Risk, the Fourth was the Certainty.

Against the indignation which arose they opposed the Terror.

The Fury, Justice, halted petrified before the Fury, Extermination.
Against Erinnyes they set up Medusa.

To put Nemesis to flight, what a terrifying triumph!

To Louis Napoleon pertains this glory, which is the summit of his shame.

Let us narrate it.

Let us narrate what History had never seen before.

The assassination of a people by a man.

Suddenly, at a given signal, a musket shot being fired, no matter where,
no matter by whom, the shower of bullets poured upon the crowd. A shower
of bullets is also a crowd; it is death scattered broadcast. It does not
know whither it goes, nor what it does; it kills and passes on.

But at the same time it has a species of soul; it is premeditated, it
executes a will. This was an unprecedented moment. It seemed as though a
handful of lightnings was falling upon the people. Nothing simpler. It
formed a clear solution to the difficulty; the rain of lead overwhelmed
the multitude. What are you doing there? Die! It is a crime to be
passing by. Why are you in the street? Why do you cross the path of the
Government? The Government is a cut-throat. They have announced a thing,
they must certainly carry it out; what is begun must assuredly be
achieved; as Society is being saved, the People must assuredly be
exterminated.

Are there not social necessities? Is it not essential that Beville
should have 87,000 francs a year and Fleury 95,000 francs? Is it not
essential that the High Chaplain, Menjaud, Bishop of Nancy, should have
342 francs a day, and that Bassano and Cambaceres should each have 383
francs a day, and Vaillant 468 francs, and Saint-Arnaud 822 francs? Is
it not necessary that Louis Bonaparte should have 76,712 francs a day?
Could one be Emperor for less?

In the twinkling of an eye there was a butchery on the boulevard a
quarter of a league long. Eleven pieces of cannon wrecked the
Sallandrouze carpet warehouse. The shot tore completely through
twenty-eight houses. The baths of Jouvence were riddled. There was a
massacre at Tortoni's. A whole quarter of Paris was filled with an
immense flying mass, and with a terrible cry. Everywhere sudden death. A
man is expecting nothing. He falls. From whence does this come? From
above, say the Bishops' _Te Deum_; from below, says Truth.

From a lower place than the galleys, from a lower place than Hell.

It is the conception o