growing danger that this adventurer, lashed on by debts and unrestrained
by reputation, might venture upon some desperate act. The strained
relations between the party of Order and the President had taken on a
threatening aspect, when an unforeseen event threw him back, rueful
into its arms. We mean the supplementary elections of March, 1850.
These elections took place to fill the vacancies created in the National
Assembly, after June 13, by imprisonment and exile. Paris elected only
Social-Democratic candidates; it even united the largest vote upon
one of the insurgents of June, 1848,--Deflotte. In this way the small
traders' world of Paris, now allied with the proletariat, revenged
itself for the defeat of June 13, 1849. It seemed to have disappeared
from the field of battle at the hour of danger only to step on it again
at a more favorable opportunity, with increased forces for the fray, and
with a bolder war cry. A circumstance seemed to heighten the danger of
this electoral victory. The Army voted in Paris for a June insurgent
against Lahitte, a Minister of Bonaparte's, and, in the Departments,
mostly for the candidates of the Mountain, who, there also, although
not as decisively as in Paris, maintained the upper hand over their
adversaries.

Bonaparte suddenly saw himself again face to face with the revolution.
As on January 29, 1849, as on June 13, 1849, on May 10, 1850, he
vanished again behind the party of Order. He bent low; he timidly
apologized; he offered to appoint any Ministry whatever at the behest
of the parliamentary majority; he even implored the Orleanist and
Legitimist party leaders--the Thiers, Berryers, Broglies, Moles, in
short, the so-called burgraves--to take hold of the helm of State in
person. The party of Order did not know how to utilize this opportunity,
that was never to return. Instead of boldly taking possession of the
proffered power, it did not even force Bonaparte to restore the Ministry
dismissed on November 1; it contented itself with humiliating him with
its pardon, and with affiliating Mr. Baroche to the d'Hautpoul Ministry.
This Baroche had, as Public Prosecutor, stormed before the High Court at
Bourges, once against the revolutionists of May 15, another time against
the Democrats of June 13, both times on the charge of "attentats"
against the National Assembly. None of Bonaparte's Ministers contributed
later more towards the degradation of the National Assembly; and, after
Dec