"If even the narrow mechanism within which France is çoisRenépinched resembled those finished models which one examines through the magnifying-glass in the collector's cabinet, the delicacy of that curiosity might interest one for a moment; but not at all: it is a small thing badly constructed.
"We have said that the system followed nowadays by the administration offends against the genius of France: we will try to prove that it also disregards the spirit of our institutions.
"The Monarchy has been restored in France without effort, because it has the strength of our whole history, because the crown is worn by a family which has almost seen the nation born, which has formed it, civilized it, which has given it all its liberties, which has made it immortal; but time has reduced that monarchy to its realities. The age of fictions in politics is past: one can no longer have a government of adoration, of cult and of mystery; each one knows his rights; nothing is possible without the limits of reason; and, down to favour, the last illusion of absolute monarchies, everything is weighed, everything valued to-day.
"Let us make no mistake; a new era is commencing for the nations; will it be a happier one? Providence knows. As for us, it is given to us only to prepare ourselves for the exigencies of the future. Let us not imagine that we can go back: our only safety lies in the Charter.
"The Constitutional Monarchy was not born among us of a written system, even though it has a printed Code; it is the daughter of time and of events, like the Old Monarchy of our fathers.
"Why should not liberty maintain herself in the edifice raised by despotism and filled with its traces? Victory, still so to speak decked with the three colours, has taken refuge in the tent of the Duc d'Angoulême; the Legitimacy inhabits the Louvre, even though the eagles be still seen there.
"In a constitutional monarchy, the public liberties are respected; they are considered as the safeguard of the Sovereign, the people and the laws.
"We understand representative government otherwise. A company is being formed (they say even two rival companies, for competition is needful) to corrupt the newspapers with bribes of money. They are not afraid to maintain scandalous prosecutions against proprietors who have refused to sell themselves; they would like to force them to be stigmatized by the sentence of the tribunals. This trade being repugnant to men of honour, they enlist, to support a Royalist ministry, libellers who have persecuted the Royal Family with their calumnies. They recruit all who served in the former police and in the imperial ante-chamber, even as our neighbours, when they wish to procure sailors, send the press-gang into the taverns and disorderly houses. Those convict-crews of free writers are embarked on five or six bought newspapers, and what they say is called 'public opinion' at the Ministers[269]'."