one in Europe doubts my word?” Let us fear nothing.  To this could be answered, Crimes are committed either on a grand or on a mean scale.  In the first category there is Caesar; in the second there is Mandrin.  Caesar passes the Rubicon, Mandrin bestrides the gutter.  But wise men interposed, “Are we not prejudiced by offensive conjectures?  This man has been exiled and unfortunate.  Exile enlightens, misfortune corrects.”

For his part Louis Bonaparte protested energetically.  Facts abounded in his favor.  Why should he not act in good faith?  He had made remarkable promises.  Towards the end of October, 1848, then a candidate for the Presidency, he was calling at No. 37, Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne, on a certain personage, to whom he remarked, “I wish to have an explanation with you.  They slander me.  Do I give you the impression of a madman?  They think that I wish to revivify Napoleon.  There are two men whom a great ambition can take for its models, Napoleon and Washington.  The one is a man of Genius, the other is a man of Virtue.  It is ridiculous to say, ’I will be a man of Genius;’ it is honest to say, ’I will be a man of Virtue.’  Which of these depends upon ourselves?  Which can we accomplish by our will?  To be Genius?  No.  To be Probity?  Yes.  The attainment of Genius is not possible; the attainment of Probity is a possibility.  And what could I revive of Napoleon?  One sole thing—­a crime.  Truly a worthy ambition!  Why should I be considered man?  The Republic being established, I am not a great man, I shall not copy Napoleon; but I am an honest man.  I shall imitate Washington.  My name, the name of Bonaparte, will be inscribed on two pages of the history of France:  on the first there will be crime and glory, on the second probity and honor.  And the second will perhaps be worth the first.  Why?  Because if Napoleon is the greater, Washington is the better man.  Between the guilty hero and the good citizen I choose the good citizen.  Such is my ambition.”

From 1848 to 1851 three years elapsed.  People had long suspected Louis Bonaparte; but long-continued suspicion blunts the intellect and wears itself out by fruitless alarms.  Louis Bonaparte had had dissimulating ministers such as Magne and Rouher; but he had also had straightforward ministers such as Leon Faucher and Odilon Barrot; and these last had affirmed that he was upright and sincere.  He had been seen to beat his breast before the doors of Ham; his foster sister, Madame Hortense Cornu, wrote to Mieroslawsky, “I am a good Republican, and I can answer for him.”  His friend of Ham, Peauger, a loyal man, declared, “Louis Bonaparte is incapable of treason.”  Had not Louis Bonaparte written the work entitled “Pauperism”?  In the intimate circles of the Elysee Count Potocki was a Republican and Count d’Orsay was a Liberal; Louis Bonaparte said to Potocki, “I am a man of the Democracy,” and to D’Orsay, “I am a man of Liberty.”  The Marquis du Hallays opposed the coup d’etat, while the Marquise