He may jump up from the gutter and shout that he is the man of the moment, without offering any proof of his assertion beyond the loudness of a strident voice.

And if no one listens to him he loses nothing but his breath.
And in France the man who shouts loudest is almost certain to have the largest following.

In England the same does not yet hold good, but the day seems to be approaching when it will.
In France, ever since the great Revolution, men have leapt up from the gutter to grasp the reins of power.

Some, indeed, have sprung from the gutter of a palace, which is no more wholesome, it would appear, than the drain of any street, or a ditch that carries off the refuse of a cheap Press.
There are certain rooms in the north wing of the Louvre, in Paris, rooms having windows facing across the Rue de Rivoli toward the Palais Royal, where men must have sat in the comfortable leather-covered chair of the High Official and laughed at the astounding simplicity of the French people.

But he laughs best who laughs last, and the People will assuredly be amused in a few months, or a few years, at the very sudden and very humiliating discomfiture of a gentleman falling face-foremost into the street or hanging forlornly from a lamp-post at the corner of it.