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It would be as unjust as it would be ungenerous to offer this, or any thing approaching to it, as an unexaggerated picture of the French people; yet the degree in which they do participate in this type of character has caused representative government by a limited class to break down by excess of corruption, and the attempt at representative government by the whole male population to end in giving one man the power of consigning any number of the rest, without trial, to Lambessa or Cayenne, provided he allows all of them to think themselves not excluded from the possibility of sharing his favors.
There is no evidence of the land ever having been more productive or more attractive than it is at present; and yet at Lambessa, a few miles from Batna, you find the ruins of a once great and magnificent Roman city, while even as far south as Biskra itself there are still to be seen relics of this great conquering nation of antiquity. But to return to El Kantra.
Profession. A sharp fellow. Goes to the Café. Reads the papers. Speaks. Dangerous. The accusation was laconic. The judgment was still less prolix. It was a simple sign. The bill of indictment having been examined, the judges having been consulted, the colonel took a pen, and put at the end of the accusing line one of three signs: + o signified consignment to Lambessa.
+ signified transportation to Cayenne. o signified acquittal. While this justice was at work, the man on whose case they were working was sometimes still at liberty, he was going and coming at his ease; suddenly they arrested him, and without knowing what they wanted with him, he left for Lambessa or for Cayenne. His family was often ignorant of what had become of him.
It is, indeed, surprising, that so sagacious and parental a government as that of Napoleon the Third, may His Majesty be long preserved for the civilization of France, the peace of Europe, and the glory of mankind in general! it is surprising, that his all-providing and all-foreseeing government has not long ago discovered how the craving of the national stomach for food, and of the popular mind for political purification, might be stilled by no longer transporting political offenders and suspects to French Guiana or Lambessa, where they uselessly and ignobly perish, but by sentencing them, instead, to the enviable lot of making a feast for their brethren.
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