what then?--the imperialists are not without means of stimulating the people. And thereupon Comtois, after assuring himself there are no eavesdroppers, draws from under his blouse--a magnificent stuffed eagle. With this on the top of a flagstaff, and his father's uniform on his back, Comtois feels himself invincible. Paturot is unfeeling enough to inquire if he proposes exhibiting it for money. Comtois indignantly repudiates the idea. "It is our banner, sir," he says; "our banner for the great day. By it the sons of the Empire will be recognised. See the noble bird, the glorious fowl! I have already cut a pole to stick it upon. As to the tricolor flag, every body has got that. One government hands it over to another. But the eagle! the eagle is not so easily tamed; it has but one master, and that is the Emperor. The Emperor is come back, it is the eagle's turn!" And Comtois departed, ready to brave any odds on behalf of his Emperor, and under shadow of the eagle's wing. "We have seen," says M. Reybaud, "how he understood the plot in which he was associated. This illusion was common at the time. More than one Parisian artisan, more than one villager of western France, believed he deposited in the electoral urn a vote in favour of the Emperor. The name preserved all its _prestige_, but did not delegate it. The inheritance was too heavy to support. It resembled the iron crown; none might touch it with impunity. There was much obscurity and misconception in what then occurred; more than one appeal was made to ignorance and credulity. The stuffed eagle had found a victim, the living eagle made others. Ambition played its part, and more than one personage beheld, in the perspective of the plot, visions of grand-crosses and senatorships."