G. H. I. J. K. Demagogues.
L. A popular leader of superior ingenuity, who becomes ultimately
supreme ruler under the title of Dictator, Consul, Emperor, King,
President, or some other.
Soldiers, Senators, Executioners, and other functionaries, Citizens,
Fishwomen, &c.
_Scene_, Paris.
(1.) The first Act of one of these dramas represents a monarchy,
somewhat troubled by murmurs of disaffection, suspicions of
conspiracy, &c.
(2.) Second Act, a rebellion; in which ultimately the government is
overthrown.
(3.) Act the third, a provisional government established, on
principles of liberty, equality, fraternity, &c.
(4.) Act the fourth, struggles of various parties for power, carried
on with sundry intrigues, and sanguinary conflicts.
(5.) Act the fifth, the re-establishment of some form of absolute
monarchy.
And from this point we start afresh, and begin the same business over
again, with sundry fresh interludes.
All this is highly amusing to the English Public to _hear_ and _read_
of; but I doubt whether our countrymen would like to be actual
_performers_ in such a drama.
Whether the French really are so, or whether they are mystifying us in
the accounts they send over, I will not presume to decide. But if the
former supposition be the true one,--if they have been so long really
acting over and over again in their own persons such a drama, it must
be allowed that they deserve to be characterized as they have been in
the description given of certain European nations: "An Englishman," it
has been said, "is never happy but when he is miserable; a Scotchman
is never at home but when he is abroad; an Irishman is never at peace
but when he is fighting; a Spaniard is never at liberty but when he is
enslaved; and a Frenchman is never settled but when he is engaged in a
revolution."