od
company, intrigue, wit, luxury, and misery_. It is not until after he,
Robespierre, shall have accomplished these _miracles_, as he rightly
calls them, that he will allow the law to regain her empire. Truly, it
would be well if these visionaries, who think so much of themselves and
so little of mankind, who want to renew everything, would only be
content with trying to reform themselves, the task would be arduous
enough for them. In general, however, these gentlemen, the reformers,
legislators, and politicians, do not desire to exercise an immediate
despotism over mankind. No, they are too moderate and too philanthropic
for that. They only contend for the despotism, the absolutism, the
omnipotence of the law. They aspire only to make the law.

To show how universal this strange disposition has been in France, I had
need not only to have copied the whole of the works of Mably, Raynal,
Rousseau, Fenelon, and to have made long extracts from Bossuet and
Montesquieu, but to have given the entire transactions of the sittings
of the Convention, I shall do no such thing, however, but merely refer
the reader to them.

It is not to be wondered at that this idea should have suited Buonaparte
exceedingly well. He embraced it with ardour, and put it in practice
with energy. Playing the part of a chemist, Europe was to him the
material for his experiments. But this material reacted against him.
More than half undeceived, Buonaparte, at St. Helena, seemed to admit
that there is an initiative in every people, and he became less hostile
to liberty. Yet this did not prevent him from giving this lesson to his
son in his will:--"To govern, is to diffuse morality, education, and
well-being."

After all this, I hardly need show, by fastidious quotations, the
opinions of Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint Simon, and Fourier. I shall
confine myself to a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the
organisation of labour.

"In our project, society receives the impulse of power." (Page 126.)

In what does the impulse which power gives to society consist? In
imposing upon it the _project_ of M. Louis Blanc.

On the other hand, society is the human race. The human race, then, is
to receive its impulse from M. Louis Blanc.

It is at liberty to do so or not, it will be said. Of course the human
race is at liberty to take advice from anybody, whoever it may be. But
this is not the way in which M. Louis Blanc understands the thing. He
means that