contribution of 300 francs, and have
reached the age of thirty,"--an ambiguous arrangement, which attempted
more than it ventured to accomplish. It evidently contained a desire of
placing the right of political suffrage above the popular masses, and of
confining it within the more elevated classes of society. But the
constitutional legislator had neither gone openly to this point, nor
attained it with certainty; for if the Charter required from the
electors who were actually to name the Deputies, 300 francs of direct
contribution, and thirty years of age, it did not forbid that these
electors should be themselves chosen by preceding electoral assemblies;
or rather it did not exclude indirect election, nor, under that form,
what is understood by the term universal suffrage.

I took part in drawing up the bill of the 5th of February, 1817, which
comprised, at that time, the solution given to this important question.
I was present at the conferences in which it was prepared. When ready,
M. Laine, whose business it was, as Minister of the Interior, to present
it to the Chamber of Deputies, wrote to say that he wished to see me: "I
have adopted," he said, "all the principles of this bill, the
concentration of the right of suffrage, direct election, the equal
privilege of voters, their union in a single college for each
department; and I really believe these are the best that could be
desired: still, upon some of these points, I have mental doubts and
little time to solve them. Help me in preparing the exposition of our
objects." I responded, as I was bound, to this confiding sincerity, by
which I felt equally touched and honoured. The bill was brought in; and
while my friends supported it in the Chamber, from whence my age for the
present excluded me, I defended it, on behalf of the Government, in
several articles inserted in the 'Moniteur.' I was well informed as to
its intent and true spirit, and I speak of it without embarrassment in
presence of the universal suffrage, as now established. If the electoral
system of 1817 disappeared in the tempest of 1848, it conferred on
France thirty years of regular and free government, systematically
sustained and controlled; and amidst all the varying influences of
parties, and the shock of a revolution, this system sufficed to maintain
peace, to develop national prosperity, and to preserve respect for all
legal rights. In this age of ephemeral and futile experiments, it is the
only p