ganized under the presidency of Louis Bonaparte, having been masqueraded into blouses and let loose on the streets of Paris, there to perform the contortions of war fever, the real workmen of the faubourgs came forward with public peace demonstrations so overwhelming that Pietri, the Prefect of Police, thought it prudent to at once stop all further street politics, on the plea that the feal Paris people had given sufficient vent to their pent-up patriotism and exuberant war enthusiasm.[1]
Whatever may be the incidents of Louis Bonaparte's war with Prussia, the death-knell of the Second Empire has already sounded at Paris. It will end, as it began, by a parody. But let us not forget that it is the Governments and the ruling classes of Europe who enabled Louis Bonaparte to play during eighteen years the ferocious farce of the Restored Empire.
On the German side, the war is a war of defense; but who put Germany to the necessity of defending herself? Who enabled Louis Bonaparte to wage war upon her? Prussia! It was Bismarck who conspired with that very same Louis Bonaparte for the purpose of crushing popular opposition at home, and annexing Germany to the
- ↑ Louis Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I., was elected President of the Republic in 1849. On December 2, 1851, he made his infamous coup d'état, preparatory to his assumption of imperial power. With this supreme end in view his police then organized "the band of the 10th of December," which was recruited from the dregs in all ranks of society. The special work of these vile mercenaries, paid and later pensioned from the "secret funds," was to shout "Vive l'Empereur!" on the President's passage through the streets of Paris and on his travels throughout France, besides acting as spies and agents provocateurs, especially among the working people. As the press of the opposition had been suspended or muzzled, the demonstrations of the Décembriseurs were heralded everywhere by the subsidized papers as bona fide manifestations of popular enthusiasm for Louis Bonaparte, and of an irresistible desire in all classes for an imperial form of government. At the time here referred to by Marx, the Empire was already tottering, and the retired Décembriseurs had been called back on active duty. (See The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, by Karl Marx, translated by Daniel De Leon.)—Note to the American Edition.
