btful.

Now the testimony of the most learned civilians, the experience of
England for 125 years, had demonstrated to him, that the government
best adapted to the habits, manners, and social relations of a great
nation; that which affords the greatest pledge of happiness and
stability; in fine, that which best reconciles political liberty with
the degree of power necessary to the chief of a state; is a
representative monarchical government. It was Napoleon's duty,
therefore, as a legislator, and a paternal sovereign, to give this
mode of government the preference.

This point granted, and it is incontestable, Napoleon was under the
necessity of establishing an hereditary and privileged chamber of
peers; for a representative monarchy cannot subsist, without an upper
chamber, or chamber of peers; as a chamber of peers cannot subsist
without privileges, and without being hereditary.

None therefore but the insincere; or men, who, though good patriots,
unconsciously substitute their passions or prejudices in the place of
the public welfare; can reproach Napoleon for having introduced this
institution into our political organization.

The re-establishment of an intermediate chamber, perhaps, would not
have wounded them so deeply, if care had been taken, to give it a name
less sullied by feudal recollections: but the revolution had exhausted
the nomenclature of public magistracies. Besides, the Emperor thought,
that this was the only title answerable to its high destination.
Perhaps, too, as Louis XVIII. had had his peers, he was not
displeased, to have his also.

A third accusation bore hard on Napoleon. He promised us, it was
urged, as a natural consequence of the fundamental truth, _the throne
is made for the nation, and not the nation for the throne_, that our
deputies, assembled at the _Champ de Mai_, should give to France,
jointly with him, a constitution conformable to the interests and
wishes of the nation; and by an odious breach of faith, he grants us
an additional act, after the manner of Louis XVIII; and this he
forces us to adopt in the lump, without allowing us to reject those
parts, that may wound our dearest and most sacred rights.

Napoleon had proclaimed, it is true, on the 1st of March, that this
constitution should be the work of the nation: but since this period
circumstances had altered. It was of importance to the preservation of
peace at home, and to the relations between Napoleon and foreign po