oclaimed the absolute right of the French citizen, but
always with the gloss that it is unlimited in so far only as it be not
curtailed by the "equal rights of others," and by the "public safety,"
or by the "laws," which are intended to effect this harmony. For
instance:

"Citizens have the right of association, of peaceful and unarmed
assemblage, of petitioning, and of expressing their opinions through
the press or otherwise. The enjoyment of these rights has no limitation
other than the equal rights of others and the public safety." (Chap. II.
of the French Constitution, Section 8.)

"Education is free. The freedom of education shall be enjoyed under the
conditions provided by law, and under the supervision of the State."
(Section 9.)

"The domicile of the citizen is inviolable, except under the forms
prescribed by law." (Chap. I., Section 3), etc., etc.

The Constitution, it will be noticed, constantly alludes to future
organic laws, that are to carry out the glosses, and are intended to
regulate the enjoyment of these unabridged freedoms, to the end that
they collide neither with one another nor with the public safety.
Later on, the organic laws are called into existence by the "Friends of
Order," and all the above named freedoms are so regulated that, in their
enjoyment, the bourgeoisie encounter no opposition from the like rights
of the other classes. Wherever the bourgeoisie wholly interdicted these
rights to "others," or allowed them their enjoyment under conditions
that were but so many police snares, it was always done only in the
interest of the "public safety," i. e., of the bourgeoisie, as required
by the Constitution.

Hence it comes that both sides-the "Friends of Order," who abolished
all those freedoms, as, well as the democrats, who had demanded them
all--appeal with full right to the Constitution: Each paragraph of
the Constitution contains its own antithesis, its own Upper and Lower
House-freedom as a generalization, the abolition of freedom as
a specification. Accordingly, so long as the name of freedom was
respected, and only its real enforcement was prevented in a legal way,
of course the constitutional existence of freedom remained uninjured,
untouched, however completely its common existence might be
extinguished.

This Constitution, so ingeniously made invulnerable, was, however, like
Achilles, vulnerable at one point: not in its heel, but in its head, or
rather, in the two heads into w