d from
the outset, an intellectual position, opposing ideas to ideas, and
principles to principles, appealing at the same time to reason and
experience, affirming rights instead of maintaining interests, and
requiring France, not to confess that she had committed evil alone, or
to declare her impotence for good, but to emerge from the chaos into
which she had plunged herself, and to raise her head once more towards
heaven in search of light.

Let me readily admit that there was also much pride in this attempt; but
a pride commencing with an act of humility, which proclaims the mistakes
of yesterday with the desire and hope of not repeating them today. It
was rendering homage to human intelligence while warning it of the
limits of its power, respecting the past, without undervaluing the
present or abandoning the future. It was an endeavour to bestow on
politics sound philosophy, not as a sovereign mistress, but as an
adviser and support.

I shall state without hesitation, according to what experience has
taught me, the faults which progressively mingled with this noble
design, and impaired or checked its success. What I anxiously desire at
present is to indicate its true character. It was to this mixture of
philosophical sentiment and political moderation, to this rational
respect for opposing rights and facts, to these principles, equally new
and conservative, anti-revolutionary without being retrograde, and
modest in fact although sometimes haughty in expression, that the
doctrinarians owed their importance as well as their name.
Notwithstanding the numerous errors of philosophy and human reason, the
present age still cherishes reasoning and philosophical tastes; and the
most determined practical politicians sometimes assume the air of acting
upon general ideas, regarding them as sound methods of obtaining
justification or credit. The doctrinarians thus responded to a profound
and real necessity, although imperfectly acknowledged, of French minds:
they paid equal respect to intellect and social order; their notions
appeared well suited to regenerate, while terminating the Revolution.
Under this double title they found, with partisans and adversaries,
points of contact which drew them together, if not with active sympathy,
at least with solid esteem: the right-hand party looked upon them as
sincere royalists; and the left, while opposing them with acrimony,
could not avoid admitting that they were neither the advocate