682 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1804. 



of this blessing. If a pure repub- 

 lic had been possible in France, we 

 cannot doubt that you would have 

 wished to have had the honour of 

 establisliina; it ; and if it were pos- 

 sible, Me should never be exone- 

 rated from the guilt of not having 

 proposed it to a man having power 

 sufhcient to realise the idea of it ; 

 personally great enough not to need 

 a sceptre, and generous enough to 

 sacrifice his own interests to the in- 

 terests of his country. Though, 

 like Lycurgus, you should have to 

 banish yourself from that country, 

 ■which you would have organised, 

 you would not have hesitated. 

 Your profound meditations have 

 been more than once direrted to this 

 great problem ; but this problem 

 "was not to be solved even by your 

 genius. Superficial minds, struck 

 with the ascendancy Avhich so much 

 success and glory so happily acquir- 

 ed for you over the spirit of the na- 

 tion, have fancied that you had it in 

 youT power to give it at discretion a 

 popular government or a monarchi- 

 cal regime. There was no medium : 

 not a soul wished for aristocracy in 

 France : but the legislature ought 

 to take men such as they are, and to 

 give them, not the most perfect laM'S 

 that could be devised, but, like So- 

 lon, the best they can bear. Though 

 the chisel of a great artist forms at 

 pleasure out of a block of marble 

 either a tripod or a god, the body 

 of a nation cannot be modelled on 

 the same principle. It is true, sire, 

 that your life is a tissue of prodi- 

 gies : but though you might have 

 bent the nature of things and the 

 character of men to such a pitch, 

 as to cast the masses of France once 

 into the mould of democracy, this 

 Monder would have been but a tran- 

 sient illuMon : should Me have con- 



curred in it, we should only hare 

 forged chains for posterity. — When 

 our representatives, placed on the 

 ruins of the throne, believed they 

 could establish a republic, their in- 

 tentions Mere pare : before sad ex- 

 perience released them from the en- 

 chantment, they sincerely worship- 

 ped thatdelasive phantom which they 

 took for equality. We can speak 

 of an error by which mc had been 

 dazzled for a moment. Alas! who 

 could avoid it? The popular tor- 

 n-^it hurried along the most indiffe- 

 rent in spite of themselves. ' It is 

 said, that the ancient Persians, in 

 order to convince the people of the 

 terrible danger of an abuse of liber- 

 ty, used to employ a very extraor- 

 dinary custom : they used to inocu- 

 late themselves for a short time with 

 the plague of political bodies. When 

 any of their kings died, five days 

 were spent in anarchy without au- 

 thority or laMS. Licentiousness Mas 

 neither restrained then nor punish- 

 ed afterMards ; they were five days 

 given up to the spirit of vengeance, 

 to excess, to violence, in a Mord, 

 they Mere five days of revolution. 

 This proof, it is said, used to make 

 the people return with much joy to 

 submission to their prince. After 

 fluctuations more terrible than those 

 of a troubled sea, it was thought 

 that an infallible remedy had been 

 discovered for popular convulsions 

 in a polygarchy. The depositing 

 of authority in the hands of many, 

 M^as better than the absence or the 

 dispersion of this authority : but 

 difi'cring spirits, and opposite wills 

 could not be included in the same 

 body, as th» Manicheans used to 

 place tM'o contrary principles at the 

 head of the universe. The strug- 

 gle betMcen those two principles 

 Mould hare annihilated France, if I 



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