(Following months of revolutionary activities throughout France and Europe, the National Assembly adopted a constitution in November 1848. Scarcely three years later, Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’état was soon followed by another constitution establishing the Second Empire.)
The Mayor: “We will have the Constitution…”
Big Pierre: “Bah! I’m not afraid of such maladies, cholera has come along and I haven’t caught it.”
(Le Charivari, Paris, 1848)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 