duty! Is one to be stopped by
such stuff as that? What! one has necessities, one has no money, one is
a prince, chance places power in one's hands, one makes use of it, one
authorizes lotteries, one exhibits ingots of gold in the Passage
Jouffroy; everybody opens his pocket, one takes all one can out of it,
one shares what one gets with one's friends, with the devoted comrades
to whom one owes gratitude; and because there comes a moment when
public indiscretion meddles in the matter, when that infamous liberty
of the press seeks to fathom the mystery, and justice fancies that it
is its business, one must needs leave the Eysee, lay down the power,
and take one's seat, like an ass, between two gendarmes on the
prisoners' bench in the sixth chamber! Nonsense! Isn't it much more
simple to take one's seat on the throne of the emperor? Isn't it much
more simple to destroy the liberty of the press? Isn't it much more
simple to crush justice? Isn't it a much shorter way to trample the
judges under foot? Indeed, they ask nothing better! they are quite
ready! And this is not permitted! This is forbidden!

Yes, Monseigneur, this is forbidden!

Who opposes it? Who does not permit it? Who forbids it?

Monsieur Bonaparte, you are master, you have eight millions of votes
for your crimes, and twelve millions of francs for your pleasures; you
have a Senate, with M. Sibour in it; you have armies, cannon,
fortresses, Troplongs flat on their bellies, and Baroches on all fours;
you are a despot; you are all-potent; some one lost in the obscurity,
unknown, a mere passer-by, rises before you, and says to you: "Thou
shalt not do this."

This some one, this voice that speaks in the darkness, not seen but
heard, this passer-by, this unknown, this insolent intruder, is the
human conscience.

That is what the human conscience is.

It is some one, I repeat, whom one sees not, and who is stronger than
an army, more numerous than seven million five hundred thousand votes,
more lofty than a senate, more religious than an archbishop, more
learned in law than M. Troplong, more prompt to anticipate any sort of
justice than M. Baroche, and who thee-and-thous your majesty.

VII

AN EXPLANATION FOR M. BONAPARTE'S BENEFIT

Let us go a little deeper into all these novelties.

Pray learn this also, M. Bonaparte: that which distinguishes man from
brute, is the notion of good and of evil--of that good and that evil of
which I was speaking to