All this was sincere: that facility for cutting everything and çoisRenéregretting nothing would have given me great strength, if I had had any ambition.
My diplomatic correspondence with M. Pasquier went on; continuing to occupy myself with the affair of Naples[139], I said:
"Austria is doing a service to the monarchies by destroying the Jacobin edifice in the Two Sicilies; but she would ruin those same monarchies if the result of a salutary and necessary expedition were to be the conquest of a province or the oppression of a people. Naples must be freed from demagogic independence, and monarchical liberty established there; irons must be broken, not chains brought there. But Austria does not desire a constitution in Naples: what will she place there? Men? Where are they? It wants only one Liberal priest and two hundred soldiers for the troubles to begin all over again.
"It is after the voluntary or forced occupation that you must intervene to establish in Naples a constitutional government, under which all social liberties will be respected."
I always preserved a preponderance of opinion in France which obliged me to look at home affairs. I ventured to submit the following plan to my minister:
"Frankly adopt constitutional government.
"Bring in a bill for septennial elections, without aiming at retaining a portion of the present Chamber, which would be suspicious, or keeping the whole, which would be dangerous.
"Give up the laws of exception, a source of arbitrariness, an eternal subject of quarrels and calumnies.
"Free the communes from ministerial despotism."
In my despatch of the 3rd of March, No. 18, I reverted to Spain; I said:
"It may be possible that Spain will soon change her monarchy into a republic: her Constitution must bear its fruit. The King[140] will either fly or be killed or dethroned; he is not strong enough to master the revolution. It is possible again that this same Spain might exist for some time in a popular state, if she were to form herself into federal republics, an aggregation for which she is better suited than any other country by the variety of her kingdoms, her manners, her laws and even her language."
The Naples affair returns three or four times more. On the 6th of March, No. 19, I observe: