n my hopes. I
counted on unanimity. _Coup d'etat_, you are indeed modest!

How now! a man has done all we have recalled or related: has taken an
oath and perjured himself; was the guardian of a constitution and
destroyed it, was the servant of a republic and betrayed it, was the
agent of a sovereign assembly and violently crushed it; used the
military pass-word as a poignard to kill military honour, used the
standard of France to wipe away mud and shame, put handcuffs on the
generals of Africa, made the representatives of the people travel in
prison-vans, filled Mazas, Vincennes, Mont Valerien, and Sainte-Pelagie
with inviolable men, shot down point-blank, on the barricade of the
law, the legislator girt with that scarf which is the sacred and
venerable symbol of the law; gave to a colonel, whom we could name, a
hundred thousand francs to trample duty under foot, and to each soldier
ten francs a day; distributed in four days forty thousand francs' worth
of brandy to each brigade; covered with the gold of the Bank the
card-tables of the Elysee, and said to his friends, "Help yourselves!"
killed M. Adde in his own house, M. Belval in his own house, M.
Debaecque in his own house, M. Labilte in his own house, M. de
Couvercelle in his own house, M. Monpelas in his own house, M. Thirion
de Mortauban in his own house; massacred on the boulevards and
elsewhere, shot anybody anywhere, committed numerous murders, of which
he modestly confesses to only one hundred and ninety-one; changed the
trenches about the trees on the boulevards into pools of blood; spilt
the blood of the infant with the blood of the mother, mingling with
both the champagne of the gendarmes!--a man has done all these things,
has taken all this trouble; and when he asks the nation: "Are you
satisfied?" he obtains only seven million five hundred thousand
voters!--Really, he is underpaid.

Sacrifice one's self "to save society," indeed! O, ingratitude of
nations!

In truth, three millions of voices replied "_No_." Who was it, pray,
who said that the South Sea savages call the French the "_oui-ouis_?"

Let us speak seriously. For irony is painful in such tragic matters.

_Coup d'etat_ men, nobody believes in your seven million five hundred
thousand votes.

Come, be frank, and confess that you are more or less swindlers, that
you cheat a little. In your balance-sheet of the 2nd of December you
set down too many votes,--and not enough corpses.

Seven milli