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Landrin and Durand-Savoyat having left, Michel de Bourges began to
speak.
"
The artifice of Louis Bonaparte, imitator of his uncle in this as in
everything," said Michel de Bourges, "had been to throw out in advance
an appeal to the People, a vote to be taken, a plebiscitum, in short, to
create a Government in appearance at the very moment when he overturned
one. In great crises, where everything totters and seems ready to fall,
a People has need to lay hold of something. Failing any other support,
it will take the sovereignty of Louis Bonaparte. Well, it was necessary
that a support should be offered to the people, by us, in the form of
its own sovereignty. The Assembly," continued Michel de Bourges, "was,
as a fact, dead. The Left, the popular stump of this hated Assembly,
might suffice for the situation for a few days. No more. It was
necessary that it should be reinvigorated by the national sovereignty.
It was therefore important that we also should appeal to universal
suffrage, should oppose vote to vote, should raise erect the Sovereign
People before the usurping Prince, and should immediately convoke a new
Assembly." Michel de Bourges proposed a decree.
Michel de Bourges was right. Behind the victory of Louis Bonaparte could
be seen something hateful, but something which was familiar--the Empire;
behind the victory of the Left there was obscurity. We must bring in
daylight behind us. That which causes the greatest uneasiness to
people's imagination is the dictatorship of the Unknown. To convoke a
new Assembly as soon as possible, to restore France at once into the
hands of France, this was to reassure people's minds during the combat,
and to rally them afterwards; this was the true policy.
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