und a peasant whose sagacity was as
distinguished as his integrity, whose blunt honesty over-awed and
baffled the refinements of hypocritical patriots. The people of Paris
followed him with acclamations, and the name of Pere Gerard will long be
mentioned with admiration and respect through the eighty-three
departments.

From these hints, if pursued further, might be demonstrated the
expediency of the whole people 'intruding themselves' on the office of
legislation, and the wisdom of putting into force what they may claim as
a right. But government is divided into two parts--the legislative and
executive. The executive power you would lodge in the hands of an
individual. Before we inquire into the propriety of this measure, it
will be necessary to state the proper objects of the executive power in
governments where the principle of universal representation is admitted.
With regard to that portion of this power which is exerted in the
application of the laws, it may be observed that much of it would be
superseded. As laws, being but the expression of the general will, would
be enacted only from an almost universal conviction of their utility,
any resistance to such laws, any desire of eluding them, must proceed
from a few refractory individuals. As far, then, as relates to the
internal administration of the country, a Republic has a manifest
advantage over a Monarchy, inasmuch as less force is requisite to compel
obedience to its laws.

From the judicial tribunals of our own country, though we labour under a
variety of partial and oppressive laws, we have an evident proof of the
nullity of regal interference, as the king's name is confessedly a mere
fiction, and justice is known to be most equitably administered when the
judges are least dependent on the crown.

I have spoken of laws partial and oppressive; our penal code is so
crowded with disproportioned penalties and indiscriminate severity that
a conscientious man would sacrifice, in many instances, his respect for
the laws to the common feelings of humanity; and there must be a strange
vice in that legislation from which can proceed laws in whose execution
a man cannot be instrumental without forfeiting his self-esteem and
incurring the contempt of his fellow-citizens.

But to return from this digression: with regard to the other branches of
the executive government, which relate rather to original measures than
to administering the law, it may be observed that t