c opinion, the
consciences of the people, and the ruling powers, to cause this
fourfold reform to force its way first into ideas, then into the laws.
Reckon up the speeches, the writings, the newspaper articles, the
projects of laws, the counter-projects, the amendments, the amendments
to amendments, the reports, the counter-reports, the facts, the
incidents, the polemics, the discussions, the assertions, the denials,
the storms, the steps forward, the steps backward, the days, the weeks,
the months, the years, the quarter-century, the half-century!

IV

WHAT AN ASSEMBLY WOULD HAVE DONE

I imagine, on the benches of an assembly, the most intrepid of
thinkers, a brilliant mind, one of those men who, when they ascend the
tribune, feel it beneath them like the tripod of the oracle, suddenly
grow in stature and become colossal, surpass by a head the massive
appearances that mask reality, and see clearly the future over the
high, frowning wall of the present. That man, that orator, that seer,
seeks to warn his country; that prophet seeks to enlighten statesmen;
he knows where the breakers are; he knows that society will crumble by
means of these four false supports: centralized government, standing
army, irremovable judges, salaried priesthood; he knows it, he desires
that all should know it, he ascends the tribune and says:--

"I denounce to you four great public perils. Your political system
bears that within it that will destroy it. It is incumbent upon you to
transform your government root and branch, the army, the clergy, and
the magistracy: to suppress here, retrench there, remodel everything,
or perish through these four institutions, which you consider as
lasting elements, but which are elements of dissolution."

Murmurs. He exclaims: "Do you know what your centralized administration
may become in the hands of a perjured executive power? A vast treason,
carried into effect at one blow over the whole of France, by every
office-holder without exception."

Murmurs break out anew with redoubled violence; cries of "order!" The
orator continues: "Do you know what your standing army may become at
any moment? An instrument of crime. Passive obedience is the bayonet
ever pointed at the heart of the law. Yes, here, in this France, which
is the initiatress of the world, in this land of the tribune and the
press, in this birthplace of human thought, yes, the time may come when
the sword will rule, when you, inviol