suffer yet for their crime. Remorse and fear are tormenting them,
and THEY are the best instruments to rule a people with. My God,
what should be done with a nation consisting of none but pure and
virtuous men? It would be perfectly unassailable, while its vices
and foibles are the very things by which we control it. Therefore,
do not blame the people on account of its vices. I love it for the
sake of them, for it is through them that I succeed in subjecting it
to my will. The idea of acting upon men by appealing to their
virtues, is simply preposterous. You must rely on their faults and
crimes, and, owing to the latter, all these fellows whom we
dismissed to-day without punishment have become our property. The
discharged and unpunished criminal is a sbirro--the police has only
to hand him a dagger, and tell him, 'Strike there!' and he will
strike."

"Your excellency believes, then, that even the ringleaders should
not be punished?"

"By no means. Of course some of them should be chastised, in order
to increase the terror of the others. But for God's sake, no public
trials--no public penalties! Wenzel should be secretly arrested and
disposed of. Let him disappear--he and the other ringleaders who
were bold enough to come up here. Let us immure them in some strong,
thick-walled prison, and while the other rioters are vainly
tormenting their heavy skulls by trying to guess what has become of
their leaders, we shall render the latter so pliable and tame by all
kinds of tortures and threats of capital punishment, that when we
finally set them free again, they will actually believe they are in
our debt, and in their gratitude become willing tools in our hands
to be used as we may deem best."