'If then things take their course--if no accident, such as a fever or a
pistol-shot, cut him off--public indignation will spread from Paris to
the country, his unpopularity will extend from the people to the army,
and then the first street riot will be enough to overthrow him.'
'And what power,' I said, 'will start up in his place?'
'I trust,' answered Tocqueville, 'that the reins will be seized by the
Senate. Those who have accepted seats in it excuse themselves by saying,
"A time may come when we shall be wanted." Probably the Corps Legislatif
will join them; and it seems to me clear that the course which such
bodies will take must be the proclamation of Henri V.'
'But what,' I said, 'would be the consequences of the pistol-shot or the
fever?'
'The immediate consequence,' answered Tocqueville, 'would be the
installation of his successor. Jerome would go to the Tuileries as easily
as Charles X. did, but it would precipitate the end. We might bear Louis
Napoleon for four or five years, or Jerome for four or five months.'
'It has been thought possible,' I said, 'that in the event of the Jerome
dynasty being overset by a military revolution, it might be followed by a
military usurpation; that Nero might be succeeded by Galba.
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