he Republic to be found: "Sire," the former
minister of August 10 will answer, "we had so much trouble to make them
republicans! may it please Your Majesty kindly to allow them at least a
few days to become imperialists!" Of the two men who had so
enthusiastically brought about the proclamation of the Republic, one,
Collot d'Herbois, will be transported to Guiana by the republicans, and
die there in a paroxysm of burning fever; the other, Gregoire, will be
a senator of the Empire, which will not, however, prevent him from
promoting the deposition of Napoleon as he had promoted that of Louis
XVI. There are men who will exchange the jacket of the _sans-culotte_
for the gilded livery of an imperial functionary. The conventionists
and regicides are {392} transformed into dukes and counts and barons.
David, the official painter of the Empire, Napoleon's favorite, will
paint with joy the picture of a pope, and be very proud of his great
picture of the new Charlemagne's coronation. But listen to Edgar
Quinet: "When I see the orators of deputations taking things with such
a high hand at the bar, and lording it so proudly over mute and
complaisant assemblies, I should like to know what became of them a few
years later." And thereupon he sets out to discover their traces. But
after considerable investigation he stops. "If I searched any
further," he exclaims, "I should be afraid of encountering them among
the petty employes of the Empire. It was quite enough to see Huguenin,
the indomitable president of the insurrectionary Commune, so quickly
tamed, soliciting and obtaining a post as clerk of town gates as soon
as absolute power made its reappearance after the 18th Brumaire. The
terrible Santerre becomes the gentlest of men as soon as he is
pensioned by the First Consul. Hardly had Bourdon de l'Oise and
Albitte, those men of iron, felt the rod than you see them the supplest
functionaries of the Empire. The great king-taker, Drouet, thrones it
in the sub-prefecture of Sainte-Menehould. Napoleon has related that,
on August 10, he was in a shop in the Carrousel, whence he witnessed
the taking of the palace. If he had a presentiment then, he must have
smiled at the chaos which he was to reduce so easily to its former
limits. How many furies, and all to terminate so soon in the
accustomed obedience!"

{393}

Is not history, with its perpetual alternatives of license and
despotism, like a vicious circle? And do not the