for a collectorship, another for a consulate; one wants a
tobacco license, another an embassy. All want money, some more, some
less; for it is of the salary they think, not of the duties. Every one
has his hand out. All offer themselves. One of these days we shall have
to appoint an assayer of consciences at the Mint.

What! this is what we have come to! What! those very men who supported
the _coup d'etat_, those very men who recoiled from the red
_croquemitaine_ and the twaddle about Jacquerie in 1852; those very
men to whom that crime seemed a good thing, because, according to them,
it rescued from peril their consols, their ledgers, their money-boxes,
their bill-books,--even they do not comprehend that material interest,
surviving alone, would, after all, be only a melancholy waif in an
immense moral shipwreck, and that it is a fearful and monstrous
situation, when men say: "All is saved, save honour!"

The words independence, enfranchisement, progress, popular pride,
national pride, French greatness, may no longer be pronounced in
France. Hush! these words make too much noise; let us walk on tiptoe,
and speak low; we are in a sick man's chamber.

Who is this man?--He is the chief, the master. Every one obeys
him.--Ah! every one respects him, then?--No, every one despises
him.--Oh! what a plight!

And military honour, where is it? Let us say no more, if you please, of
what the army did in December, but of what it is undergoing at this
moment, of that which is at its head, of that which is on its head. Do
you think of that? Does it think of that? O army of the republic! army
that had for captains, generals paid with four francs a day; army that
had for leaders, Carnot, austerity, Marceau, unselfishness, Hoche,
honour, Kleber,