nse significance of
the oath was rendered still more impressive by the circumstance that it
was the only oath taken throughout the whole territory of the Republic.
February had, and rightly, abolished the political oath, and the
Constitution had, as rightly, retained only the oath of the President.
This oath possessed the double character of necessity and of grandeur.
It was an oath taken by the executive, the subordinate power, to the
legislative, the superior power; it was even more than this--in
contrast to the monarchical fiction by which the people take the oath
to the man invested with power, it was the man invested with power who
took the oath to the people. The President, functionary and servant,
swore fidelity to the sovereign people. Bending before the national
majesty, manifest in the omnipotent Assembly, he received from the
Assembly the Constitution, and swore obedience to it. The
representatives were inviolable, and he was not. We repeat it: a
citizen responsible to all the citizens, he was, of the whole nation,
the only man so bound. Hence, in this oath, sole and supreme, there was
a solemnity which went to the heart. He who writes these lines was
present in his place in the Assembly, on the day this oath was taken;
he is one of those who, in the face of the civilized world called to
bear witness, received this oath in the name of the people, and who
have it still in their hands. Thus it runs:--

"In presence of God, and before the French people, represented by the
National Assembly, I swear to remain faithful to the democratic
republic, one and indivisible, and to fulfil all the duties imposed
upon me by the Constitution."

The President of the Assembly, standing, read this majestic formula;
then, before the whole Assembly, breathlessly silent and attentive,
intensely expectant, Citizen Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, raising
his right hand, said, in a firm, loud voice:

"I swear it!"

Representative Boulay (de la Meurthe), since Vice-President of the
Republic, who had known Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte from his
childhood, exclaimed: "He is an honest man, he will keep his oath."

The President of the Assembly, still standing, proceeded thus (I quote
_verbatim_ the words recorded in the _Moniteur_): "We call God and man
to witness the oath which has just been sworn. The National Assembly
receives that oath, orders it to be transcribed upon its records,
printed in the _Moniteur_, and published