Reflect, too, upon this: for fifty years the Republic and the Empire have filled men's imaginations, the one with its souvenirs of terror, the other with its souvenirs of glory.

Of the Republic men saw only 1793, that is to say, the terrible revolutionary necessity,--the furnace; of the Empire they saw only Austerlitz.

Hence a prejudice against the Republic, and prestige for the Empire.

Now, what is the future of France to be?
is it the Empire?
No, it is the Republic.
It became necessary to reverse that situation, to suppress the prestige of that which cannot be restored, and to suppress the prejudice against that which must be.

Providence did it: it destroyed those two mirages.
February came and took away from the Republic its terror; Louis Bonaparte came and deprived the Empire of its prestige.