Whenever it shall have been distinctly perceived and fully admitted that the different classes which exist among us, and the political parties which correspond to those classes, are natural and deeply-rooted elements of French society, a great step will have been made towards social peace. This peace is impossible so long as each of the different classes and the great political parties into which our society is divided cherishes the hope of annihilating the others, and of reigning alone. That is the evil which, ever since 1789, has periodically agitated and convulsed France. Sometimes the democratic element has aimed at the extinction of the aristocratic; at other times the aristocratic element has tried to crush the democratic, and to regain its former predominance. Constitutions, laws, and the administration of the government have been by turns directed, like engines of war, to one or the other of these ends--a war to the death, in which neither combatant believed his life compatible with that of his rival. This war was suspended by the Emperor Napoleon. He rallied around him the classes which had formerly possessed, and those which actually enjoyed, power and influence; and by the security which he offered them, by the continual turmoil in which he kept them, or by the yoke which he imposed upon them, he established and maintained peace. After him, from 1814 to 1830, and from 1830 to 1848, this war was renewed. A great progress had been made. Liberty had become real. Both the ancient aristocratic, and the modern democratic elements acquired strength; but though neither could succeed in suppressing the other, each was impatient of its adversary’s existence, and eagerly strove for the mastery. And now a third combatant has entered the arena. The democratic party having divided itself into two conflicting sections, the workmen are now arrayed against their masters, or the people against the middle classes. This new war, like the former, is a war to the death; for the new aspirant is as arrogant and exclusive as the others can have ever been. The sovereignty, it is said, belongs of right to the people only; and no rival, ancient or modern, noble or bourgeois, can be admitted to share it.