e bride
and bridegroom wait--draw nearer all, that ye may better hear what I have
to say."

The crowd pressed more closely around the foot of the stage, and
Peterchen, assuming a didactic air, resumed his discourse.

"The object of all authority is to find the means of its own support,"
continued the bailiff; "for unless it can exist, it must fall to the
ground; and you all are sufficiently schooled to know that when a thing
becomes of indifferent value, it loses most of its consideration. Thus
government is established in order that it may protect itself; since
without this power it could not remain a government, and there is not a
man existing who is not ready to admit that even a bad government is
better than none. But ours is particularly a good government, its greatest
care on all occasions being to make itself respected, and he who respects
himself is certain to have esteem in the eyes of others. Without this
security we should become like the unbridled steed, or the victims of
anarchy and confusion, ay, and damnable heresies in religion. Thus you see
my friends, your choice lies between the government of Berne, or no
government at all; for when only two things exist, by taking one away the
number is reduced half, and as the great canton will keep its own share of
the institutions, by taking half away, Vaud is left as naked as my hand.
Ask yourselves if you have any government but this? You know you have not.
Were you quit of Berne, therefore, you clearly would have none at all.
Officer, you have a sword at your side, which is a good type of our
authority; draw it and hold it up, that all may see it. You perceive, my
friends, that the officer hath a sword; but that he hath only one sword.
Lay it at thy feet, officer. You perceive, friends, that having but one
sword, and laying that sword aside, he no longer hath a sword at all! That
weapon represents our authority, which laid aside becomes no authority,
leaving us with an unarmed hand."

This happy comparison drew a murmur of applause; the proposition of
Peterchen having most of the properties of a popular theory, being
deficient in neither a bold assertion, a brief exposition, nor a practical
illustration. The latter in particular was long afterwards spoken of in
Vaud, as an exposition little short of the well-known judgment of Solomon,
who had resorted to the same keen-edged weapon in order to solve a point
almost as knotty as this settled by the bailiff. When