own views. Many sensible men inclined to think that from the
representative system, in France at least, and in the state in which
the Revolution had left us, no sound plan could emanate, and that our
ardent longings for free institutions were only calculated to enervate
power and promote anarchy. The Revolutionary and Imperial eras had
naturally bequeathed this idea; France had only become acquainted with
political liberty by revolutions, and with order by despotism; harmony
between them appeared to be a chimera. I undertook to prove, not only
that this chimera of great minds might become a reality, but that the
realization depended upon ourselves; for the system founded by the
Charter alone contained, for us, the essential means of regular
government and of effective opposition, which the sincere friends of
power and liberty could desire. My work, entitled, 'On the Means of
Government and Opposition in the Actual State of France,' was entirely
dedicated to this object.

In that treatise I entered into no general or theoretic exposition of
policy, the idea of which I expressly repudiated. "Perhaps," I said, in
my preface, "I may on some future occasion discuss more general
questions of predominant interest in regard to the nature and principles
of constitutional government, although their solution has nothing to do
with existing politics, with the events and actors of the moment. I wish
now to speak only of power as it is, and of the best method of governing
our great and beautiful country." Entirely a novice and doctrinarian as
I then was, I forgot that the same maxims and arts of government must be
equally good everywhere, and that all nations and ages are, at the same
moment, cast in a similar mould. I confined myself sedulously to my own
time and country, endeavouring to show what effective means of
government were included in the true principles and regular exercise of
the institutions which France held from the Charter, and how they might
be successfully put in practice for the legitimate advantage and
strengthening of power. With respect to the means of opposition, I
followed the same line of argument, convinced myself, and anxious to
persuade the adversaries of the then dominant policy, that authority
might be controlled without destroying it, and that the rights of
liberty might be exercised without shaking the foundations of
established order. It was my strong desire and prepossession to elevate
the political