mewhat compromised himself in
his favor.

By its decision on the revision, the party of Order proved that it knew
neither how to rule nor how to obey; neither how to live nor how to die;
neither how to bear with the republic nor how to overthrow it; neither
how to maintain the Constitution nor how to throw it overboard; neither
how to co-operate with the President nor how to break with him. From
what quarter did it then, look to for the solution of all the existing
perplexities? From the calendar, from the course of events. It ceased to
assume the control of events. It, accordingly, invited events to don its
authority and also the power to which in its struggle with the people,
it had yielded one attribute after another until it finally stood
powerless before the same. To the end that the Executive be able all the
more freely to formulate his plan of campaign against it, strengthen his
means of attack, choose his tools, fortify his positions, the party of
Order decided, in the very midst of this critical moment, to step off
the stage, and adjourn for three months, from August 10 to November 4.

Not only was the parliamentary party dissolved into its two great
factions, not only was each of these dissolved within itself, but the
party of Order, inside of the parliament, was at odds with the party of
Order, outside of the parliament. The learned speakers and writers
of the bourgeoisie, their tribunes and their press, in short, the
ideologists of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie itself, the
representatives and the represented, stood estranged from, and no longer
understood one another.

The Legitimists in the provinces, with their cramped horizon and their
boundless enthusiasm, charged their parliamentary leaders Berryer and
Falloux with desertion to the Bonapartist camp, and with apostacy from
Henry V. Their lilymind [#1 An allusion to the lilies of the Bourbon
coat-of-arms] believed in the fall of man, but not in diplomacy.

More fatal and completer, though different, was the breach between the
commercial bourgeoisie and its politicians. It twitted them, not as the
Legitimists did theirs, with having apostatized from their principle,
but, on the contrary, with adhering to principles that had become
useless.

I have already indicated that, since the entry of Fould in the Ministry,
that portion of the commercial bourgeoisie that had enjoyed the lion's
share in Louis Philippe's reign, to-wit, the aristocracy of fina