One year, two years passed. Faction discredited faction. Every one looked on the Republic as but a preparation for either Anarchy or the Empire. The Reds, irreconcilable and ferocious, terrorized the imagination of every one else. No doubt the majority of honest Frenchmen--if by honest we mean the really intelligent and patriotic minority--wished a republic, but those Red Extremists had made all Republicans indiscriminately odious; and as the Royalist plotters showed neither courage nor ability, the great multitude of Frenchmen came to regard the Empire or Anarchy as their only alternatives. Most of them, having nothing to gain through disorder, leaned to the side which promised to leash the bloodhounds of murder and pillage. Spasm after spasm of terror swept over Paris, and when Paris shudders in the evening the rest of France shudders by daybreak. Anything to prevent the triumph of the Reds--with their guillotine and their abolition of private ownership of property--became the ruling instinct of all other Frenchmen. Louis Napoleon, we may be sure, took care to encourage the belief that he alone could save France from the abyss. In addition to his recognized newspaper organs, he employed a literary bureau to spread broadcast his portrait, his biography, and even songs with an Imperialist refrain. He knew the political persuasiveness of cigars and sausages distributed among the troops, and of wine dispensed to their officers. He was by turns modest--declaring that his sole purpose was to obey the Constitution--and bold, announcing that he would not shrink from making France strong and prosperous, whenever Frenchmen intrusted that task to him. In his capacity for waiting, he gave the best proof of his ability; and we must add that the Assembly, by its folly, gave him indispensable aid. The Assembly, for instance, restricted the suffrage, in the hope that, by preventing workmen from voting, the victory of the Reds might be staved off. Again, the Constitution declared that no president was eligible for reëlection until he had been four years out of office. As the time for thinking of Louis Napoleon’s successor approached, the moderates of all parties urged that the Constitution be amended, so that he might be quietly reëlected,--there being no other candidate who promised to preserve order. But the factious deputies, by a narrow vote, rejected the amendment. Napoleon now saw his chance, and openly assailed the Assembly. He posed as the champion of universal suffrage, the true representative of the people misrepresented by the factious deputies. They proposed to subject France to the uncertainties of a political campaign: his continuation in office would mean the certain maintenance of order. But Napoleon did not rely on demagogy alone: in secret he plotted a _coup d’état_.