d, plump, rosy, fat, and fresh, with a sharp eye, a red
ear, a voluble tongue, a sword by its side, a belly, and embroidered in
gold; the Corps Legislatif, pale, meagre, sad, and embroidered in
silver. The Council of State comes and goes, enters and exits, returns,
rules, disposes, decides, settles, and decrees, and sees Louis Napoleon
face to face. The Corps Legislatif, on the contrary, walks on tiptoe,
fumbles with its hat, puts its finger to its lips, smiles humbly, sits
on the corner of its chair, and speaks only when questioned. Its words
being naturally obscene, the public journals are forbidden to make the
slightest allusion to them. The Corps Legislatif passes laws and votes
taxes by Article 39; and when, fancying it has occasion for some
instruction, some detail, some figures, or some explanation, it
presents itself, hat in hand, at the door of the departments to consult
the ministers, the usher receives it in the antechamber, and with a
roar of laughter, gives it a fillip on the nose. Such are the duties of
the Corps Legislatif.

Let us state, however, that this melancholy position began, in June,
1852, to extort some sighs from the sorrowful personages who form a
portion of the concern. The report of the commission on the budget will
remain in the memory of men, as one of the most heart-rending
masterpieces of the plaintive style. Let us repeat those gentle
accents:--

"Formerly, as you know, the necessary communications in such cases were
carried on directly between the commissioners and the ministers. It was
to the latter that they addressed themselves to obtain the documents
indispensable to the discussion of affairs; and the ministers even came
personally, with the heads of their several departments, to give verbal
explanations, frequently sufficient to preclude the necessity of
further discussion; and the resolutions formed by the commission on the
budget after they had heard them, were submitted direct to the Chamber.

"But now we can have no communication with the government except
through the medium of the Council of State, which, being the confidant
and the organ of its own ideas, has alone the right of transmitting to
the Corps Legislatif the documents which, in its turn, it receives from
the ministers.

"In a word, for written reports, as well as for verbal communications,
the government commissioners have superseded the ministers, with whom,
however, they must have a preliminary understanding.