Finally, the parliamentary
republic found itself, in its struggle against the revolution,
compelled, with its repressive measures, to strengthen the means and the
centralization of the government. Each overturn, instead of breaking up,
carried this machine to higher perfection. The parties, that alternately
wrestled for supremacy, looked upon the possession of this tremendous
governmental structure as the principal spoils of their victory.
Nevertheless, under the absolute monarchy, was only the means whereby
the first revolution, and under Napoleon, to prepare the class rule of
the bourgeoisie; under the restoration, under Louis Philippe, and under
the parliamentary republic, it was the instrument of the ruling class,
however eagerly this class strained after autocracy. Not before the
advent of the second Bonaparte does the government seem to have made
itself fully independent. The machinery of government has by this time
so thoroughly fortified itself against society, that the chief of the
"Society of December 10" is thought good enough to be at its head; a
fortune-hunter, run in from abroad, is raised on its shield by a drunken
soldiery, bought by himself with liquor and sausages, and whom he is
forced ever again to throw sops to.
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