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130      FRENCH  PROPHETS   OF  YESTERDAY

a  dreamer,  a  socialist,  the  champion  of  oppressed  nationalities,
and  a  CaBsarean  democrat :  perhaps  he  saved  more  of  the  ideal
of  1848  than  any  other  regime,  and  especially  a  conseiTative
Republic,  could  have  done.  But  this  was  not  realised  at  the
time.  Napoleon  was  the  elect  of  the  Conservatives ;  his  Coup
d'Etat  was  an  act  of  violence  and  fraud  ;  Republican  leaders
were  imprisoned  or  exiled;  a  craving  for  wealth  and  luxury
became  the  ruling  passion  of  French  society.  Thus  all  those
who  had  hailed  with  joy  the  pure  dawn  of  the  Second  Republic
considered  themselves,  under  the  Second  Empire,  as  defeated,
disowned,  spiritually  exiled.  Lamennais,  in  some  respect  the
master  of  them  all,  a  prophet  twice  fallen,  spent  the  short
remainder  of  his  life  in  obscurity,  until  that  cold  and  misty
day  in  March,  1854,  when,  amid  an  immense  and  sombre
crowd,  between  threatening  lines  of  soldiers,  his  body  was
carried,  unchurched,  to  the  nameless  grave  of  the  poor.
