rimes, from all the blood spilt, from
all the victims, from all the proscribed, from those hulks that echo
the death rattle, from those deadful penal settlements of Lambessa and
Cayenne, where death is swift, from that exile where death is slow,
from this vote, from this oath, from this vast stain of shame inflicted
upon France, which is growing wider and wider each day; when,
forgetting for a few moments these painful thoughts, the usual
obsession of my mind, I succeed in confining myself within the severe
calmness of the politician, and in considering, not the fact, but the
consequences of the fact; then, among many results, disastrous beyond
doubt, a considerable, real, enormous progress becomes manifest to me,
and, from that moment, while I am still of those whom the 2nd of
December exasperates, I am no longer of those whom it afflicts.

Fixing my eyes upon certain points in the future, I say to myself: "The
deed was infamous, but the result is good."

Attempts have been made to explain the inexplicable victory of the
_coup d'etat_ in a hundred ways. A true balance has been struck
between all possible resistances, and they are neutralized one by the
other: the people were afraid of the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie were
afraid of the people;--the faubourgs hesitated before the restoration
of the majority, fearing, wrongfully however, that their victory would
bring back to power that Right which is so thoroughly unpopular; the
shopocracy recoiled before the red republic; the people did not
understand; the middle classes shuffled; some said, "Whom shall we send
to the legislative palace?" others: "whom are we going to see at the
Hotel de Ville?" In fine, the rude repression of 1848, the insurrection
crushed by cannon-shot, the quarries, the casements, and the
transportations--a living and terrible recollection;--and then--Suppose
some one had succeeded in beating the call to arms! Suppose a single
legion had sallied forth! Suppose M. Sibour had been M. Affre, and had
thrown himself in the midst of the bullets of the pretorians! Suppose
the High Court had not suffered itself to be driven away by a corporal!
Suppose the judges had followed the example of the representatives, and
we had seen the scarlet gowns on the barricades, as we saw the scarfs!
Suppose a single arrest had miscarried! Suppose a single regiment had
hesitated! Suppose the massacre on the boulevards had not taken place,
or had turned out ill for Louis B