hat is without sin
among you,--let him cast at the prince of property the first stone!

How successful you would have been if, in order to influence men,
you had appealed to the self-love of men,--if, in order to alter
the constitution and the law, you had placed yourselves within the
constitution and the law! Fifty thousand laws, they say, make up our
political and civil codes. Of these fifty thousand laws, twenty-five
thousand are for you, twenty-five thousand against you. Is it not clear
that your duty is to oppose the former to the latter, and thus, by the
argument of contradiction, drive privilege into its last ditch? This
method of action is henceforth the only useful one, being the only moral
and rational one.

For my part, if I had the ear of this nation, to which I am attached by
birth and predilection, with no intention of playing the leading part
in the future republic, I would instruct the laboring masses to
conquer property through institutions and judicial pleadings; to seek
auxiliaries and accomplices in the highest ranks of society, and to ruin
all privileged classes by taking advantage of their common desire for
power and popularity.

The petition for the electoral reform has already received two hundred
thousand signatures, and the illustrious Arago threatens us with a
million. Surely, that will be well done; but from this million of
citizens, who are as willing to vote for an emperor as for equality,
could we not select ten thousand signatures--I mean bona fide
signatures--whose authors can read, write, cipher, and even think
a little, and whom we could invite, after due perusal and verbal
explanation, to sign such a petition as the following:--

"TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR:--

"MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,--On the day when a royal ordinance, decreeing
the establishment of model national workshops, shall appear in the
'Moniteur,' the undersigned, to the number of TEN THOUSAND, will repair
to the Palace of the Tuileries, and there, with all the power of their
lungs, will shout, 'Long live Louis Philippe!'

"On the day when the 'Moniteur' shall inform the public that this
petition is refused, the undersigned, to the number of TEN THOUSAND,
will say secretly in their hearts, 'Down with Louis Philippe!'"

If I am not mistaken, such a petition would have some effect. [75] The
pleasure of a popular ovation would be well worth the sacrifice of a few
millions. They sow so much to re