th a new principle. Every Government in a few years perishes by
carrying that principle to an extreme. The First Republic was destroyed
by the intemperance with which it trampled on every sort of tradition and
authority, the First Empire by its abuse of victory and war, the
Restoration by its exaggerated belief in divine right and legitimacy, the
Royalty of July by its exaggerated reliance on purchased voters and
Parliamentary majorities, the Second Republic by the conduct of its own
Republicans. The danger to the Second Empire--its only internal danger,
but I fear a fatal one--is its abuse of authority. With every phase of
our sixty years' long revolution, we have a new superstition, a new
_culte_. We are now required to become the worshippers of authority. I
lament that with the new religion we have not new priests. Our public men
would not be discredited by instantaneous apostasy from one political
faith to another. I am grieved, gentlemen, if I offend you; though many
of you are older in years than I am, not one probably is so old in public
life. I may be addressing you for the last time, and I feel that my last
words ought to contain all the warnings that I think will be useful to
you. This assembly will soon end, as all its predecessors have ended. Its
acts, its legislation, may perish with it, but its reputation, its fame,
for good or for evil, will survive. Within a few minutes you will do an
act by which that reputation will be seriously affected; by which it may
be raised, by which it may be deeply, perhaps irrevocably, sunk. Your
vote to-night will show whether you possess freedom, and whether you
deserve it. As for myself, I care but little. A few months, or even
years, of imprisonment are among the risks which every public man who
does his duty in revolutionary times must encounter, and which the first
men of the country have incurred, _soit en sortant des affaires, soit
avant d'y entrer_. But whatever may be the effect of your vote on _my_
person, whatever it may be on _your_ reputation, I trust that it is not
in your power to inflict permanent injury on my country. Among you are
some who lived through the Empire. They must remember that the soldiers
of our glorious army cherished as fondly the recollection of its defeats
as of its victories. They must see that the lessons which those defeats
taught, and the feelings which they inspired, are now among the sources
of our military strength. Your Emperor himself