If you
were to double the population of Paris, therefore, it would still be
proportionally less than that of London.'
'That is true,' said Tocqueville, 'but yet there are many circumstances
connected with the Parisian population each of which renders it more
dangerous than the London one. In the first place, there is the absence
of any right to relief. The English workman knows that neither he nor his
family can starve. The Frenchman becomes anxious as soon as his
employment is irregular, and desperate when it fails. The English workmen
are unacquainted with arms, and have no leaders with military experience.
The bulk of the Frenchmen have served, many of them are veterans in civil
war, and they have commanders skilled in street-fighting. The English
workmen have been gradually attracted to London by a real and permanent
demand for their labour. They have wives and children. At least 100,000
men have been added to the working population of Paris since the _coup
d'etat._ They are young men in the vigour of their strength and passions,
unrestrained by wives or families. They have been drawn hither suddenly
and artificially by the demolition and reconstruction of half the town,
by the enormous local expenditure of the Government, and by the fifty
millions spent in keeping the price of bread in Paris unnaturally low.
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