e, &c.; into what a state of anarchy and
disorder, into what a deluge of blood and evils, would they not have
plunged our unhappy country? On similar occasions, the national will
ought to be the sole guide of our conscience and our actions: the
moment it is manifested, it is the duty of good citizens, to yield and
obey."

"These principles," replied he, "may be very good as a general rule;
but our present case is an exception, never before known. When the
governments, that have existed since the revolution, were overturned,
the new government seized the authority, and it ought to be presumed,
that the assent of the nation was on its side: but here it is a
different affair; the royal government subsists; the Emperor abdicated
voluntarily; and till the king has renounced the crown, I shall
consider him as the sovereign of France."

"If you wait for the king's renunciation," rejoined I, "before you
acknowledge the Emperor, you will wait a long time. Has not the king
pretended, that he has not ceased to reign over France these
five-and-twenty years? And if he thought himself sovereign of France
at a time, when the imperial government was rendered legitimate by the
unanimous suffrages of France, and acknowledged by all Europe, do you
think he will renounce the crown at present?

"The time when kings reigned in virtue of right divine is far removed
from us: their rights are no longer founded on any thing but the
formal or tacit consent of nations: the moment nations reject them,
the contract is broken; the conditional oaths taken to them are
annulled in law and in fact, without their intervention or consent
being necessary; for, as the proclamations of Napoleon say, kings are
made for the people, not the people for kings.

"As to the abdication of Napoleon, whether voluntary or compulsive,
and the rights newly acquired by Louis XVIII., it would be requisite,
in order to answer this part of your objections, to inquire, whether
the chief of a nation have a right to relinquish the authority
entrusted to him, without the consent of that nation; and whether a
government imposed by foreigners, either through influence or force of
arms, unite those characters of legitimacy, which you ascribe to it.
I have read in our publicists, that we owe obedience to a government
_de facto_: and since the Emperor has in fact resumed the sceptre, I
think we cannot do better, than submit to his laws; with the proviso,"
added I jocularly, "of l