"We gave him his place, and he must do as we want him to do,"
Such popular reasoning is the most natural in the world. It is as
applicable to the municipal officer wearing his scarf as to the
officer in the National Guard wearing his epaulettes; the former as
well as the latter being conferred by the arbitrary voice of the
electors, and always seeming to them a gift which is revocable at
their pleasure. The superior always, and more particularly in times
of danger or of great public excitement, seems, if directly
appointed by those whom he commands, to be their clerk. - Such is
municipal authority at this epoch, intermittent, uncertain, and
weak; and all the weaker because the sword, whose hilt the men of
the H?tel-de-Ville seem to hold, does not always leave its scabbard
at their bidding. They alone are empowered to summon the National
Guard, but it does not depend on them, and it is not at their
disposal. To obtain its support it is needful that its independent
chiefs should be willing to respond to their requisition; that the
men should willingly obey their elected officers; that these
improvised soldiers should consent to quit their plow, their stores,
their workshops and offices, to lose their day, to patrol the
streets at night, to be pelted with stones, to fire on a riotous
crowd whose enmities and prejudices they often share.
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