The Arcades Project - Operi

which were government bureaucrats. The latter obeyed the orders they were
given.; as to ordinary electors one could buy them by giving their dependents and
favorites things like tobacco shops or scholarships, or by giving the elector himself
some important administrative post. In the Chamber, as in the electoral colleges,
government bureaucrats were quite numerous: more than a third of' the deputies
(184 out of 4,59, in 18l1,6) were prefects, magistrates officials. The minister controlled
them by fueling their hopes for advancement . . . . To reach a majority,
thirty or forty deputies were needed. Guizot won them with concessions for large
state projects (tIris was in the early clays of railroad construction) or hy giving
them a share of the contract for supplies to the state. Corruption was thus built up
into a system of government, and the numerous scandals at the end of the reign
make glaringly clear that the underlings worked the system just as well as the
prime minister." A. MOllet and P. Grillet, XIX" Siecle (Paris, 1919), pp. 95, 97.
Lamartine spoke, at this time, of the danger of an electoral aristocracy" (1847).
[gla,l]
HOn July 28, 1831, a Parisian man displays his portrait together with that of Louis
Philippe, providing them with the following caption: "There is no distance separating
Philippe from me. He is the citizen-king; I am the king-citizen. m Gisela
Freund, ·La Photogruphie au point de vue sociologique" (manusc,ript, p. 31),
citing Jean Jaures, Histoire socialiste: Le Regne de Louis-Philippe, p. 49. [gla,2]
'"'Paris is as sad as possible,' wrote the author of Colomba at the height of the
exhibition. (,Everyone is afraid without knowing why. It is a sensation akin to that
produced by the music of Mozart when the Commendatore is about to cnter.2 . ..
The least little incident is awaited like a catastrophc. m Adolphe Demy, Essai
historique sur les expositions lmiverselles de Paris (Paris, 1907), pp. 173-174.
[gla,3]
Some light on Napoleon's relation to the hourgeoisie around 1814. ""The empcror
had evinced the greatest reluctance at the prospect of arnring the Paris population.
Fearing the revolutionary spirit, he had refused the services of 50,000 workers,
most of them former soldiers; he had wanted to organizc companies . .. made up
solely of citizens of the haute hourgeoisie-that is to say, those who wcre inclined
to regard the allies as liberators . ... People cursed Napoleon's name. Witness a
letter to Colonel Greiner, second in command at the Ecole ... : 'April 11, 1314.a
Cowardly slave of an equally cowardly master! Give me hack my son! Bloodthirstier
even than the tyrant, you have outdone him in eruelty by delivering up to
enemy fire the children we entrusted to your lare-we who helieve in the law that
guaranteed their education. Where are they? You will answer for this with your
head! All the mothers are marching against you, and I myseU ' I promise you, will
wring your neck with my own two hands if my son does not reappear soon. '"
G. Pinet, Histoire de l'Ecole poly technique (Paris, 1887), pp. 73-74, 80-81. The
letter is from the father of Enfantin. [g2,1]