A poor leper lived in solitude. No one would touch what he had contaminated. Compelled to do everything for himself, he dragged out a miserable existence. A great physician cured him. Here was our hermit in full possession of the _freedom of exchange_. What a beautiful prospect opened before him! He took pleasure in calculating the advantages, which, thanks to his connection with other men, he could draw from his vigorous arms. Unluckily, he broke both of them. Alas! his fate was most miserable. The journalists of that country, witnessing his misfortune, said: "See to what misery this ability to exchange has reduced him! Really, he was less to be pitied when he lived alone." "What!" said the physician; "do not you consider his two broken arms? Do not they form a part of his sad destiny? His misfortune is to have lost his arms, and not to have been cured of leprosy. He would be much more to be pitied if he was both maimed and a leper." _Post hoc, ergo propter hoc_; do not trust this sophism. IX. ROBBERY BY BOUNTIES. They find my little book of _Sophisms_ too theoretical, scientific, and metaphysical. Very well. Let us try a trivial, commonplace, and, if necessary, coarse style. Convinced that the public is _duped_ in the matter of protection, I have desired to prove it. But the public wishes to be shouted at. Then let us cry out: "Midas, King Midas, has asses' ears!" An outburst of frankness often accomplishes more than the politest circumlocution. To tell the truth, my good people, _they are robbing you_. It is harsh, but it is true. The words _robbery_, _to rob_, _robber_, will seem in very bad taste to many people. I say to them as Harpagon did to Elise, Is it the _word_ or the _thing_ that alarms you? Whoever has fraudulently taken that which does not belong to him, is guilty of robbery. (_Penal Code, Art. 379._) _To rob_: To take furtively, or by force. (_Dictionary of the Academy._) _Robber_: He who takes more than his due. (_The same._) Now, does not the monopolist, who, by a law of his own making, obliges me to pay him twenty francs for an article which I can get elsewhere for fifteen, take from me fraudulently five francs, which belong to me? Does he not take it furtively, or by force? Does he not require of me more than his due? He carries off, he takes, he demands, they will say, but not _furtively_ or _by force_, which are the characteristics of robbery. When our tax levy is burdened with five francs for the bounty which this monopolist carries off, takes, or demands, what can be more _furtive_, since so few of us suspect it? And for those who are not deceived, what can be more _forced_, since, at the first refusal to pay, the officer is at our doors?