’What will become of those on the railways if they are suddenly stopped, as yours were in 1846?  What will be the shock if the Credit Foncier or the Credit Mobilier fail, after having borrowed each its milliard?  Everything seems to me to be preparing for one of your panics, and the Government has so identified itself with the state of prosperity and state of credit of the country that a panic must produce a revolution.  The Government claims the merit of all that is good, and of course is held responsible for all that is bad.  If we were to have a bad harvest, it would be laid to the charge of the Emperor.

‘Of course,’ he continued, ’I do not desire the perpetuation of the present tyranny.  Its duration as a dynasty I believe to be absolutely impossible, except in one improbable contingency—­a successful war.

’But though, I repeat, I do not desire or expect the permanence of the Empire, I do not wish for its immediate destruction, before we are prepared with a substitute.  The agents which are undermining it are sufficiently powerful and sufficiently active to occasion its fall quite as soon as we ought to wish for that fall.’

‘And what,’ I said, ‘are those agents?’

‘The principal agents,’ he answered, ’are violence in the provinces and corruption in Paris.  Since the first outbreak there has not been much violence in Paris.  You must have observed that freedom of speech is universal.  In every private society, and even in every cafe hatred or contempt of the Government are the main topics of conversation.  We are too numerous to be attacked.  But in the provinces you will find perfect silence.  Anyone who whispers a word against the Emperor may be imprisoned, or perhaps transported.  The prefects are empowered by one of the decrees made immediately after the coup d’etat to dissolve any Conseil communal in which there is the least appearance of disaffection, and to nominate three persons to administer the commune.  In many cases this has been done, and I could point out to you several communes governed by the prefect’s nominees who cannot read.  In time, of course, tyranny will produce corruption; but it has not yet prevailed extensively in the country, and the cause which now tends to depopularise him there is arbitrary violence exercised against those whom his agents suppose to be their enemies.

’On the other hand, what is ruining him in Paris is not violence, but corruption.

’The French are not like the Americans; they have no sympathy with smartness.  Nothing so much excites their disgust as friponnerie.  The main cause that overthrew Louis Philippe was the belief that he and his were fripons—­that the representatives bought the electors, that the Minister bought the representatives, and that the King bought the Minister.