ould occupy the attention of
a monarchical government. Elective power extended to all gives us
government by the masses, the only irresponsible form of government,
under which tyranny is unlimited, for it calls itself law. Besides, I
regard the family and not the individual as the true social unit. In
this respect, at the risk of being thought retrograde, I side with
Bossuet and Bonald instead of going with modern innovators. Since
election has become the only social instrument, if I myself were to
exercise it no contradiction between my acts and my words should be
inferred. An engineer points out that a bridge is about to fall, that it
is dangerous for any one to cross it; but he crosses it himself when it
is the only road to the town. Napoleon adapted election to the spirit of
the French nation with wonderful skill. The least important members of
his Legislative Body became the most famous orators of the Chamber
after the Restoration. No Chamber has ever been the equal of the _Corps
Legislatif_, comparing them man for man. The elective system of the
Empire was, then, indisputably the best.

Some persons may, perhaps, think that this declaration is somewhat
autocratic and self-assertive. They will quarrel with the novelist for
wanting to be an historian, and will call him to account for writing
politics. I am simply fulfilling an obligation--that is my reply. The
work I have undertaken will be as long as a history; I was compelled
to explain the logic of it, hitherto unrevealed, and its principles and
moral purpose.

Having been obliged to withdraw the prefaces formerly published, in
response to essentially ephemeral criticisms, I will retain only one
remark.

Writers who have a purpose in view, were it only a reversion to
principles familiar in the past because they are eternal, should always
clear the ground. Now every one who, in the domain of ideas, brings his
stone by pointing out an abuse, or setting a mark on some evil that it
may be removed--every such man is stigmatized as immoral. The accusation
of immorality, which has never failed to be cast at the courageous
writer, is, after all, the last that can be brought when nothing else
remains to be said to a romancer. If you are truthful in your pictures;
if by dint of daily and nightly toil you succeed in writing the most
difficult language in the world, the word _immoral_ is flung in your
teeth. Socrates was immoral; Jesus Christ was immoral; they both were