This decree, and those that preceded it, were undoubtedly sufficient to testify to the nation the liberal disposition of Napoleon: but no speech from the throne had yet declared with solemnity the positive intentions of the Emperor.
At length he fixed on Sunday, the 26th of March, as the day, on which he would make his new profession of faith in the face of the nation[82].
[Footnote 82: The audience was to take place at noon; and at nine o'clock his Majesty had not prepared his answers. They were dictated in haste, and we had scarcely time to copy them out fairly.]
The ministers, the council of state, the court of cassation, the court of accounts, the imperial court, the prefect, and the municipal council of Paris, were admitted to the foot of the throne.
The prince arch-chancellor, speaking in the name of the ministers, said:
"Sire, Providence, that watches over our destiny, has re-opened to your Majesty the road to that throne, to which you had been raised by the free choice of the people, and the national gratitude. Our country raises its majestic brow, and for the second time salutes with the name of deliverer the prince, who destroyed anarchy, and whose existence alone is at present capable of consolidating our liberal institutions.
"The most just of revolutions, that which will restore to men their dignity, and all their political rights, has hurled from the throne the dynasty of the Bourbons. After five and twenty years of war and troubles, all the efforts of foreigners have proved unable, to awaken affections that are extinct, or wholly unknown to the present generation. The struggle of the interests and prejudices of a few against the enlightened state of the age, and the interests of a great nation, is at length terminated.
"Our destinies are accomplished: the only legitimate cause, the cause of the people, has triumphed. Your Majesty has yielded to the wishes of the French; you have seized anew the reins of the state, amid the benedictions of the people and of the army.
"France, Sire, has as a guarantee of it her will, and her dearest interests; she has as a guarantee of it all that your Majesty has said to the population of the different parts of the country, which assembled in crowds on your passage. Your Majesty will keep your word, you will remember only the services rendered your country; you will prove, that in your eyes, and in your heart, whatever the different opinions and exasperations of parties may have been, all citizens are equal, as they are in the eye of the law.
