I might here allow myself the satisfaction of recalling the names of all the rulers who have fallen shamefully because they submitted basely to be the slaves or the tools of the errors and passions of the democracies it was their duty and their vocation to govern; but I had rather dwell on the memory of those who lived gloriously by resisting them. It is more to my taste to prove the truth by examples of the success which crowns wisdom, than by those of the disasters which attend on folly.
Democratic France owes much to the Emperor Napoleon. He gave her two things of immense value: within, civil order strongly constituted; without, national independence firmly established. But had she ever a government which treated her with greater severity, or showed less complaisance for the favourite passions of Democracy? As to the political constitution of the state, Napoleon’s only care was to raise power from the abasement into which it had fallen, to restore to it all the conditions of force and greatness. In this he saw a national interest paramount to all others, whether the nation were governed democratically or otherwise.
But Napoleon was a despot. If he rightly understood and ably served some of the great interests of that new France he had to govern, he profoundly misunderstood and injured others, not less sacred. How was it possible that one so hostile to liberty should be favourable to the political propensities of Democracy?
I shall not contest this. I run no risk of forgetting that Napoleon was a despot, for I have not to learn it now--I thought so when he was living. It may, however, be asked whether he could have been otherwise? whether he could have tolerated political liberty, and whether we were then in a state to receive it? I shall not attempt to decide these questions. There are men, and very great men, who are suited to certain diseased and transitory crises, and not to the sane and permanent state, of society. Napoleon was, perhaps, one of those men. That he mistook some of the essential wants of our time, nobody is more convinced than I am. But he re-established order and authority in the midst of democratic France. He believed, and he proved, that it was possible to serve and to govern a democratic society without humouring all its inclinations. This is his real greatness.