covets, and struggles, placed between the brutish instinct
which impels it to take, and the moral law which invites it to labour.
In the grievous and oppressed condition in which it still is, this
class, in order to maintain itself in probity and well-doing, requires
all the pure and holy light that emanates from the Gospel; it requires
that, on the one hand, the spirit of Jesus Christ, and, on the other,
the spirit of the French Revolution, should address to it the same
manly words, and should never cease to point out to it, as the only
lights worthy of the eyes of man, the exalted and mysterious laws of
human destiny,--self-denial, devotion, sacrifice, the labour which
leads to material well-being, the probity which leads to inward
well-being; even with this perennial instruction, at once divine and
human, this class, so worthy of sympathy and fraternity, often
succumbs. Suffering and temptation are stronger than virtue. Now do you
comprehend the infamous counsel which the success of M. Bonaparte gives
to this class?

A poor man, in rags, without money, without work, is there in the
shadow, at the corner of the street, seated on a stone; he is
meditating, and at the same time repelling, a bad action; now he
wavers, now he recovers himself; he is starving, and feels a desire to
rob; to rob he must make a false key, he must scale a wall; then, the
key made and the wall scaled, he will stand before the strong box; if
any one wakes, if any one resists, he must kill. His hair stands on
end, his eyes become haggard, his conscience, the voice of God, revolts
within him, and cries to him: "Stop! this is evil! these are crimes!"
At that moment the head of the state passes by; the man sees M.
Bonaparte in his uniform of a general, with the _cordon rouge_, and
with footmen in gold-laced liveries, dashing towards his palace in a
carriage drawn by four horses; the unhappy wretch, hesitating before
his crime, greedily gazes on this splendid vision; and the serenity of
M. Bonaparte, and his gold epaulettes, and his _cordon rouge_, and
the liveries, and the palace, and the four-horse carriage, say to him:
"Succeed."

He attaches himself to this apparition, he follows it, he runs to the
Elysee; a gilded mob rushes in after the prince. All sorts of carriages
pass under that portal, and he has glimpses of happy, radiant men! This
one is an ambassador; the ambassador looks at him, and says: "Succeed."
This is a bishop; the bishop look