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future. Many months before being carried out, the coup d'état had been
accomplished. The day having come, the hour having struck, the mechanism
being completely wound up, it had only to be set going. It was bound not
to fail, and nothing did fail. What would have been an abyss if the
majority had done its duty, and had understood its joint responsibility
with the Left, was not even a ditch. The inviolability had been
demolished by those who were inviolable. The hand of gendarmes had
become as accustomed to the collar of the Representatives as to the
collar of thieves: the white tie of the statesman was not even rumpled
in the grasp of the galley sergeants, and one can admire the Vicomte de
Falloux--oh, candor!--for being dumfounded at being treated like Citizen
Sartin.
The majority, going backwards, and ever applauding Bonaparte, fell into
the hole which Bonaparte had dug for it.
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