re were in this ballot two
candidates; first candidate, M. Bonaparte; second candidate--the abyss.
France had the choice. Admire the adroitness of the man, and, not a
little, his humility. M. Bonaparte took for his opponent in this
contest, whom? M. de Chambord? No! M. de Joinville? No! The Republic?
Still less. M. Bonaparte, like those pretty Creoles who show off their
beauty by juxtaposition with some frightful Hottentot, took as his
competitor in this election a phantom, a vision, a socialistic monster
of Nuremberg, with long teeth and talons, and a live coal in its eyes,
the ogre of Tom Thumb, the vampire of Porte Saint-Martin, the hydra of
Theramenes, the great sea-serpent of the _Constitutionnel_, which the
shareholders have had the kindness to impute to it, the dragon of the
Apocalypse, the Tarask, the Dree, the Gra-ouili, a scarecrow. Aided by
a Ruggieri of his own, M. Bonaparte lit up this pasteboard monster with
red Bengal fire, and said to the scared voter: "There is no possible
choice except this or myself: choose!" He said: "Choose between beauty
and the beast; the beast is communism; the beauty is my dictatorship.
Choose! There is no medium! Society prostrate, your house burned, your
barn pillaged, your cow stolen, your fields confiscated, your wife
outraged, your children murdered, your wine drunk by others, yourself
devoured alive by the great gaping-jaws yonder, or me as your emperor!
Choose! Me or Croque-mitaine!"

[1] _Litterature et Philosophie Melees 1830._

The citizen, affrighted, and consequently a child; the peasant,
ignorant, and consequently a child, preferred M. Bonaparte to
Croque-mitaine. Such is his triumph!

Observe, however, that of ten millions of voters, five hundred thousand
would, it seems, have preferred Croque-mitaine.

After all, M. Bonaparte only had seven million five hundred thousand
votes.

Thus, then, and in this fashion,--freely as we see, knowingly as we
see,--that which M. Bonaparte is good enough to call universal
suffrage, voted. Voted what?

Dictatorship, autocracy, slavery, the republic a despotism, France a
pachalik, chains on all wrists, a seal on every mouth, silence,
degradation, fear, the spy the soul of all things! They have given to a
man--to you!--omnipotence and omniscience! They have made that man the
supreme, the only legislator, the alpha of the law, the omega of power!
They have decreed that he is Minos, that he is Numa, that he is Solon,
tha