the court is a boudoir, the best
way to get in is through the cellar, and the bed is more than ever a
cross-cut."

Poiret. "Monsieur Bixiou, may I entreat you, explain?"

Bixiou. "I'll paraphrase my opinion. To be anything at all you must
begin by being everything. It is quite certain that a reform of this
service is needed; for on my word of honor, the State robs the poor
officials as much as the officials rob the State in the matter of hours.
But why is it that we idle as we do? because they pay us too little; and
the reason of that is we are too many for the work, and your late
chief, the virtuous Rabourdin, saw all this plainly. That great
administrator,--for he was that, gentlemen,--saw what the thing
is coming to, the thing that these idiots call the 'working of
our admirable institutions.' The chamber will want before long to
administrate, and the administrators will want to legislate. The
government will try to administrate and the administrators will want to
govern, and so it will go on. Laws will come to be mere regulations, and
ordinances will be thought laws. God made this epoch of the world for
those who like to laugh. I live in a state of jovial admiration of
the spectacle which the greatest joker of modern times, Louis XVIII.,
bequeathed to us" [general stupefaction]. "Gentlemen, if France, the
country with the best civil service in Europe, is managed thus, what
do you suppose the other nations are like? Poor unhappy nations! I ask
myself how they can possibly get along without two Chambers, without the
liberty of the press, without reports, without circulars even, without
an army of clerks? Dear, dear, how do you suppose they have armies and
navies? how can they exist at all without political discussions?
Can they even be called nations, or governments? It is said (mere
traveller's tales) that these strange peoples claim to have a policy,
to wield a certain influence; but that's absurd! how can they when
they haven't 'progress' or 'new lights'? They can't stir up ideas,
they haven't an independent forum; they are still in the twilight of
barbarism. There are no people in the world but the French people who
have ideas. Can you understand, Monsieur Poiret," [Poiret jumped as
if he had been shot] "how a nation can do without heads of divisions,
general-secretaries and directors, and all this splendid array of
officials, the glory of France and of the Emperor Napoleon,--who had his
own good reasons for cr