arena above the revolutionary track, and to imbue the
heart of the constitutional system with ideas of strong and legal
conservatism.

Thirty-six years have since rolled on. During this long interval I
participated, for eighteen of those years, in the efforts of my
generation for the establishment of a free government. For some time I
sustained the weight of this labour. That government has been
overthrown. Thus I have myself experienced the immense difficulty, and
endured the painful failure, of this great enterprise. Nevertheless, and
I say it without sceptical hesitation or affected modesty, I read over
again today what I wrote in 1821, upon the means of government and
opposition in the actual state of France, with almost unmingled
satisfaction. I required much from power, but nothing, I believe, that
was not both capable and necessary of accomplishment. And
notwithstanding my young confidence, I remembered, even then, that other
conditions were essential to success. "I have no intention," I wrote,
"to impute everything to, and demand everything from, power itself. I
shall not say to it, as has often been said, 'Be just, wise, firm, and
fear nothing;' power is not free to exercise this inherent and
individual excellence. It does not make society, it finds it; and if
society is impotent to second power, if the spirit of anarchy prevails,
if the causes of dissolution exist in its own bosom, power will operate
in vain; it is not given to human wisdom to rescue a people who refuse
to co-operate in their own safety."

When I published these two attacks upon the attitude and tendencies of
the Cabinet, conspiracies and political prosecutions burst forth from
day to day, and entailed their tragical consequences. I have already
said what I thought on the plots of that epoch, and why I considered
them as ill based, as badly conducted, without legitimate motives or
effectual means. But while I condemned them, I respected the sincere and
courageous devotion of so many men, the greater part of whom were very
young, and who, though mistaken, lavished the treasures of their minds
and lives upon a cause which they believed to be just. Amongst the
trials of our time, I scarcely recognize any more painful than that of
these conflicting feelings, these perplexities between esteem and
censure, condemnation and sympathy, which I have so often been compelled
to bestow on the acts of so many of my contemporaries. I love harmony
and light