Since 1813 France had seen no such collapse of the governing classes. The ineffable dastardliness of the Cent-jours pales before this superior cowardice; for here Tartuffe is grafted upon Trimalcion. Thirteen months later, at Versailles, I hear, amidst enthusiastic applause, the Empire apostrophised, "Varus, give us back our legions." Who speaks, who applauds thus? The same great bourgeoisie, which, for eighteen years mute and bowed to the dust, offered their legions to Varus. The bourgeoisie accepted the Second Empire from fear of Socialism, even as their fathers had submitted to the first to make an end of the Revolution. Napoleon I. rendered the bourgeoisie two services not overpaid by his apotheosis. He gave them an iron centralisation and sent to their graves 15,000 wretches still kindled by the flame of the Revolution, who at any moment might have claimed the public lands granted to them. But he left the same bourgeoisie saddled for all masters. When they possessed themselves of the parliamentary government, to which Mirabeau wished to raise them at one bound, they were incapable of governing. Their mutiny of 1830, turned into a revolution by the people, made the belly master. The great bourgeois of 1830, like him of 1790, had but one thought--to gorge himself with privileges, to arm the bulwarks in defence of his domains, to perpetuate the proletariat. The fortune of his country is nothing to him, so that he fatten. To lead, to compromise France, the parliamentary king has as free license as Bonaparte. When by a new outburst of the people the bourgeoisie are compelled to seize the helm after three years, spite of massacre and proscription, it slips out of their palsied hands into those of the first comer. From 1851 to 1869 they relapse into the same state as after the 18th Brumaire. Their privileges safe, they allow Napoleon III. to plunder France, make her the vassal of Rome, dishonour her in Mexico, ruin her finances, vulgarise debauchery. All-powerful by their retainers and their wealth, they do not risk a man, a dollar, for the sake of protesting. In 1869 the pressure from without raises them to the verge of power; a little strength of will and the government is theirs. They have but the velleity of the eunuch. At the first sign of the impotent master they kiss the rod that smote them on the 2nd December, making room for the plebiscite which rebaptizes the Empire.