They will do their whole duty, with a tranquil brow and unshaken perseverance. Never to see thee again is their sorrow, never to forget thee their joy. Ah, what grief! And after eight months it is in vain that we say to ourselves that these things are so; it is in vain that we look around us and see the spire of Saint-Michael's instead of the Pantheon, and Saint-Gudule instead of Notre-Dame,--we cannot believe it. It is, however, true, it cannot be denied, we must admit it, we must acknowledge it, even though we expire of humiliation and despair,--that which is lying there, on the ground, is the nineteenth century, is France! And it is this Bonaparte who has caused all this ruin! And it is in the very centre of the greatest nation upon earth! it is in the midst of the greatest century of all history, that this man has suddenly risen and has triumphed! To seize upon France as his prey, great Heaven! What the lion would not dare to do, the ape has done! what the eagle would have dreaded to seize in his talons, the parrot has taken in his claws! What! Louis XI failed! Richelieu destroyed himself in the attempt! Even Napoleon was unequal to it! In a single day, between night and morning, the absurd became the possible! All that was axiomatic has become chimerical. All that was false has become living fact. What! the most brilliant concourse of men! the most magnificent movements of ideas! the most formidable sequence of events! a thing that no Titian could have controlled, that no Hercules could have turned aside,--the human flood in full course, the French wave sweeping onward, civilization, progress, intelligence, revolution, liberty,--he stopped it all one fine morning, stopped it short, he, this mask, this dwarf, this aborted Tiberius, this nothing! God was advancing. Louis Bonaparte, his plume on his head, blocked his path and said to God: "Thou shalt go no farther!" God halted.