spect for the general
rights of humanity, and the free development of natural gifts, ill or
well understood, have proceeded, for nearly a century, the advantages
and evils, the great actions and crimes, the advances and wanderings
which revolutions and Governments have alternately excited in the bosom
of every European community. Which of these two principles provokes or
even permits the exclusive supremacy of the middle classes? Assuredly
neither the one nor the other. One opens to individual endowments every
gate; the other demands for every human being his place and his portion:
no greatness is unattainable; no condition, however insignificant, is
counted as nothing. Such principles are irreconcilable with exclusive
superiority; that of the middle classes, as of every other, would be in
direct contradiction to the ruling tendencies of modern society.

The middle classes have never, amongst us, dreamed of becoming
privileged orders; and no rational mind has ever indulged in such dreams
for them. This idle accusation is but an engine of war, erected under
cover of a confusion of ideas, sometimes by the hypocritical dexterity,
and at others by the blind infatuation of party spirit. But this does
not prevent its having been, or becoming again, fatal to the peace of
our social system; for men are so constructed that chimerical dangers
are the most formidable they can encounter: we fight boldly with
tangible substances, but we lose our heads, either from fear or anger,
when in presence of phantoms.

It was with real dangers that we had to cope in 1817, when we discussed
the electoral system of France. We saw the most legitimate principles
and the most jealous interests of the new state of society indistinctly
menaced by a violent reaction. We felt the spirit of revolution spring
up and ferment around us, arming itself, according to old practice, with
noble incentives, to cover the march and prepare the triumph of the most
injurious passions. By instinct and position, the middle classes were
the best suited to struggle with the combined peril. Opposed to the
pretensions of the old aristocracy, they had acquired, under the Empire,
ideas and habits of government. Although they received the Restoration
with some mistrust, they were not hostile to it; for under the rule of
the Charter, they had nothing to ask from new revolutions. The Charter
was for them the Capitol and the harbour; they found in it the security
of their conq