narians supported the bills, but with the addition of commentaries
which strongly marked their independence, and the direction they wished
to give to the power they defended. "Every day," said M. de Serre, "the
nature of our constitution will be better understood, its benefits more
appreciated by the nation; the laws with which you co-operate, will
place by degrees our institutions and habits in harmony with
representative monarchy; the government will approach its natural
perfection,--that unity of principle, design, and action which forms the
condition of its existence. In permitting and even in protecting legal
opposition, it will not allow that opposition to find resting-points
within itself. It is because it can be, and ought to be, watched over
and contradicted by independent men, that it should be punctually
obeyed, faithfully seconded and served by those who have become and wish
to remain its direct agents. Government will thus acquire a degree of
strength which can dispense with the employment of extraordinary means:
legal measures, restored to their proper energy, will be found
sufficient." "There is," said M. Royer-Collard, "a strong objection
against this bill; the Government may be asked, 'Before you demand
excessive powers, have you employed all those which the laws entrust to
you? have you exhausted their efficacy?' ... I shall not directly answer
this question, but I shall say to those who put it, 'Take care how you
expose your Government to too severe a trial, and one under which nearly
all Governments have broken down; do not require from it perfection;
consider its difficulties as well as its duties.' ... We wish to arrest
its steps in the course it pursues at present, and to impose daily
changes. We demand from it the complete development of institutions and
constitutional enactments; above all, we require that vigorous unity of
principles, system, and conduct without which it will never effectually
reach the end towards which it advances. But what it has already done,
is a pledge for what it will yet accomplish. We feel a just reliance
that the extraordinary powers with which we invest it will be exercised,
not by or for a party, but for the nation against all parties. Such is
our treaty; such are the stipulations which have been spoken of: they
are as public as our confidence, and we thank those who have occasioned
their repetition, for proving to France that we are faithful to her
cause, and neglect