Quote from Louis-Napoléon in his published book Des idées napoléoniennes (1839), nine years before the Revolutions of 1848.
Friends of liberty, who have rejoiced at the downfall of Napoleon, your error has been fatal! How many tedious years must pass, how many struggles and sacrifices must be gone through and suffered, before you will arrive again at the point to which Napoleon had advanced you!
And you, statesmen of the Congress of Vienna, who have been masters of the world, while standing upon the ruins of the Empire you might have played a splendid part, but you did not comprehend it! You have aroused the people in the name of liberty, and even of license, against Napoleon; you have put him under the ban of Europe as a despot and a tyrant; you claim to have delivered the nations and assured their repose. They for a moment have believed you; but nothing solid and permanent can be built upon falsehood and error. Napoleon had closed the gulf of revolutions; you, overthrowing him, have reopened it.
Take care that the gulf does not swallow you up!
