them! It is there! Dishonor, baseness, shame, and opprobrium are there!

Oh History! A hot iron for all these faces.

It is there that they amuse themselves, and that they jest, and that

they banter, and that they make sport of France! It is there that they

pocket hap-hazard, amid great shouts of laughter, the millions of louis

and the millions of votes! See them, look at them! They have treated the

Law like a girl, they are content! Right is slaughtered, Liberty is

gagged, the flag is dishonored, the people are under their feet. They

are happy! And who are they? What are these men? Europe knows not. One

fine morning it saw them come out of a crime. Nothing more. A parcel of

rascals who vainly tried to become celebrated, and who have remained

anonymous. Look! they are all there! See them, I tell you! Look at them,

I tell you! Recognize them if you can. Of what sex are they? To what

species do they belong? Who is this one? Is he a writer? No; he is a

dog. He gobbles human flesh. And that one? Is he a dog? No, he is a

courtier--he has blood on his paw.

New men, that is what they term them. New, in truth! Unlooked-for,

strange, unprecedented, monstrous! Perjury, iniquity, robbery,

assassination, erected into ministerial departments, swindling applied

to universal suffrage, government under false pretences, duty called

crime, crime called duty, cynicism laughing in the midst of

atrocity,--it is of all this that their newness is compounded.

Now, all is well, they have succeeded, they have a fair wind, they enjoy

themselves to the full. They have cheated France, they are dividing the

spoil. France is a bag, and they put their hand in it. Rummage, for

648

The History of a Crime