Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/358

 31G ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1S53 CHAP. they placed thirty-two departments under martial __!._ law ; and since they wanted nothing more than a sheet of paper and a pen and ink in order to place every other department in the same pre- TUe election dicament, it can be said without straining a word, under mar-. . uaiiuw. that potentially, or actually, the whole of France was under martial law. Therefore men voted under the sword. But martial law is only one of the circumstances which constitute the difference between an honest elec- tion and a Plebiscite of the Bonaparte sort. Of course, for all effective action on the part of mul- titudes, some degree of concert is needful ; and on the side of the plotters, using as they did the resistless engine of the executive government, the concert was perfect. To the adversaries of the Elysee all effective means of concerted action were forbidden by Moray and Maupas. Not only could they have no semblance of a public meet- ing, but they could not even venture upon the slightest approach to those lesser gatherings which are needed for men who want to act together. Of course, in these clays, the chief engine for giving concerted and rational action to bodies of men is the Press. But, except for the uses of the Elysde, there was no Tress. All journals hostile to the plot were silenced. Not a word could be printed which was unfavourable to Monsieur Moray's candidate for the dictatorship. Even the printing and distributing of negative voting-tickets was made penal ; and during the ceremony which was called an ' election/ several persons were actually