d is reduced to one-half for the middle class, that
drink it at wholesale. Genuine labor organizations are dissolved, but
promises are made of future wonders to accrue from organization. The
farmers are to be helped: mortgage-banks are set up that must promote
the indebtedness; of the farmer and the concentration of property but
again, these banks are to be utilized especially to the end of squeezing
money out of the confiscated estates of the House of Orleans; no
capitalist will listen to this scheme, which, moreover, is not mentioned
in the decree; the mortgage bank remains a mere decree, etc., etc.

Bonaparte would like to appear as the patriarchal benefactor of all
classes; but he can give to none without taking from the others. As was
said of the Duke of Guise, at the time of the Fronde, that he was the
most obliging man in France because he had converted all his estates
into bonds upon himself for his Parisians, so would Napoleon like to be
the most obliging man in France and convert all property and all labor
of France into a personal bond upon himself. He would like to steal the
whole of France to make a present thereof to France, or rather to be
able to purchase France back again with French money;--as chief of the
"Society of December 10," he must purchase that which is to be his.
All the State institutions, the Senate, the Council of State, the
Legislature, the Legion of Honor, the Soldiers' decorations, the public
baths, the public buildings, the railroads, the General Staff of the
National Guard, exclusive of the rank and file, the confiscated estates
of the House of Orleans,--all are converted into institutions for
purchase and sale. Every place in the Army and the machinery of
Government becomes a purchasing power. The most important thing,
however, in this process, whereby France is taken to be given back to
herself, are the percentages that, in the transfer, drop into the
hands of the chief and the members of the "Society of December 10."
The witticisms with which the Countess of L., the mistress of de Morny,
characterized the confiscations of the Orleanist estates: "C'est le
premier vol de l'aigle," [#10 "It is the first flight of the eagle" The
French word "vol" means theft as well as flight.] fits every fight of
the eagle that is rather a crow. He himself and his followers daily call
out to themselves, like the Italian Carthusian monk in the legend does
to the miser, who displayfully counted the goods