thinks aright in the delirium of opinions and in the subversion of every relation, will endeavour only to save the law; it is thus that all which is legitimate forms itself and prospers. Let us not call wholly pure (plein pur) those who render homage only to certain relations: in this case, either all parties are right, or all are wrong. An individual can neither arrest the flight of time nor drive back the wheel of destiny; but however great may be the power of the time which agitates all and embroils all, he ought and he will be able to hold fast to the law, which is the strongest anchor in the storm.

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Without doubt, he who does not know what a revolution is, and how, after having been long fermenting, it has at last burst in France with irresistible force; he also who is unable to distinguish its different phases, each in itself and all as concatenated; he, in fine, who will not distinguish those who have taken part in the revolution through egotism or fanaticism,

to render themselves masters of it, in order that they might direct its progress and might give it such a form as should suit them, from those who, seized and hurried along by it, have committed themselves to the mercy of the torrent, or from those finally who, placed in the midst of its furies have resisted it with circumspection to preserve that which alone could be preserved-the law of all social order, obedience and liberty, by the means and within the pale of a constitution :—such a person will confound all, the cause and the effect, necessity and spontaneousness, the instrument and its mover; he will confound the fury of anarchists with the efforts of ener gy, the frenzy of fanatics with the transports of sentiment, and the obstinacy of force with the moderation of presence of mind; to him it will be equal whether he condemns the Marats or the Mirabeaus, the Robespierres or the Condorcets, the Dantons or the Carnots and the Fouchés: he condemns them all.

The Nation and the Constitution ought to be only one body, or to become so. It is that unity which is the grand problem of all government. But if the government confound that unity with identity, it mistakes its nature and is itself the destroyer ofits own work. This too well known expression of Louis XIV-the state is myself!" contains the secret of the origin of the French revolution. This expression put into action, separated, long before the catastrophe, the nation from the state; it destroyed unity by identity. The nation enlightened as it was, began to see with its own eyes, to think, and at last to act. Such is the cause which detached it from the throne, which long before it fell to the ground, had no longer any solid foundation.

The revolution appeared. Its terrible motto, "the people are the sovereign, the nation is the state," laid down the principle opposed to that which Richelieu had attempted to promulgate, and which the cabinet of Louis

XIV had established. As the leaders of the revolution acted in the spirit of that motto, the revolution advanced.

Wise men recognized the essence of all organic law-the unity of the nation and of the state. They endeavoured to re-establish it by the constitution, at first in the monarchy of 1791! but, unchained, the fury of the passions destroyed their work, afterwards in the republic; but it was again the passions which destroyed it; lastly in the consolidation of the supreme power, which produced the consulate, but this, abandoned to the passions of its chief, perished by ambition.

It was then that an approach was made to the monarchy, and the constitutional charter interceded, as the mediatrix of unity, between the nation and the constitution, in the person of Louis XVIII.; but it is still this charter which passion and hatred surround.

There have been but a small number who have recognized the powerful demon which

since 1791 has made so many plans miscarry -the demon of the passions. They have tried to subjugate it by unity under whatever form it presented itself; but they have succeeded. only for moments. Among that small number we think we may reckon the Duke of Otranto.

When he entered into public life amidst the storm of the most furious passions, the republic already existed. It was not he who had established it; but it was his wish, it was his duty to obey it, because it existed. Surrounded like all his fellow citizens by the influence of his times, he has lived in a brazen age. The death of Louis XVI. was the greatest misfortune of the general perversion.

He who has never felt the melancholy fatality of that time, fury within, war without, will alone dare to condemn men who, circumscribed around, could not appease the effervescence of the public mind, until familiarised with peril, they felt sufficient strength