e _La Constitution_ has been
debaptized, and is now called _L'Elysee_. He can, when he chooses,
be crowned by M. Sibour,[1] and exchange the couch of the Elysee for
the state bed of the Tuileries. Meanwhile, for the last seven months,
he has been displaying himself; he has harangued, triumphed, presided
at banquets, given balls, danced, reigned, turned himself about in all
directions; he has paraded himself, in all his ugliness, in a box at
the Opera; he has had himself dubbed Prince-President; he has
distributed standards to the army, and crosses of honour to the
commissioners of police. When there was occasion to select a symbol, he
effaced himself and chose the eagle; modesty of a sparrow-hawk!

[1] The Archbishop of Paris.

VII

IN CONTINUATION OF THE PANEGYRICS

He has succeeded. The result is that he has plenty of apotheoses. Of
panegyrists he has more than Trajan. One thing, however, has struck me,
which is, that among all the qualities that have been discovered in him
since the 2nd of December, among all the eulogies that have been
addressed to him, there is not one word outside of this circle:
adroitness, coolness, daring, address, an affair admirably prepared and
conducted, moment well chosen, secret well kept, measures well taken.
False keys well made--that's the whole story. When these things have
been said, all has been said, except a phrase or two about "clemency;"
and yet no one extols the magnanimity of Mandrin, who, sometimes, did
not take all the traveller's money, and of Jean l'Ecorcheur, who,
sometimes, did not kill all travellers.

In endowing M. Bonaparte with twelve millions of francs, and four
millions more for keeping up the chateaux, the Senate--endowed by M.
Bonaparte with a million--felicitated M. Bonaparte upon "having saved
society," much as a character in a comedy congratulates another on
having "saved the money-box."

For myself, I am still seeking in the glorification of M. Bonaparte by
his most ardent apologists, any praise that would not exactly befit
Cartouche or Poulailler, after a good stroke of business; and I blush
sometimes for the French language, and for the name of Napoleon, at the
terms, really over-raw, and too thinly veiled, and too appropriate to
the facts, in which the magistracy and clergy felicitate this man on
having stolen the power of the State by burglarising the Constitution,
and on having, by night, evaded his oath.

When all the burglaries