Father: At first they realized enormous profits, but at length they fell into the common poverty.
Son: How did that happen?
Father: Look at that ruin. That was a magnificent man-sion-house surrounded with a beautiful park. If Paris had continued to progress, Master Peter would have realized more interest than his entire capital now amounts to.
Son: How can that be, seeing he has got rid of competition?
Father: Competition in selling has disappeared, but competition in buying has disappeared also, and will continue every day to disappear more and more until Paris becomes a bare field, and until the copses of Master Peter have no more value than the copses of an equal extent of land in the Forest of Bondy. It is thus that monopoly, like every other system of injustice, carries in itself its own punishment.
Son: That appears to me not very clear, but the decadence of Paris is an incontestable fact. Is there no means, then, of counteracting this singular measure that Peter and his colleagues got adopted twenty years ago?
Father: I am going to tell you a secret. I remain in Paris on purpose. I shall call in the people to my assistance. It rests with them to replace the octroi on its ancient basis, and get quit of that fatal principle which was engrafted on it, and which still vegetates there like a parasitical fungus.
Son: You must succeed in this at once.
Father: On the contrary, the work will be difficult and laborious. Peter, Paul, and John understand one another marvellously. They will do anything rather than allow firewood, butter, and butchers' meat to enter Paris. They have on their side the people, who see clearly the employment which these three protected branches of industry afford. They know well to what extent the cowfeeders and wood-merchants give employment to labour; but they have by no means the same exact idea of the labour which would be developed in the open air of liberty.
Son: If that is all, you will soon enlighten them.