on he, the man who
has passed his life in imbuing himself with the pure and holy light of
the law, that man who is nothing unless he be the contemner of
unmerited success, that lettered, scrupulous, religious man, that judge
in whose keeping the law has been placed, and, in some sort, the
conscience of the state, turns towards triumphant perjury, and with the
same lips, the same voice in which, if this traitor had been
vanquished, he would have said:

"Criminal, I sentence you to the galleys," he says:

"Monseigneur, I swear fealty to you."

Now take a balance, place in one scale the judge, in the other the
felon, and tell me which side kicks the beam.

VI

EVERYWHERE THE OATH

Such are the things we have beheld in France, on the occasion of the
oath to M. Bonaparte. Men have sworn here, there, everywhere; at Paris,
in the provinces, in the north, in the south, in the cast, and in the
west. There was in France, during a whole month, a tableau of hands
raised, of arms outstretched, and the final chorus was: "We swear,"
etc. The ministers placed their oaths in the hands of the President,
the prefects in those of ministers, and the mob in those of the
prefects. What does M. Bonaparte do with all these oaths? Is he making
a collection of them? Where does he put them? It has been remarked
that none but unpaid functionaries have refused the oath, the
councillors-general, for instance. The fact is, that the oath has been
taken to the budget. We heard on the 29th of March a senator exclaim,
in a loud voice, against the omission of his name, which was, so to
speak, vicarious modesty. M. Sibour, Archbishop of Paris swore;[1] M.
Frank Carre, procureur-general to the Court of Peers in the affair of
Boulogne, swore;[2] M. Dupin, President of the National Assembly on the
2nd of December, swore[3]--O, my God! it is enough to make one wring
one's hands for shame. An oath, however, is a sacred obligation.

[1] As Senator.

[2] As First President of the Court of Appeal at Rouen.

[3] As a member of his Municipal Council.

The man who takes an oath ceases to be a man, he becomes an altar, upon
which God descends. Man, that infirmity, that shadow, that atom, that
grain of sand, that drop of water, that tear dropped from the eye of
destiny; man, so little, so weak, so uncertain, so ignorant, so
restless; man, who lives in trouble and in doubt, knowing little of
yesterday, and nothing of to-morrow, seei