_Father._ You see this ruin; it was a magnificent house, surrounded by a fine park. If Paris had kept on advancing, Master Pierre would have got more rent from it annually than the whole thing is now worth to him. _Son._ How can that be, since he got rid of competition? _Father._ Competition in selling has disappeared; but competition in buying also disappears every day, and will keep on disappearing until Paris is an open field, and Master Pierre's woodland will be worth no more than an equal number of acres in the forest of Bondy. Thus, a monopoly, like every species of injustice, brings its own punishment upon itself. _Son._ This does not seem very plain to me, but the decay of Paris is undeniable. Is there, then, no means of repealing this unjust measure that Pierre and his colleagues adopted twenty years ago? _Father._ I will confide my secret to you. I will remain at Paris for this purpose; I will call the people to my aid. It depends on them whether they will replace the _octroi_ on its old basis, and dismiss from it this fatal principle, which is grafted on it, and has grown there like a parasite fungus. _Son._ You ought to succeed on the very first day. _Father._ No; on the contrary, the work is a difficult and laborious one. Pierre, Paul and Jean understand one another perfectly. They are ready to do anything rather than allow the entrance of wood, butter and meat into Paris. They even have on their side the people, who clearly see the labor which these three protected branches of business give, who know how many wood-choppers and cow-drivers it gives employment to, but who cannot obtain so clear an idea of the labor that would spring up in the free air of liberty. _Son._ If this is all that is needed, you will enlighten them. _Father._ My child, at your age, one doubts at nothing. If I wrote, the people would not read; for all their time is occupied in supporting a wretched existence. If I speak, the Aldermen will shut my mouth. The people will, therefore, remain long in their fatal error; political parties, which build their hopes on their passions, attempt to play upon their prejudices, rather than to dispel them. I shall then have to deal with the powers that be--the people and the parties. I see that a storm will burst on the head of the audacious person who dares to rise against an iniquity which is so firmly rooted in the country. _Son._ You will have justice and truth on your side. _Father._ And they will have force and calumny. If I were only young! But age and suffering have exhausted my strength. _Son._ Well, father, devote all that you have left to the service of the country. Begin this work of emancipation, and leave to me for an inheritance the task of finishing it. FOURTH TABLEAU. _The Agitation._ _Jacques Bonhomme._ Parisians, let us demand the reform of the _octroi_; let it be put back to what it was. Let every citizen be FREE to buy wood, butter and meat where it seems good to him.