As to this Government, I only entreat you _not_ to believe any of the mendacious reports set afloat here by a most unworthy Opposition, and carried out by the English 'Athenæum' and other prints. Surely a cause must be bad which is supported by such bad means. In the first place, Béranger did _not_ write the verses attributed to him. The internal evidence was sufficient--for Victor Hugo is his personal enemy--to say nothing of the poetry. Then it would be wise, I think, in considering this question, and in taking for granted that the 'literature and talent' of the country are against the Government, to analyse the antecedents and character of the persons who _do_ stand out, persons implicated in former Governments, or favored by former Governments, and whose vanity and prejudices are necessarily contrary to a new order. These persons, either in themselves or their friends, have all been tried in action and found wanting. They have all lost the confidence of the French people, either by their misconduct or their ill-fortune. They are all cast aside as broken instruments. Under these circumstances they think it desirable to break themselves into the lock, to prevent the turning of another key; they consider it noble and patriotic to stand aside and revile and throw mud, in order to hinder the action of those who _are_ acting for the country. In my mind, it is quite otherwise; in my mind and in many other minds--Robert's, for instance! and he began with a most intense hatred of this Government, as you well know. But he does not shut his eyes to all that is noble and admirable going on, on all sides. At last he is sick of the Opposition, he admits. In respect to literature, nothing can be more mendacious than to say there are restraints upon literature. Books of freer opinion are printed now than would ever have been permitted under Louis Philippe, as was reproached against Napoleon by an enemy the other day--books of free opinion, even licentious opinion, on religion and philosophy. _There is restraint in the newspapers only._ That the 'Athenæum' should venture to say that in consequence of the suppression of books compositors are thrown out of work and forced to become transcribers of verses like Béranger's (which are not Béranger's) is so stupendous a falsehood in the face of _statistics which prove a yearly increase in the amount of books printed_ that I quite lose my breath, you see, in speaking of it. The Government is steadily solving, or attempting to solve, that difficult modern problem of possible _Socialism_ which has been knocking at all our heads and hearts so long. _That_ is its vexation. It is a Government for the _'bus people_, the first settled and serious Government that ever attempted _their_ case. Its action is worth all the pedantry of the _doctrinaires_ and the middling morals of the _juste milieu_; and I, who am a Democrat, will stand by it as long as I can stand, which isn't very long just now, as I told you.