Guizot to prevent even the discussion of the
reform question that was the occasion, though not the cause, of the
Revolution of 1848. No sooner had the Republic been established than the
Royalists began to conspire against its existence, while the Republicans
themselves were far from being united, the _Reds_ hating the _Blues_
quite as intensely as they hated the _Whites_, or old Royalists; and
beyond even the _Reds_ were large numbers of men who, for the lack of a
more definite name, have been called Socialists, who wanted something as
vehemently as Brutus desired his purposes, but who would probably have
been much puzzled to say what that something was, had the question been
put to them by the agent of a power willing and able to gratify their
wish.
It was into such a political chaos as this that Louis Napoleon found
himself plunged in 1848. He had a difficult part to fill; and that he
did not succeed in satisfying most of those who had been most prominent
in elevating him was inevitable from the discrepancy between his views
of his position and their views of it.
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