Cologne, January 20. The "honorable" Joseph Dumont allows an
anonymous writer, who is not paid by him but pays him and who in the feuilleton
seeks to work upon the Primary voters, to address the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
in the following way:

"The Neue Rheinische Zeitung, the Organ of Democracy, has been pleased
to take notice of the articles published in this paper under the title
"To the Primary Voters", and to state that they were borrowed from the
Neue Preussische Zeitung.

"In face of this lie, we simply declare that these articles are paid
for as advertisements, and that, with the exception of the first one borrowed
from the Parlaments-Korrespondenz, they were written in Cologne and their
author has up to now not even seen, let alone read, the Neue Preussische
Zeitung."

We understand how important it is for Montesquieu LVI to authenticate his
property. We also understand how important for Herr Dumont is the statement
that he is "paid" even for the leaflets and advertisements which he sets
up, prints and distributes in the interest of his class, the bourgeoisie.
As for the anonymous writer, he is aware of the French saying: "Les beaux
esprits se rencontrent." It is not his fault that his own intellectual
products and those of the Neue Preussische Zeitung and of the "Prussian
Associations" [113] are as alike as two peas. We have never read his advertisements
in the Kolnische Zeitung, but the leaflets produced by Dumont's printing-house
and sent to us from various quarters, we deemed worthy of a casual glance.
Now, however, comparison has shown us that the same stuff plays the simultaneous
role of advertisement and leaflet.

In order to atone for the injustice we have done to the anonymous
Montesquieu LVI we have imposed upon ourselves the harsh penance of reading
all his advertisements in the Kolnische Zeitung and making his intellectual
private property available to the German public as "common property". Here
is wisdom! Montesquieu LVI is chiefly concerned with the social question.
He has found the "easiest and simplest way" to solve it, and he extols
his Morrison pill with the unctuous, naively shameless pathos of a quack.

"The easiest and simplest way to achieve this however" (that is, the
solution of the social question) "is to accept the constitution imposed
on December 5, 1848, revise it, then make everyone swear allegiance to
it, and thus to establish it. This is our only way to salvation. Consequently,
any man who has a sympathetic heart for the misery of his poor brothers,
who wants to feed the hungry and clothe the naked... anyone, in short,
who wants to solve the social question... should not vote for anyone who
is opposed to the constitution" (Montesquieu LVI).

Vote for Brandenburg, Manteuffel, Ladenberg, and the social question will
be solved in the "simplest" and "easiest way"! Vote for Dumont, Camphausen,
Wittgenstein or else for minor gods such as Compes and Mevissen -- and
the social question will be solved! The "social question" for a vote! He
who "wants to feed the hungry and clothe the naked" should vote for Hansemann
and Stupp! One social question less for each vote! Acceptance of the imposed
constitution -- that is the solution of the social problem!

We do not for a moment doubt that neither Montesquieu LVI nor his patrons
in the Citizens' Associations [154] will wait for the imposed constitution
to be accepted, revised, [155] sworn, and promulgated before "feeding the
hungry and clothing the naked". Appropriate measures have already been
taken.

During the last few weeks circulars have been distributed in which capitalists
inform craftsmen, shopkeepers, and others that, considering the present
state of affairs and the revival of credit, the rate of interest, for philanthropical
reasons, has been raised from 4 to 5 per cent. First solution of the social
question!

The municipal council of Cologne has in the same spirit drawn up a "Worker's Card" for the unfortunate people who must either starve or sell their hands to the city (cf. No. 187 of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung). It will be remembered that under this Charter, imposed on the workers, the worker who has lost his job is bound by contract to place himself under police surveillance. Second solution of the social question!

Shortly after the March events, the municipal council established an
eating-house in Cologne at cost prices, beautifully furnished, with fine
rooms that could be heated, etc. After the imposition of the constitution
other premises were substituted for this, premises managed by the poor-law
administration, where there is no heating, no crockery, where food may
not be consumed on the spot and where a quart of indescribable gruel costs
eight pfennigs. Third solution of the social question!

While they ruled Vienna the workers guarded the banks, the houses and
the wealth of the bourgeois, who had fled. These same bourgeois, on their
return, denounced these workers to Windischgratz as "robbers" who ought
to be hanged. Unemployed who applied to the municipal council were put
into the army to fight Hungary. Fourth solution of the social question!

In Breslau the wretched people who were obliged to seek refuge in the
poor house were calmly exposed to cholera by the municipal council and
the government who deprived them of the most essential physical necessaries
of life, and took notice of the victims of their cruel charity only when
they themselves were attacked by the disease. Fifth solution of the social
question!

In the Berlin association "with God for King and Country", a supporter
of the imposed constitution declared that it was distressing that in order
to further one's interests and plans one still had to pay compliments to
the "proletariat".

That is the solution of the "solution of the social question"!

"The Prussian spies are so dangerous because they are never paid but
are always hoping to be paid," says our friend Heine. And the Prussian
bourgeois are so dangerous because they never pay but always promise to
pay.

An election costs the English and French bourgeois quite a lot of money.
Their corrupt practices are well known. The Prussian bourgeoisie are very
shrewd! They are much too virtuous and upright to dip into their pocket;
they pay with the "solution of the social question". And that costs nothing.
Montesquieu LVI, however, as Dumont officially assures us, pays at least
for the advertisements in the Kolnische Zeitung and appends -- gratis --
the solution of the "social question".

The practical part of our Montesquieu's petites oeuvres thus boils
down to the following: vote for Brandenburg, Manteuffel, Ladenberg! Elect
Camphausen and Hansemann! Send us to Berlin, let our people establish themselves
there. That is the solution of the social question.

The immortal Hansemann has solved these problems. First, the establishment
of law and order to revive credit. Then, the solution of the "social question"
with powder and shot, as in 1844, when "my dear Silesian weavers ought
to be helped".

Hence, vote for the advocates of the imposed constitution!

But Montesquieu LVI accepts the imposed constitution only to be able
afterwards to "revise" and "swear allegiance to it"! Montesquieu, my good
man! Once you have accepted the constitution you can revise it only on
its own basis, that is, in so far as it suits the King and the second Chamber
consisting of country squires, financial magnates, high-ranking officials
and clerics. The only possible revision has been judiciously indicated
in the imposed constitution itself. It consists in abandoning the constitutional
system and restoring the former Christian-Germanic system of estates.

After the acceptance of the imposed constitution this is the only
possible and only permitted revision, which cannot have escaped the shrewd
Montesquieu.

Thus the essays of Montesquieu LVI, in their practical part, amount
to this: vote for Hansemann and Camphausen! Vote for Dumont and Stupp!
Vote for Brandenburg and Manteuffel! Accept the imposed constitution! Elect
delegates who accept the imposed constitution -- and all this under the
pretext of solving the "social question".

What the hell does the pretext matter to us, when it is a question of
the imposed constitution.

But our Montesquieu of course prefaces his practical instructions for
the solution of "the social question", the quintessence of his monumental
work, with a theoretical part. Let us examine this theoretical part. The
profound thinker explains first what the "social questions" are.

"And so, what, in effect, is the social question?

"Human beings must and want to live.

"To live they need dwellings, clothes and food.

"Dwellings and clothes are not produced by nature at all, and
only a scanty and by no means sufficient amount of food grows naturally.

"Hence man himself must procure everything to satisfy these needs.

"This he does by labor.

"Labor, therefore, is the first condition of our life; without labor
we cannot live.

"Among primitive peoples everybody built his own hut, made his own clothes
from animal skins and gathered fruit for his meals. That was the primitive
state.

"But if man needs nothing beyond shelter, clothes and food, if he satisfies
merely his physical wants, then he remains at the same level as the animals,
for animals can do this too.

"But man is a higher being than an animal, he needs more, he needs joy,
he must raise himself to moral values. But he can do that only if he lives
in society.

"But when men began to live in societies entirely new conditions arose.
They soon perceived that work was much easier when each individual performed
only one particular job. Thus, one made clothes, another built houses,
a third provided food, and the first gave the second what he lacked. The
various estates of men thus developed automatically, one becoming a hunter,
another a craftsman, and a third a cultivator. But men did not stop at
this, for humanity must go forward. People began to invent. They invented
spinning and weaving, they learned to forge iron and tan hides. The more
inventions were made the more diverse did the crafts become, and the easier
did farming become with the aid of the plough and spade which the handicrafts
gave it. All helped each other and co-operated. Then intercourse started
with neighboring peoples; one people had what the other needed, and the
latter possessed things which the former lacked. These were exchanged.
Thus trading arose, that is, a new branch of human activity. Thus culture
advanced step by step; from the first clumsy inventions through the centuries
down to the inventions of our day.

"Thus, science and art arose among men and life became richer and more
varied... The physician treated the sick, the clergyman preached, the merchant
traded, the farmer tilled the land, the gardener grew flowers, the mason
built houses, for which the carpenter made the furniture, the miller ground
flour from which the baker baked bread. Everything was interconnected,
no one could live in isolation, nobody could satisfy all his needs himself.

"These are the social relations.

"They have arisen quite naturally of their own accord. And if
today you make a revolution which destroys the very foundations of these
relations, and if tomorrow you start life anew, then relations exactly
the same as the Present ones will arise again. This was so for thousands
of years among all the nations on earth. And if anyone draws a distinction
between the workers and the bourgeoisie this is a big lie. We all work,
each in his own way, each according to his strength and abilities. The
physician works when he visits the sick, the musician when he plays a dance
tune, the merchant when he writes his letters. Everyone works, each at
his job."

Here is wisdom! He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

What, then, in effect is the physiological question? Every material
being presupposes a certain weight, density, etc.

Every organic body consists of various component parts, each of which
performs its own special function, and reciprocal interaction takes place
between the organs.

"These are physiological relations."

Montesquieu LVI cannot be denied an original talent for simplifying
science. He ought to be granted a patent (without government guarantee).

The products of labor cannot be produced without labor. One cannot reap
without sowing, one cannot have yarn without weaving, etc. Europe will
bend in admiration before the great genius who here, in Cologne, without
any aid from the Neue Preussische Zeitung has himself brought these truths
to light.

In their work men enter into certain relations with one another. There
takes place a division of labor which may be more or less diversified.
One person bakes, another forges one person agitates, another howls, [156]
Montesquieu writes and Dumont prints. Adam Smith, acknowledge thy master!

The discoveries that labor and the division of labor are essential
conditions of every human society enable Montesquieu LVI to draw the conclusion
that the existence of "various estates" is quite natural, that the distinction
between "bourgeoisie and proletariat" is a "big lie", that even if a "revolution"
were completely to destroy the existing "social relations" today, "relations
exactly the same as the present ones will arise again", and finally that
for anyone who has "a sympathetic heart for the misery of his poor brothers"
and who wishes to gain the respect of Montesquieu LVI, it is absolutely
necessary to elect delegates in keeping with the ideas of Manteuffel and
the imposed constitution.

"This was so for thousands of years among all the nations on earth"!!
In Egypt there was labor and division of labor -- and castes; in Greece
and Rome labor and division of labor-and free men and slaves; in the Middle
Ages labor and division of labor -- and feudal lords and serfs, guilds,
estates, etc. In our day there is labor and division of labor -- and classes,
one of which owns all means of production and all means of subsistence,
while the other lives only so long as it sells its labor, and it sells
its labor only so long as the employing class enriches itself by purchasing
this labor.

Is it not obvious, therefore, that "for thousands of years the same
conditions existed among all the nations on earth" as in Prussia today,
since labor and division of labor always existed in one form or another?
Or is it, on the contrary, not evident that it is the continuously changing
method of labor and division of labor which is constantly transforming
social relations and property relations?

In 1789 the bourgeois did not tell feudal society that an aristocrat
should remain an aristocrat, a serf a serf and a guildsman a guildsman
-- because there is no society without labor and division of labor. There
is no life without breathing of air. Hence, argues Montesquieu LVI, breathe
the stuffy air and do not open any window.

One must possess the naively clumsy insolence of a German imperial philistine
grown grey in crass ignorance to contribute oracular pronouncements upon
problems on which our century is breaking its teeth, after having rammed
the first elements of political economy -- labor and division of labor
-- in a superficial and distorted manner his inert head.

"There is no society without labor and the division of labor.

"Hence

"Elect advocates of the imposed Prussian constitution, and only advocates
of the imposed constitution, as delegates."

This epitaph will be inscribed in large letters on walls of the magnificent
marble mausoleum which a grateful posterity will feel obliged to erect
for Montesquieu LVI (not to be confused with Henry CCLXXXIV of Reuss-Schleiz-Greiz-Lobenstein-Eberswalde
[An allusion to Henry LXXII, Prince of Reuss-Lobenstein-Ebersdorf. -- Ed.])
who solved the social question.

Montesquieu LVI does not conceal from us "where the difficulty lies"
and what he intends to do as soon as he is proclaimed a lawgiver.

"The state," he teaches, "must see to it that everybody receives sufficient
education to be able to learn something useful in this world.'

Montesquieu LVI has never heard that under existing conditions the division
of labor replaces complex labor by simple labor, the labor of adults by
that of children, the labor of men by that of women, the labor of the independent
workers by automatons; that, with the development of modern industry, the
education of workers becomes unnecessary and impossible. We refer the Montesquieu
of Cologne neither to Saint- Simon nor to Fourier but to Malthus and Ricardo.
This worthy should first acquaint himself with the rudiments of present-day
conditions before trying to improve them and making oracular utterances.

"The community must take care of people who have been reduced to poverty
as a result of illness or old age."

And if the community itself is reduced to poverty which will be the inevitable
result of the 100-million tax and the recurrent imposition of martial law
together with the new constitution?

"When new inventions or commercial crises destroy entire industries
the state must come to their assistance and find remedies."

Though he may be little versed in the things of this world, it can hardly
have escaped the Montesquieu of Cologne that "new inventions" and commercial
crises are features just as permanent as Prussian ministerial decrees and
legal basis. New inventions, especially in Germany, are only introduced
when competition with other nations makes it vital to introduce them; and
should the newly arising branches of industry be expected to ruin themselves
in order to render assistance to the declining ones. The new industries
that come into being as a result of inventions come into being precisely
because they can produce more cheaply than the declining industries. What
the deuce would be the advantage if they had to feed the declining industries?
But it is well known that the state, the government, only seems to give.
It has to be given first in order to give. But who should do the giving,
Montesquieu LVI? The declining industry, so that it decline even faster?
Or the rising industry, so that it wither on the stem? Or those industries
that have not been affected by the new inventions, so that they go bankrupt
because of the invention of a new tax? Think it over carefully, Montesquieu
LVI!

And what about the commercial crises, my dear man? When a European commercial
crisis occurs the Prussian state is above all anxious to extract the last
drops, by means of distraint, etc., from the usual sources of revenue.
Poor Prussian state! In order to neutralize the effect of commercial crises,
the Prussian state would have to possess, in addition to national labor,
a third source of income in Cloud- Cuckoo-Land. If royal New-Year's greetings,
Wrangel's army orders or Manteuffel's ministerial decrees could indeed
conjure up money, then the "refusal to Pay taxes" would not have caused
such panic among the Prussian "trusty and well-beloved subjects", and the
social question, too, would have been solved without an imposed constitution.

It will be remembered that the Neue Preussische Zeitung called
our Hansemann a communist because he intended to do away with exemption
from taxation. In Cologne our Montesquieu, who has never read the Neue
Preussische Zeitung, has all by himself conceived the idea of calling everyone
a "communist" and "red republican" who endangers the imposed constitution.
Therefore, vote for Manteuffel, or you are not only personal enemies of
labor and the division of labor, but also communists and red republicans.
Acknowledge Bruggemann's latest "legal basis" or renounce the Code Civil.
[157] Figaro, tu n'aurais pas trouve ca! More about Montesquieu LVI tomorrow.

Cologne, January 21. With the sly petty cunning of an experienced
horse-dealer, Montesquieu LVI seeks to sell the "gift horse", the imposed
constitution, to the primary voters. He is the Montesquieu of the horse-fair.

Anyone not wanting the imposed constitution wants a republic,
and not just a republic, but a red republic! Unfortunately, the issue in
our elections is least of all a republic, or a red republic; it is simply
this:

Do you want the old absolutism together with a refurbished system
of social estates, or do you want a bourgeois system of representation?
Do you want a political constitution in keeping with the "existing social
relations" of past centuries, or do you want a political constitution in
keeping with the "existing social relations" of your century?

In this case, therefore, it is least of all a matter of fighting
against bourgeois property relations similar to the struggle that is taking
place in France and is in the offing in England; rather it is a question
of a struggle against a political constitution which endangers "bourgeois
property relations" by surrendering the helm of state to the representatives
of "feudal property relations", to the King by the grace of God, the army,
the bureaucracy, the country squires, and a few financial magnates and
philistines who are allied with them.

Beyond a doubt, the imposed constitution has solved the social
question in keeping with the views of these gentlemen.

What is the "social question" as understood by the civil servant?
It is the maintenance of his salary and his present position, which is
superior to the people.

What is the "social question" as understood by the nobility and
its big landowners? It is the maintenance of the hitherto existing feudal
rights of the landowners, seizure of the most lucrative posts in the army
and civil service by the families of the landed nobility, and finally direct
alms from the public purse. Apart from these palpable material and therefore
"most sacred" interests of the gentlemen "with God for King and Country",
it is for them, of course, also a question of preserving those social privileges
which distinguish their species from the inferior species of the bourgeois,
peasants and plebeians. The old National Assembly was dispersed because
it dared to touch these c 4 most sacred interests". As we have already
indicated, these gentlemen, by "revision" of the imposed constitution,
understand simply the introduction of a system of social estates, that
is to say, a form of political constitution representing the "social" interests
of the feudal aristocracy, the bureaucracy and the monarchy by the grace
of God.

We repeat, there is not the slightest doubt that the imposed constitution
solves the "social question" according to the ideas of the aristocracy
and bureaucracy, in other words, it presents these gentlemen with a form
of government which ensures the exploitation of the people by these demigods.

But has the imposed constitution solved the "social question"
from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie? In other words, does the bourgeoisie
receive a political form enabling it freely to run matters concerning its
class as a whole, i.e., the interests of commerce, industry and agriculture,
to make the most productive use of public funds, to manage the state apparatus
as cheaply as possible, to protect national labor effectively abroad, and
within the country to open up all springs of national wealth silted by
feudal mud?

Does history provide a single example showing that under a king
imposed by the grace of God, the bourgeoisie ever succeeded in attaining
a form of government in keeping with its material interests?

In order to establish a constitutional monarchy it was twice compelled
to get rid of the Stuarts in Britain, and the hereditary Bourbons in France
and to expel William of Orange from Belgium. [158]

What is the reason?

A hereditary king by the grace of God is not a particular individual
but the physical representative of the old society within the new society.
Political power in the hands of a king by the grace of God is political
power in the hands of the old society existing now merely as a ruin; it
is political power in the hands of the feudal estates, whose interests
are profoundly antagonistic to those of the bourgeoisie.

But it is the "King by the grace of God" who forms the basis of
the imposed constitution.

Just as the feudal strata of society regard the monarchy by divine right
as their political apex, so does the monarchy by divine right regard the
feudal estates as its social foundation, the well-known "monarchical wall".

Therefore, whenever the interests of the feudal lords and of the
army and bureaucracy controlled by them clash with the interests of the
bourgeoisie, the monarchy by divine right will invariably be impelled to
a coup d'etat and a revolutionary or counter-revolutionary crisis will
arise.

Why was the National Assembly ejected? Only because it upheld
the interests of the bourgeoisie as against the interests of feudalism;
because it wanted to abolish feudal relations, which impede agriculture,
to subordinate the army and bureaucracy to trade and industry, to stop
the squandering of public funds and abolish aristocratic and bureaucratic
titles.

All these matters chiefly and directly affected the interests of the
bourgeoisie.

Thus, coup d'etats and counter-revolutionary crises are vital to the
existence of the monarchy by the grace of God, which the March and similar
events compelled to eat humble pie and reluctantly to accept a pseudo-bourgeois
monarchy.

Can credit ever revive again under a form of government whose inevitable
climax are coup d'etats, counter-revolutionary crises and states of siege?

What a delusion!

Bourgeois industry must burst the chains of absolutism and feudalism.
A revolution against both only demonstrates that bourgeois industry has
reached a level when it must either secure an appropriate political form
or perish.

The system of bureaucratic tutelage consolidated by the imposed
constitution spells death for industry. It is sufficient to look at the
Prussian administration of mines, the factory regulations, etc. When an
English manufacturer compares his costs of production. with those of a
Prussian manufacturer, he will always first of all note the time losses
which the Prussian manufacturer incurs because he has to observe bureaucratic
rules.

What sugar-refiner does not remember the Prussian trade agreement
with the Netherlands in 1839? [159] What Prussian factory owner does not
blush at the memory of 1846, when the Prussian government in deference
to the Austrian government banned exports to Galicia for a whole province,
and when one bankruptcy after another occurred in Breslau the Prussian
government declared with astonishment that it had had no idea that so important
an export trade was carried with Galicia, etc.!

Men of the same type are placed at the helm of state by the imposed
constitution, and this "gift" itself comes from the same men. Consequently,
examine it twice.

The Galicia adventure draws our attention to another point.

At that time the counter-revolutionary Prussian government in
league with Austria and Russia sacrificed Silesian industry and Silesian
trade. This maneuver will be constantly repeated. The banker of the Prussian-Austrian-Russian
counter-revolution, from which the monarchy by the grace of God with its
monarchical walls will always have to seek outside support, is England.
The same England is German industry's most dangerous opponent. These two
facts, we believe, speak for themselves.

At home, an industry fettered by bureaucracy and an agriculture
fettered by feudal privileges; abroad, a trade sold by the counter-revolution
to England -- such is the fate of Prussia's national wealth under the aegis
of the imposed constitution.

The report of the "Financial Commission" of the dispersed National
Assembly has thrown sufficient light on the divine management of national
wealth.

The report however mentions only by way of example the sums taken
from the treasury to support the tottering monarchical walls and gild foreign
pretenders to the absolute monarchy (Don Carlos). But this money, purloined
from the pockets of the rest of the citizens to enable the aristocracy
to live in appropriate style and to keep the "pillars" of the feudal monarchy
well buttressed, is only of secondary importance compared with the state
budget imposed simultaneously with Manteuffel's constitution. The main
features of the imposed state budget are, first of all, a strong army to
enable the minority to rule the majority; as large an army as possible
of officials so that as many of them as possible, by virtue of their private
interests, are alienated from the common interest; unproductive employment
of public funds in order that wealth, as the Neue Preussische Zeitung says,
should not make the subjects presumptuous; immobilization wherever possible
of public funds instead of employing them in industry in order that at
predictable moments of crisis the government by divine right independently
confront the people. The basic principle of the imposed Prussian constitution
is to use the taxes for maintaining the state as an oppressive, independent
and sacred force contraposed to industry, commerce and agriculture, instead
of degrading it by turning it into a profane tool of bourgeois society.

The gift is worthy of the donor. The constitution is of a piece
with the present Prussian government that presented it. To get an idea
of this government's hostility towards the bourgeoisie it is sufficient
to point to its proposed trade regulations. On the pretext of advancing
towards association the government attempts to return to the guild system.
Competition compels the manufacturer to produce as cheaply as possible
and therefore on a constantly increasing scale, i.e., with more capital,
with a continuously expanding division of labor and constantly increasing
use of machinery. Every new division of labor depreciates the traditional
skill of the craftsmen, every new machine ousts hundreds of workers, production
on a - larger scale, that. is, with more capital, ruins small trade and
petty-bourgeois enterprise. The government promises to protect the handicrafts
against the factories, acquired skills against division of labor, and small
capital against big capital, by means of feudal guild practices. Thus,
the German nation, particularly the Prussian, which is barely able to withstand
English competition, is to become its defenseless prey, forced to accept
a form of trade organization that is incompatible with modern means of
production and is already burst wide open by modern industry.

We are certainly the last people to desire the rule of the bourgeoisie.
We were the first in Germany to raise our voice against the bourgeoisie
when today's "men of action" were spending their time complacently in petty
squabbles.

But we say to the workers and the petty bourgeois: it is better
to suffer in the contemporary bourgeois society, whose industry creates
the means for the foundation of a new society that will liberate you all,
than to revert to a bygone society, which, on the pretext of saving your
classes, thrusts the entire nation back into medieval barbarism.

But medieval estates and conditions are, as we have seen, the
social foundation of the government by the grace of God. This government
is unsuitable for modern bourgeois society. It necessarily tries to create
a society in its own image. It is entirely consistent, when it attempts
to replace free competition by the guild system, mechanical spinning by
the spinning-wheel and the steam plough by the hoe.

Why is it then that, under these circumstances, the Prussian bourgeoisie,
in contrast to its French, English and Belgian predecessors, proclaims
as its shibboleth the imposed constitution (and with it the monarchy by
divine right, the bureaucracy and the landowning nobility)?

The commercial and industrial sections of the bourgeoisie throw
themselves into the arms of the counter- revolution for fear of the revolution.
As though counter-revolution were not the overture to revolution.

There is moreover a section of the bourgeoisie that, quite indifferent
to the interests of its class as a whole, pursues its own particular interests,
which may even be inimical to those of its class.

These are financial magnates, big creditors of the state, bankers,
and rentiers, whose wealth increases proportionately to the poverty of
the people, and finally men whose business depends on the old political
structure, e.g., Dumont and his literary lumpenproletariat. These are also
ambitious professors, lawyers and similar persons, who can only hope to
obtain respectable posts in a state where betrayal of the people's interests
to the government is a lucrative business.

These are certain manufacturers who do well out of their transactions
with the government; contractors whose considerable profits depend on the
general exploitation of the people; philistines who would lose their importance
if political life were conducted on a larger scale; local councilors who
under cover of the old institutions arrange their private shady affairs
at the expense of the public; oil-merchants who at the price of their betrayal
of the revolution have become Excellencies and Knights of the Eagle; bankrupt
cloth-merchants and speculators in railway-shares who have become royal
bank directors, [160] etc., etc.

"It is they who are the advocates of the imposed constitution."
If the bourgeoisie has a sympathetic heart for these poor brothers and
if it wants to be worthy of the respect of Montesquieu LVI, then it should
elect delegates in keeping with the imposed constitution.