United States or Lithuania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He despised the Bourbons and the bourgeoisie alike, and would be satisfied with nothing short of a national chief as irresponsible as Tamerlane; and if he should be as truculent as Tamerlane, it was not difficult to see that M. Romieu would like him all the better for it.
Again, during one of these pauses another voice exclaimed, "Romieu will be a senator." Emile Péan asked, "What will become of the Red Spectre?" "He will enter the priesthood," answered Antony Thouret, "and will turn into the Black Spectre." Other exclamations which the historians of the Second of December have spread abroad were not uttered.
Some of these men, however, were less distinguished for cleverness than for malignity, and shrieked for blood and the display of brute force in terms that would have done dishonor even to a St. Bartholomew assassin or anti-Albigensian crusader. Monsieur Romieu held up Le Spectre Rouge to the eyes of a generation incapable, from fright, of distinguishing between a scarecrow and the Apollo.
There was Romieu the outline of a drunkard behind a Red spectre. There was Malitourne not a bad friend, coarse and sincere. There was Cuch , whose name caused hesitation amongst the ushers at the saloon doors. There was Suin a man able to furnish excellent counsel for bail actions. There was Dr. Veron who had on his cheek what the other men of the Elysée had in their hearts.
This Morny, this Romieu, this Fould, the Jew senator, this Delangle, who bears on his back this placard: JUSTICE! and this Troplong, this judicial glorifier of the violation of the laws, this lawyer apologist of the coup d'état, this magistrate flatterer of perjury, this judge panegyrist of murder, who will go down to posterity with a sponge filled with mud and with blood in his hand.
Had he been a disciple of Marat, his words would have been quoted annually in every abode of civilized men from Sacramento to Astrachan, as evidence of the desire of popular leaders to lap blood. What has become of M. Romieu, and how he took Louis Napoleon's energetic measures for laying the Red Ghost in the blood of aristocrats as well as of democrats, we know not.
These men, whose organ and exponent was M. César Romieu, who called so loudly for cannon to put down the revolutionists, "even if it should come from Russia!" and whose type of perfection is the churchyard, were all fanatical supporters of "the coming man," and they assisted him along the course with all their might and strength.
There wafts across the fetidness of blood an undefined scent of patchouli. The accomplices of this act of brigandage are most agreeable men Romieu, Morny. Getting into debt leads one to commit crimes. Europe was astounded. It was a thunder bolt from a thief. It must be acknowledged that thunder can fall into bad hands, Palmerston, that traitor, approved of it.
We will say, "A noted wit, an intriguer, but in no way austere, a friend of Romieu, and a supporter of Guizot possessing the manners of the world, and the habits of the roulette table, self-satisfied, clever, combining a certain liberality of ideas with a readiness to accept useful crimes, finding means to wear a gracious smile with bad teeth, leading a life of pleasure, dissipated but reserved, ugly, good-tempered, fierce, well-dressed, intrepid, willingly leaving a brother prisoner under bolts and bars, and ready to risk his head for a brother Emperor, having the same mother as Louis Bonaparte, and like Louis Bonaparte, having some father or other, being able to call himself Beauharnais, being able to call himself Flahaut, and yet calling himself Morny, pursuing literature as far as light comedy, and politics, as far as tragedy, a deadly free liver, possessing all the frivolity consistent with assassination, capable of being sketched by Marivaux and treated of by Tacitus, without conscience, irreproachably elegant, infamous, and amiable, at need a perfect duke.
All the local authorities flocked around to pay their respects on the occasion of that first visit, and amongst others the prefect of the department, M. Romieu, who had made himself some celebrity in his youth by reason of a variety of carnival pranks performed in the company of a well-known band of boon companions. I recollect them perfectly well.
Word Of The Day