France acquiesced all the more readily because she was put under martial law. One hundred thousand suspects were arrested, and more than ten thousand, were deported to Cayenne and Algeria. Police inquisitions, military commissions, and the other usual devices of tyranny quickly smothered resistance. Under the pretense of suppressing anarchy,--an anarchist meaning any one who did not submit to Louis Napoleon,--persecution supplanted law and justice. Had you asked to see most of the Frenchmen whose names were the most widely known, you would have been told that they were in exile. Like his uncle, Louis Napoleon waited a little before putting on the purple. Only on December 2, 1852, the anniversary of his crime, did he have himself proclaimed emperor. The mockery of a plebiscite had preceded, and he had assured France and Europe that the “Empire means peace.” Having reached the throne, he made the following arrangements for staying on it. He organized a Senate and a Council of State, whose members he appointed. The public were allowed to elect members to the Corps Législatif, or Legislature; but as his minions controlled the polls, only such candidates as he preferred were likely to be chosen. He suffered a few opponents to be elected, in order to have it appear that he encouraged discussion. Otherwise, he scarcely took pains to varnish his autocracy. As a deft Chinese carver incloses a tiny figure in a nest of ivory boxes, so did Bonaparte imprison the simulacrum of Liberty in the innermost compartment of the political cage in which he held France captive. What must the condition of the French people have been that they submitted! How much antecedent incapacity for government, how much cherishing of unworthy ideals, were implied by the success of such an adventurer! And what could patriotism mean, when the French fatherland meant the land of Louis Napoleon, Morny, Maupas, Persigny, and their unspeakable underlings? The new Empire gave France what is called a strong government, by which commercially she throve. Tradesmen, seeing business improve and their hoards grow, chafed less at the loss of political freedom. The working classes were propitiated by public works--the favorite nostrum of socialists and tyrants--organized on a vast scale. Pensions were showered on old soldiers, or their widows. Taxes ran high; the public debt had constantly to be increased: but an air of opulence pervaded France.