Street scene with a man at the top of the stairs speaking to the crowd...

Ornate title page page BOOK I BOOK II BOOK III BOOK IV The Other Crimes BOOK V Parliamentarism BOOK VI The Absolution: First Phase BOOK VII The Absolution: Second Phase: The Oath BOOK VIII Progress Contained in the Coup D'État CONCLUSION—PART FIRST Pettiness of the Master—Abjectness of the Situation CONCLUSION—PART SECOND Faith and Affliction...

I December 20, 1848 On Thursday, December 20, 1848, the Constituent Assembly, being in session, surrounded at that moment by an imposing display of troops, heard the report of the Representative Waldeck-Rousseau, read on behalf of the committee which had been appointed to scrutinize the votes in the election of President of the Republic; a report in which general attention had marked this phrase, which embodied its whole idea: "It is the seal of its inviolable authority which the nation, by this

I THE CONSTITUTION A roll of the drums; clowns, attention! The President of the Republic , "Considering that—all the restrictive laws on the liberty of the press having been repealed, all the laws against hand-bills and posting-bills having been abolished, the right of public assemblage having been fully re-established, all the unconstitutional laws, including martial law, having been suppressed, every citizen being empowered to say what he likes through every medium of publicity, whether newspa

THE CRIME But this government, this horrible, hypocritical, and stupid government,—this government which causes us to hesitate between a laugh and a sob, this gibbet-constitution on which all our liberties are hung, this great universal suffrage and this little universal suffrage, the first naming the President, and the other the legislators; the little one saying to the great one: " Monseigneur, accept these millions ," and the great one saying to the little one: " Be assured of my consideratio

"THE DAY OF THE 4 th OF DECEMBER "THE COUP D'ÉTAT AT BAY I "The resistance had assumed unexpected proportions. "The combat had become menacing; it was no longer a combat, but a battle, which was engaged on all sides. At the Élysée and the different departments, people began to turn pale; they had wished for barricades, and they had got them. "All the centre of Paris was becoming covered with improvised redoubts; the quarters thus barricaded formed a sort of immense trapezium, between the Halles

I SINISTER QUESTIONS What was the number of the dead? Louis Bonaparte, conscious of the advent of history, and imagining that a Charles IX can extenuate a Saint Bartholomew, has published as a pièce justificative , a so-called "official list of the deceased persons." In this "Alphabetical List," [1] you will meet with such items as these: "Adde, bookseller, 17 Boulevard Poissonnière, killed in his house; Boursier, a child seven years and a-half old, killed on Rue Tiquetonne; Belval, cabinetmaker

I 1789 One day, more than sixty-three years ago, the French people, who had been the property of one family for upwards of eight hundred years, who had been oppressed by the barons down to Louis XI, and since Louis XI by the parliaments, that is to say, to employ the frank remark of a great nobleman of the eighteenth century, "who had been half eaten up by wolves and finished by vermin;" who had been parcelled into provinces, into châtellanies, into bailiwicks, and into seneschalries; who had be

I THE ABSOLUTION Some one says to us: "You do not consider! All these facts, which you call crimes, are henceforth 'accomplished facts,' and consequently to be respected; it is all accepted, adopted, legitimized, absolved." "Accepted! adopted! legitimized! absolved! by what?" "By a vote." "What vote?" "The seven million five hundred thousand votes." "Oh! true. There was a plebiscite, and a vote, and seven million five hundred thousand ayes. Let us say a word of them." II THE DILIGENCE A brigand

I FOR AN OATH, AN OATH AND A HALF What is Louis Bonaparte? He is perjury personified; he is mental reservation incarnate, felony in flesh and bone; he is a false oath wearing a general's hat, and calling himself Monseigneur. Well! what is it that he demands of France, this man-ambuscade? An oath. An oath! Indeed, after the 20th of December, 1848, and the 2nd of December, 1851, after the inviolate representatives of the people had been arrested and hunted down; after the confiscation of the Repub

I THE QUANTUM OF GOOD CONTAINED IN EVIL Among us democrats, many well-meaning minds were stupefied by the event of the 2nd of December. It disconcerted some, discouraged others, and terrified many. I have seen some who cried: Finis Poloniae . As for myself, since at certain times I am obliged to say, I, and to speak in the face of history as a witness, I proclaim that I saw that event without perturbation. I say more than this, that at times, in the face of the 2nd of December, I declare myself

I Never fear, History has him in its grip. If perchance it flatters the self-love of M. Bonaparte to be seized by history, if perchance, and truly one would imagine so, he cherishes any illusion as to his value as a political miscreant, let him divest himself of it. Let him not imagine, because he has piled up horror on horror, that he will ever raise himself to the elevation of the great historical bandits. We have been wrong, perhaps, in some pages of this book, here and there, to couple him w

I Providence brings to maturity men, things, and events, by the single fact of universal life. To cause the disappearance of an old world it is sufficient that civilization, ascending majestically towards its solstice, should shine upon old institutions, upon old prejudices, upon old laws, and upon old customs. This radiation burns and devours the past. Civilization enlightens, this is the visible fact; and at the same time it consumes, this is the mysterious fact. Under its influence, gradually