ing to tell you. The Republic was beaten.
After the Saint-Merri affair the caps were quite unsalable. Now, when a
weaver finds that besides a wife and children he has some ten thousand
red woolen caps in the house, and that no hatter will take a single one
of them, notions begin to pass through his head as fast as if he were
a banker racking his brains to get rid of ten million francs' worth of
shares in some dubious investment. As for this Law of the Faubourg, this
Nucingen of caps, do you know what he did? He went to find a pothouse
dandy, one of those comic men that drive police sergeants to despair
at open-air dancing saloons at the barriers; him he engaged to play the
part of an American captain staying at Meurice's and buying for export
trade. He was to go to some large hatter, who still had a cap in his
shop window, and 'inquire for' ten thousand red woolen caps. The hatter,
scenting business in the wind, hurried round to the woolen weaver and
rushed upon the stock. After that, no more of the American captain, you
understand, and great plenty of caps. If you interfere with the freedom
of trade, because free trade has its drawbacks, you might as well tie
the hands of justice because a crime sometimes goes unpunished, or
blame the bad organization of society because civilization produces some
evils. From the caps and the Rue Saint-Denis to joint-stock companies
and the Bank----draw your own conclusions."

"A crown for Couture!" said Blondet, twisting a serviette into a wreath
for his head. "I go further than that, gentlemen. If there is a defect
in the working hypothesis, what is the cause? The law! the whole system
of legislation. The blame rests with the legislature. The great men
of their districts are sent up to us by the provinces, crammed with
parochial notions of right and wrong; and ideas that are indispensable
if you want to keep clear of collisions with justice, are stupid when
they prevent a man from rising to the height at which a maker of the
laws ought to abide. Legislation may prohibit such and such developments
of human passions--gambling, lotteries, the Ninons of the pavement,
anything you please--but you cannot extirpate the passions themselves by
any amount of legislation. Abolish them, you would abolish the society
which develops them, even if it does not produce them. The gambling
passion lurks, for instance, at the bottom of every heart, be it a
girl's heart, a provincial's, a diplomatist's; ev