procedure is impossible without slight
mistakings of causes and effects, seeing that both, in their mutual
action and reaction, lose their distinctive marks. Thereupon, new
decrees, that blur the line of distinction. Bonaparte, furthermore,
feels himself, as against the bourgeoisie, the representative of the
farmer and the people in general, who, within bourgeois society, is to
render the lower classes of society happy. To this end, new decrees,
intended to exploit the "true Socialists," together with their
governmental wisdom. But, above all, Bonaparte feels himself the
chief of the "Society of December 10," the representative of the
slum-proletariat, to which he himself, his immediate surroundings, his
Government, and his army alike belong, the main object with all of whom
is to be good to themselves, and draw Californian tickets out of the
national treasury. An he affirms his chieftainship of the "Society of
December 10" with decrees, without decrees, and despite decrees.

This contradictory mission of the man explains the contradictions of his
own Government, and that confused groping about, that now seeks to win,
then to humiliate now this class and then that, and finishes by arraying
against itself all the classes; whose actual insecurity constitutes
a highly comical contrast with the imperious, categoric style of the
Government acts, copied closely from the Uncle.

Industry and commerce, i.e., the business of the middle class, are to be
made to blossom in hot-house style under the "strong Government." Loans
for a number of railroad grants. But the Bonapartist slum-proletariat is
to enrich itself. Peculation is carried on with railroad concessions
on the Bourse by the initiated; but no capital is forthcoming for the
railroads. The bank then pledges itself to make advances upon railroad
stock; but the bank is itself to be exploited; hence, it must be
cajoled; it is released of the obligation to publish its reports weekly.
Then follows a leonine treaty between the bank and the Government. The
people are to be occupied: public works are ordered; but the public
works raise the tax rates upon the people; thereupon the taxes are
reduced by an attack upon the national bond-holders through the
conversion of the five per cent "rentes" [#9 The name of the French
national bonds.] into four-and-halves. Yet the middle class must again
be tipped: to this end, the tax on wine is doubled for the people, who
buy it at retail, an