ted
thought of the Nephew becomes a reality because it coincided with the
rooted thought of the most numerous class among the French.

"But," I shall be objected to, "what about the farmers' uprisings over
half France, the raids of the Army upon the farmers, the wholesale
imprisonment and transportation of farmers?"

Indeed, since Louis XIV., France has not experienced such persecutions
of the farmer on the ground of his demagogic machinations.

But this should be well understood: The Bonaparte dynasty does not
represent the revolutionary, it represents the conservative farmer;
it does not represent the farmer, who presses beyond his own economic
conditions, his little allotment of land it represents him rather
who would confirm these conditions; it does not represent the rural
population, that, thanks to its own inherent energy, wishes, jointly
with the cities to overthrow the old order, it represents, on the
contrary, the rural population that, hide-bound in the old order, seeks
to see itself, together with its allotments, saved and favored by
the ghost of the Empire; it represents, not the intelligence, but the
superstition of the farmer; not his judgment, but his bias; not his
future, but his past; not his modern Cevennes; [#7 The Cevennes were
the theater of the most numerous revolutionary uprisings of the
farmer class.] but his modern Vendee. [#8 La Vendee was the theater of
protracted reactionary uprisings of the farmer class under the first
Revolution.]

The three years' severe rule of the parliamentary republic had freed
a part of the French farmers from the Napoleonic illusion, and, though
even only superficially; had revolutionized them The bourgeoisie threw
them, however, violently back every time that they set themselves in
motion. Under the parliamentary republic, the modern wrestled with the
traditional consciousness of the French farmer. The process went on in
the form of a continuous struggle between the school teachers and the
parsons;--the bourgeoisie knocked the school teachers down. For the
first time, the farmer made an effort to take an independent stand in
the government of the country; this manifested itself in the prolonged
conflicts of the Mayors with the Prefects;--the bourgeoisie deposed
the Mayors. Finally, during period of the parliamentary republic,
the farmers of several localities rose against their own product,
the Army;--the bourgeoisie punished them with states of siege and
exec