"The new state received the name of Public Thing or Republic. Its partisans were called republicanists or republicans. They were also named Thing-mongers and sometimes Scamps, but this latter name was taken in ill part.
The Penguin democracy did not itself govern. It obeyed a financial oligarchy which formed opinion by means of the newspapers, and held in its hands the representatives, the ministers, and the president. It controlled the finances of the republic, and directed the foreign affairs of the country as if it were possessed of sovereign power." (Anatole France, Penguin Island.)