er. But this is not all. There are French writers
outside of France: they are proscribed, that is to say they are free.
Suppose those fellows should speak? Suppose those demagogues should
write? They are very capable of doing both; and we must prevent them.
But how are we to do it? To gag people at a distance is not so easy a
matter: M. Bonaparte's arm is not long enough for that. Let us try,
however; we will prosecute them in the countries where they have taken
refuge. Very good: the juries of free countries will understand that
these exiles represent justice, and that the Bonapartist government
personifies iniquity. These juries will follow the example of the
Belgian jury and acquit. The friendly governments will then be
solicited to expel these refugees, to banish these exiles. Very good:
the exiles will go elsewhere; they will always find some corner of the
earth open to them where they can speak. How then are they to be got
at? Rouher and Baroche clubbed their wits together, and between them
they hit upon this expedient: to patch up a law dealing with crimes
committed by Frenchmen in foreign countries, and to slip into it
"crimes of the press." The Council of State sanctioned this, and the
Corps Legislatif did not oppose it, and it is now the law of the land.
If we speak outside of France, we shall be condemned for the offence in
France; imprisonment (in future, if caught), fines and confiscations.
Again, very good. The book I am now writing will, therefore, be tried
in France, and its author duly convicted; this I expect, and I confine
myself to apprising all those quidams calling themselves magistrates,
who, in black and red gown, shall concoct the thing that, sentence to
any fine whatever being well and duly pronounced against me, nothing
will equal my disdain for the judgment, but my contempt for the judges.
This is my defence.

VII

THE ADHERENTS

Who are they that flock round the establishment? As we have said, the
gorge rises at thought of them.

Ah! these rulers of the day,--we who are now proscribed remember them
when they were representatives of the people, only twelve months ago,
running hither and thither in the lobbies of the Assembly, their heads
high, and with a show of independence, and the air and manner of men
who belonged to themselves. What magnificence! and how proud they were!
How they placed their hands on their hearts while they shouted "Vive
la Republique!" And if some "Terrori