is certainly extremely critical, and we ought not to be
surprised at the rising of the people at any moment.

I told General Lafayette, that, in my poor judgment, the question
admitted of a good deal of controversy. Names did not signify much, but
every administration should receive its main impulses, subject to the
common wishes and interests, from a close conformity of views, whether
there were one incumbent or a dozen. The English system certainly made a
near approach to a divided executive, but the power was so distributed
as to prevent much clashing; and when things went wrong, the ministers
resigned; parliament, in effect, holding the control of the executive as
well as of the legislative branches of the government. Now I did not
think France was prepared for such a polity, the French being accustomed
to see a real as well as a nominal monarch, and the disposition to
intrigue would, for a long time to come, render their administrations
fluctuating and insecure. A directory would either control the chambers,
or be controlled by them. In the former case it would be apt to be
divided in itself; in the latter, to agitate the chambers by factions
that would not have the ordinary outlet of majorities to restore the
equilibrium.

He was of opinion himself that the expedient of a directory had not
suited the state of France. He asked me what I thought of universal
suffrage for this country. I told him, I thought it altogether unsuited
to the present condition of France. I did not attach much faith to the
old theory of the necessary connexion between virtue and democracy, as a
cause; though it might, with the necessary limitations, follow as an
effect. A certain degree of knowledge of its uses, _action_, and
objects, was indispensable to a due exercise of the suffrage; not that
it was required every elector should be learned in the theory of
governments, but that he should know enough to understand the general
connexion between his vote and his interests, and especially his rights.
This knowledge was not at all difficult of attainment, in ordinary
cases, when one had the means of coming at facts. In cases that admit of
argument, as in all the questions on political economy, I did not see
that any reasonable degree of knowledge made the matter much better, the
cleverest men usually ranging themselves on the two extremes of all
mooted questions. Concerning the right of every man, who was qualified
to use the power, to have