their trial. These were first-fruits of liberty, and the meed and
reward of Liberals. No man can tell in what country such things would
remain without effect. In France it was believed that civic courage
was often wanting. De Serre, the great orator of the Restoration, once
affirmed, from the tribune, that the bulk of the representatives had
always been sound. He was interrupted by a furious outcry, and
challenged by his legitimist audience to say whether he included the
Convention, which, by a majority, condemned the king to death. His
answer, very famous in parliamentary history, was, "Yes, even the
Convention. And if it had not deliberated under poniards, we should
have been spared the most terrible of crimes."

The opposition presented a united front, but was rent by many stages
of gravitation towards Democracy. They also were generally anxious to
establish political freedom, even by the greatest sacrifices. By
freedom they meant, first, deliverance from known and habitual causes
of oppression. True, there might be others; but they were less clear
and less certain. All European experience proclaimed that the
executive constantly masters the legislative, even in England. It was
absurd to suppose that every force that, for centuries, had helped to
build up absolutism, had been destroyed in two months. They would rise
again from the roots, and the conflict would be constantly renewed.

The salvation seemed to lie in the principle that all power is derived
from the people, and that none can exist against the people. The
popular will may be expressed by certain forms; it cannot be arrested
by obstacles. Its action may be delayed; it cannot be stopped. It is
the ultimate master of all, without responsibility or exemption, and
with no limit that is not laid down in the Rights of Man. The limits
there defined are sufficient, and individual liberty needs no further
protection. Distrust of the nation was not justified by the manner in
which it had chosen and instructed its deputies.

In studying this group of public men, men to whom the future belonged,
we are forced to admit the element of national character. No
philosophy is cheaper or more vulgar than that which traces all
history to diversities of ethnological type and blend, and is ever
presenting the venal Greek, the perfidious Sicilian, the proud and
indolent Spaniard, the economical Swiss, the vain and vivacious
Frenchman. But it is certainly true that in France the