born of
universal suffrage. (Loud and prolonged applause). We see men, who
have suffered most from the revolution and complained bitterest of it,
provoking a new one for the sole purpose of putting fetters on the will
of the nation. . . . I promise you peace for the future." (Bravo! Bravo!
Stormy bravos.)

Thus the industrial bourgeoisie shouts its servile "Bravo!" to the "coup
d'etat" of December 2, to the destruction of the parliament, to the
downfall of their own reign, to the dictatorship of Bonaparte. The rear
of the applause of November 25 was responded to by the roar of cannon on
December 4, and the house of Mr. Sallandrouze, who had been loudest in
applauding, was the one demolished by most of the bombs.

Cromwell, when he dissolved the Long Parliament, walked alone into its
midst, pulled out his watch in order that the body should not continue
to exist one minute beyond the term fixed for it by him, and drove
out each individual member with gay and humorous invectives. Napoleon,
smaller than his prototype, at least went on the 18th Brumaire into
the legislative body, and, though in a tremulous voice, read to it its
sentence of death. The second Bonaparte, who, moreover, found himself
in possession of an executive power very different from that of either
Cromwell or Napoleon, did not look for his model in the annals of
universal history, but in the annals of the "Society of December 10,"
in the annals of criminal jurisprudence. He robs the Bank of France of
twenty-five million francs; buys General Magnan with one million and
the soldiers with fifteen francs and a drink to each; comes secretly
together with his accomplices like a thief by night; has the houses of
the most dangerous leaders in the parliament broken into; Cavalignac,
Lamorciere, Leflo, Changarnier, Charras, Thiers, Baze, etc., taken
out of their beds; the principal places of Paris, the building of the
parliament included, occupied with troops; and, early the next
morning, loud-sounding placards posted on all the walls proclaiming the
dissolution of the National Assembly and of the Council of State, the
restoration of universal suffrage, and the placing of the Department
of the Seine under the state of siege. In the same way he shortly
after sneaked into the "Moniateur" a false document, according to which
influential parliamentary names had grouped themselves round him in a
Committee of the Nation.

Amidst cries of "Long live the Republic!", th