ope--it did what it
designed. Such is the will, such the real power of a people--and such is
truth, the irresistible auxiliary of the men who agitate themselves for
God. If ever inspiration was visible in the prophet or ancient
legislator, it may be asserted that the Constituent Assembly had two
years of sustained inspiration. France was the inspired of civilisation.

III.

Let us examine its work. The principle of power was entirely displaced:
royalty had ended by believing that it was the exclusive depositary of
power. It had demanded of religion to consummate this robbery in the
eyes of the people, by telling them that tyranny came from God, and was
responsible to God only. The long heirship of throned races had made it
believed that there was a right of reigning in the blood of crowned
families. Government instead of being a function had become a
possession; the king master instead of being chief. This misplaced
principle displaced everything. The people became a nation, the king a
crowned magistrate. Feudality, subaltern royalty, assumed the rank of
actual property. The clergy, which had had institutions and inviolable
property, was now only a body paid by the state for a sacred service. It
was from this only one step to receiving a voluntary salary for an
individual service. The magistracy ceased to be hereditary. They left it
its unremoveability to confirm its independence. It was an exception to
the principle of offices when a dismissal was possible, a
semi-sovereignty of justice--but it was one step towards the truth. The
legislative power was distinct from the executive power. The nation in
an assembly freely chosen, declared its will, and the hereditary and
irresponsible king executed it. Such was the whole mechanism of the
Constitution--a people--a king--a minister. But the king irresponsible,
and consequently passive, was evidently a concession to custom, the
respectful fiction of suppressed royalty.

IV.

He was no longer will; for to will is to do. He was not a functionary;
for the functionary acts and replies. The king did not reply. He was but
a majestic inutility in the constitution. The functions destroyed, they
left the functionary. He had but one attribute, the _suspensive veto_,
which consisted of his right to suspend, for three years, the execution
of the Assembly's decrees. He was an obstacle; legal, but impotent for
the wishes of the nation. It was evident that the Constituent Assembly,