iven to the king, and action to the monarchical
principle, the quicker the king and the principle would have fallen; for
the greater would have been the distrust and hatred against him. Two
chambers, instead of one, would not have preserved any thing. Such
divisions of power would have no value, but in proportion as they are
sacred. They are only sacred in proportion as they are the
representatives of real existing force in the nation. Would a revolution
which had not paused before the iron gates of the Chateau of Versailles
have respected the metaphysical distinction of power of two kinds!

Besides, where were, and where would be now, the constitutive elements
of two chambers, in a nation whose entire revolution is but a convulsion
towards unity? If the second chamber be democratic and temporary, it is
but a twofold democracy with but one common impulse. It can only serve
to retard the common impulse, or destroy the unity of the public will.
If it be hereditary and aristocratic, it supposes an aristocracy
pre-existent in, and acknowledged by, the state. Where was this
aristocracy in 1791? Where is it now? A modern historian says, "In the
nobility, in the presence of social inequalities." But the Revolution
was made against the nobility, and in order to level social hereditary
inequalities. It was to ask of the Revolution itself to make a
counter-revolution. Besides, these pretended divisions of power are
always fictions; power is never really divided. It is always here or
there, in reality and in its integrity,--it is not to be divided. It is
like the will, it is _one_ or it is not. If there be two chambers, it is
in one of the two; the other complies or is dissolved. If there be one
chamber and a king, it is in the king or the chamber. In the king, if he
subjugates the Assembly by force, or if he buys it by corruption; in the
chamber if it agitates the public mind, and intimidates the court and
the army by the power of its language, and the superiority of its
opinions. Those who do not see this have no eyes. In this _soidisant_
balance of power there is always a controlling weight; equilibrium is a
chimera. If it did exist, it would produce mere immobility.

VII.

The Constituent Assembly had then done a good work; wise, and as durable
as are the institutions of a people in travail, in an age of transition.
The constitution of '91 had written all the truths of the times, and
reduced all human reason to its epoch.