me of Constantine became a synonym for orderly
government, loyalty to his person was identified with the principle of
liberty, and the people who had never regarded Alexander as anything more
than {220} a regent, who cried after the departing monarch from the shore
at Oropus: "You shall come back to us soon," hailed the return to
normality as presaging the return of the legitimate sovereign as well as
of a legal Constitution.

This, however, was the very last thing the powers that were contemplated
even as a remote potentiality. For them the monarch in exile was dead;
and the sooner his memory was buried the better. Accordingly, a police
circular, issued on 26 May, prohibited conversations favourable to the
ex-king, pictures of the ex-king, songs in honour of the ex-king, cheers
for the ex-king. And, these regulations having been found insufficient
to curb royalist fervour, five days later M. Venizelos demanded and
obtained from Parliament the re-establishment of martial law, on the
ground that "talk about the return of the ex-king was calculated to
excite public feeling; and then the Opposition might have cause to blame
the Government for not respecting the freedom of elections." The
question of the ex-king, he argued, was utterly irrelevant to the
forthcoming contest: the people would not be called upon to elect a
Constituent, but merely a Revisionist Assembly: "Who has said there is to
be a Constituent Assembly?" he asked.

The answer, of course, was easy: he himself had said so, on his
installation in 1917. But lapses of memory are permissible to statesmen
who mean business. M. Venizelos wanted a National Assembly which would
have powers to ratify the dethronement of the King, the suspension of the
irremovability of judges, and all other revolutionary illegalities,
besides perhaps altering fundamental articles of the Constitution--such
as the right of the Crown to appoint and dismiss Ministers and to
dissolve Parliaments--powers which essentially belong to a Constituent
Assembly. But he wanted it to be merely Revisionist. The paradox made
havoc of his logic; but it no way affected his purpose; which was that,
while as Constituent in its nature the Assembly should effect any
alterations in the government of the country that he desired, as
Revisionist in name it would not be competent to discuss the restoration
of the King, and, if it proved recalcitrant, would be subject to
dissolution by the {221} executive