_ BOOK VIII. PROGRESS CONTAINED IN THE COUP D'ETAT
VI. WHAT THE MINISTERS, ARMY, MAGISTRACY, AND CLERGY HAVE DONE
Oh! what a striking thing and how instructive! "_Erudimini_," Bossuet would say.
The Ministers fancied that they were dissolving the Assembly; they dissolved the government.
The soldiers fired on the army and killed it.
The judges fancied that they were trying and convicting innocent persons; they tried and convicted the irremovable magistracy.
The priests thought they were chanting hosannahs upon Louis Bonaparte; they chanted a _De profundis_ upon the clergy. _