,
in this refuse, offal and wreck of all classes, recognizes the only
class upon which he can depend unconditionally;--this is the real
Bonaparte, the Bonaparte without qualification. An old and crafty roue,
he looks upon the historic life of nations, upon their great and public
acts, as comedies in the ordinary sense, as a carnival, where the
great costumes, words and postures serve only as masks for the pettiest
chicaneries. So, on the occasion of his expedition against Strassburg
when a trained Swiss vulture impersonated the Napoleonic eagle; so,
again, on the occasion of his raid upon Boulogne, when he struck a few
London lackeys into French uniform: they impersonated the army; [#1
Under the reign of Louis Philippe, Bonaparte made two attempts to
restore the throne of Napoleon: one in October, 1836, in an expedition
from Switzerland upon Strassburg and one in August, 1840, in an
expedition from England upon Boulogne.] and so now, in his "Society
of December 10," he collects 10,000 loafers who are to impersonate
the people as Snug the Joiner does the lion. At a period when the
bourgeoisie itself is playing the sheerest comedy, but in the most
solemn manner in the world, without doing violence to any of the
pedantic requirements of French dramatic etiquette, and is itself partly
deceived by, partly convinced of, the solemnity of its own public acts,
the adventurer, who took the comedy for simple comedy, was bound to win.
Only after he has removed his solemn opponent, when he himself takes
seriously his own role of emperor, and, with the Napoleonic mask on,
imagines he impersonates the real Napoleon, only then does he become the
victim of his own peculiar conception of history--the serious clown, who
no longer takes history for a comedy, but a comedy for history. What the
national work-shops were to the socialist workingmen, what the "Gardes
mobiles" were to the bourgeois republicans, that was to Bonaparte the
"Society of December 10,"--a force for partisan warfare peculiar to
himself. On his journeys, the divisions of the Society, packed away
on the railroads, improvised an audience for him, performed public
enthusiasm, shouted "vive l'Empereur," insulted and clubbed the
republicans,--all, of course, under the protection of the police. On
his return stages to Paris, this rabble constituted his vanguard,
it forestalled or dispersed counter-demonstrations. The "Society of
December 10" belonged to him, it was his own hand