“Well,” said M. Lantaigne in a morose voice, “do you like the look of what you see there, and do you think it can last long?” “What do you mean?” asked M. Bergeret. “Are you referring to the parliamentary scandals? But let us first ask what a scandal really is. A scandal is the effect that usually results from the revelation of some secret deed. For men don’t in general act furtively, save when they are doing something that runs counter to morality and public opinion. It is also noticeable that, although public scandals occur in every period and every nation, they happen most frequently when the Government is least skilled in dissimulation. It is also evident that state secrets are never well kept in a democracy. The number of people concerned, indeed, and the powerful party jealousies invite revelations, sometimes hushed up, sometimes startling. It should also be observed that the parliamentary system actually multiplies the number of those who betray trusts, by putting a crowd of people in a position where they can do it easily. Louis XIV was robbed by Fouquet on a large and splendid scale. But in our days, all the while the melancholy President, who had been chosen merely as a creditable figure-head, confronted the chastened departments with the mute countenance of a bearded Minerva, he was distributing largesse at the Palais Bourbon at a rate past checking. In itself this was no great evil, for every Government always has a number of needy folks hanging about it, and it is too much to demand of human nature to ask that they shall all be honest. Besides, what these paltry thieves have taken is very little in comparison with what our honest administration wastes every hour of the day. One point alone should be observed, for it is of primary importance. The revenue farmers of olden days, this Pauquet de Sainte-Croix, for instance, who in the time of Louis XV heaped up the wealth of the province in the very mansion where I now live ‘in the third room,’ those shameless plunderers robbed their nation and their king without being in collusion with any of their country’s enemies. Now, on the contrary, our parliamentary sharks are betraying France to a foreign power, Finance, to wit. For it is true that Finance is to-day one of the Powers of Europe, and of her it may be said, as was formerly said of the Church, that among the nations she remains a splendid alien. Our representatives, whom she buys over, are not only robbers but traitors. And, in truth, they rob and betray in paltry, huckstering fashion. Each one in himself is merely an object of pity: it is their rapid swarming that alarms me.