It is by no means certain that Paris herself was hostile, before the _coup d'état_, to the Napoleonic régime with its traditions not only of military glory but of capable civic administration. For the double plébiscite was more than a vote of acquiescence: it was a vote of enthusiasm: first for Louis Napoleon as President, and then for Louis Napoleon as Emperor. It is not pleasing to have to admit this; but the truth seems to be that, as Aristotle pointed out more than two thousand years ago, great masses of men are much more easily led by a personality than they are roused by a principle. That the plébiscite had been carefully worked up by assiduous propaganda; that many of the ignorant peasants believed they were voting for the Napoleon of their childhood in spite of the impossible; that there was a great deal of bribery and not a little stuffing of the ballot boxes by officials with a keen sense of favours to come; that the army was imbued with Napoleonic sympathies and helped to spread the spurious ideals of Imperialism--all this may be perfectly true. Yet, when all is said and every allowance is made, the fact remains that, even so, the success of the Napoleonic plébiscites is imperfectly explained. The main features of the vote were obvious: The French people were sick of hereditary monarchy: the Republican leaders were out of touch with the people: the ideals of the past overshadowed the hopes of the future: Napoleon was a name to conjure with: the Republicans had no name on their side to put against it: the "blessed word" Republic had no hold upon the peasantry of rural France. So plébiscite meant one-man rule. That is not to say, as so many argue nowadays, that the complete vote of the democracy on such an issue must of necessity be wrong; but it does affirm that a thoroughly educated, responsible democracy, accustomed to be appealed to directly on all matters of importance, is a necessity before we can have any certainty that the people will go right. Even if they go wrong, as in this case of Napoleon III, it is better in the long run that they should learn by their own errors than that the blunders of the dominant classes should be forced upon them. Great social and political problems can rarely be solved even by the greatest genius. And the genius himself, supposing him to exist, cannot rely upon providing his country with a successor. On the whole, consequently, it is less dangerous to human progress that we should risk such a reactionary vote as that which seated Napoleon III at the Tuileries than give no peaceful outlet whatever to popular opinion.