you speak had no idea beyond mounting on the
crupper of every event. Of the two, Carrel was the better man. Well,
one becomes a minister, Carrel remained a journalist; the incomplete but
craftier man is living; Carrel is dead.

"I may point out that your man has for fifteen years been making his
way, and is but making it still. He may yet be caught and crushed
between two cars full of intrigues on the highroad to power. He has no
house; he has not the favor of the palace like Metternich; nor, like
Villele, the protection of a compact majority.

"I do not believe that the present state of things will last ten years
longer. Hence, supposing I should have such poor good luck, I am already
too late to avoid being swept away by the commotion I foresee. I should
need to be established in a superior position."

"What commotion?" asked Juste.

"AUGUST, 1830," said Marcas in solemn tones, holding out his hand
towards Paris; "AUGUST, the offspring of Youth which bound the sheaves,
and of Intellect which had ripened the harvest, forgot to provide for
Youth and Intellect.

"Youth will explode like the boiler of a steam-engine. Youth has
no outlet in France; it is gathering an avalanche of underrated
capabilities, of legitimate and restless ambitions; young men are not
marrying now; families cannot tell what to do with their children. What
will the thunderclap be that will shake down these masses? I know
not, but they will crash down into the midst of things, and overthrow
everything. These are laws of hydrostatics which act on the human race;
the Roman Empire had failed to understand them, and the Barbaric hordes
came down.

"The Barbaric hordes now are the intelligent class. The laws of
overpressure are at this moment acting slowly and silently in our midst.
The Government is the great criminal; it does not appreciate the two
powers to which it owes everything; it has allowed its hands to be tied
by the absurdities of the Contract; it is bound, ready to be the victim.

"Louis XIV., Napoleon, England, all were or are eager for intelligent
youth. In France the young are condemned by the new legislation, by
the blundering principles of elective rights, by the unsoundness of the
ministerial constitution.

"Look at the elective Chamber; you will find no deputies of thirty; the
youth of Richelieu and of Mazarin, of Turenne and of Colbert, of Pitt
and of Saint-Just, of Napoleon and of Prince Metternich, would find no
admission