DUTY CAN HAVE TWO ASPECTS

Had it been in the power of the Left at any moment to prevent the coup d’etat?

We do not think so.

Nevertheless here is a fact which we believe we ought not to pass by in silence.  On the 16th November, 1851, I was in my study at home at 37, Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne; it was about midnight.  I was working.  My servant opened the door.

“Will you see M. ——­, sir?”

And he mentioned a name.

“Yes,” I said.

Some one came in.

I shall only speak reservedly of this eminent and distinguished man.  Let it suffice to state that he had the right to say when mentioning the Bonapartes “my family.”

It is known that the Bonaparte family is divided into two branches, the Imperial family and the private family.  The Imperial family had the tradition of Napoleon, the private family had the tradition of Lucien:  a shade of difference which, however, had no reality about it.

My midnight visitor took the other corner of the fireplace.

He began by speaking to me of the memoirs of a very highminded and virtuous woman, the Princess ——­, his mother, the manuscript of which he had confided to me, asking my advice as to the utility or the suitability of their publication; this manuscript, besides being full of interest, possessed for me a special charm, because the handwriting of the Princess resembled my mother’s handwriting.  My visitor, to whom I gave it back, turned over the leaves for a few moments, and then suddenly interrupting himself, he turned to me and said,—­

“The Republic is lost.”

I answered,—­

“Almost.”

He resumed,—­

“Unless you save it.”

“I?”

“You.”

“How so?”

“Listen to me.”

Then he set forth with that clearness, complicated at times with paradoxes, which is one of the resources of his remarkable mind, the situation, at the same time desperate and strong, in which we were placed.

This situation, which moreover I realized as well as he himself, was this:—­

The Right of the Assembly was composed of about 400 members, and the Left of about 180.  The four hundred of the majority belonged by thirds to three parties, the Legitimist party, the Orleanist party, the Bonapartist party, and in a body to the Clerical party.  The 180 of the minority belonged to the Republic.  The Right mistrusted the Left, and had taken a precaution against the minority.

A Vigilance Committee, composed of sixteen members of the Right, charged with impressing unity upon this trinity of parties, and charged with the task of carefully watching the Left, such was this precaution.  The Left at first had confined itself to irony, and borrowing from me a word to which people then attached, though wrongly, the idea of decrepitude, had called the sixteen Commissioners the “Burgraves.”  The