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There was a distribution of food, as well as sports of all kinds, reminding one of the times of the Roman Emperors: panem et circenses. On the Place de la Concorde had been built four large wooden halls for public balls. The cold was severe; there was a hard frost, but this did not check the universal enjoyment.
The plebeians of the Eternal City are overgrown children badly brought up, and perverted in various ways by their education. The Government, which, being in the midst of them, fears them, treats them mildly. It demands few taxes of them; it gives them shows, and sometimes bread, the panem et circenses prescribed by the Emperors of the Decline.
But the thing this amphitheatre was built for ruined Rome. The taste for brutal pleasure which the emperors encouraged debauched the spirit of the Romans, and deprived them of that traditional virtue of which they had been so proud. Panem et circenses, the giving of bread unworked for, and the making of grand gladiatorial shows for the plebs.
Work is the one title of all acquisition, and all acquisition should be in exact proportion to the amount of work done. This is the basic principle, and it is the principle of the Divine Law: In sudore frontis tuae comedes panem tuum.
But besides supplying panem he also provided circenses to an extent never known even in the days of Louis XV. State aid was largely granted to the chief theatres, where Bonaparte himself was a frequent attendant, and a willing captive to the charms of the actress Mlle. Georges.
The costly extravagance of the Government amidst which the degraded Minister's ostentation was even more conspicuous than that of the Protector himself could have had no other source but plunder, for of legitimate revenue there was scarcely enough to carry on the expenses of the Government certainly none for luxurious ostentation; which, nevertheless, emulated that of the Roman Empire in its worst period but without the "panem et circenses."
The world nowadays is fast drifting from its Christian moorings and taking to the high seas of modern paganism. The outlook on human life is as in the days of Greece and Rome. The old cry: panem et circeuses! is to be found on the lips of our multitudes and reflects the aspirations of their life.
Bonaparte did not say 'panem et circenses', for I believe his knowledge of Latin did not extend even to that well-known phrase of Juvenal, but he put the maxim in practice. He accordingly authorised the revival of balls at the opera, which they who lived during that period of the Consulate know was an important event in Paris.
He could have wished indeed, so far as this went, that Chad were less of a mere cicerone; for he was not without the impression now that the vision of his game, his plan, his deep diplomacy, did recurrently assert itself of his taking refuge from the realities of their intercourse in profusely dispensing, as our friend mentally phrased et panem et circenses.
Consequently, we have not now a man for a deputy. But why should we complain? Does not Paris undertake to live, to think for us? Does she not deign to cast to us, as of yore the Roman Senate cast to the suburban plebeians, our food for the day-bread and vaudevilles 'panem et circenses'. Yes, Monsieur, let us turn from the past to the present to France of to-day!
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