“The King? All the world knows there has been no king in France since Louis XIV. There is an obese gentleman at Versailles who wears the crown, but the very news you bring shows for how little he really counts. It is the nobles and clergy who sit in the high places, with the people of France harnessed under their feet, who are the real rulers. That is why I say that France is a republic; she is a republic built on the best pattern--the Roman pattern. Then, as now, there were great patrician families in luxury, preserving for themselves power and wealth, and what else is accounted worth possessing; and there was the populace crushed and groaning, sweating, bleeding, starving, and perishing in the Roman kennels. That was a republic; the mightiest we have seen.” Philippe strove with his impatience. “At least you will admit--you have, in fact, admitted it--that we could not be worse governed than we are?” “That is not the point. The point is should we be better governed if we replaced the present ruling class by another? Without some guarantee of that I should be the last to lift a finger to effect a change. And what guarantees can you give? What is the class that aims at government? I will tell you. The bourgeoisie.” “What?” “That startles you, eh? Truth is so often disconcerting. You hadn’t thought of it? Well, think of it now. Look well into this Nantes manifesto. Who are the authors of it?” “I can tell you who it was constrained the municipality of Nantes to send it to the King. Some ten thousand workmen--shipwrights, weavers, labourers, and artisans of every kind.”