her inspired by having found you the most beneficent of all, in the
midst of universal beneficence, and which reveres in your person the
accomplished model of the most exemplary virtues. Sire, this people
cherishes and respects your authority; fifteen years of peace and
liberty which it owes to your august brother and to yourself, have
deeply rooted in its heart the gratitude due to your august family: its
reason, matured by experience and freedom of discussion, tells it that
in questions of authority, above all others, antiquity of possession is
the holiest of titles, and that it is as much for the happiness of
France as for your personal glory, that ages have placed your throne in
a region inaccessible to storms. The conviction of the nation accords
then with its duty in representing to it the sacred privileges of your
crown as the surest guarantee of its own liberties, and the integrity of
your prerogatives as necessary to the preservation of public rights."

"Nevertheless, Sire, in the midst of these unanimous sentiments of
respect and affection with which your people surround you, there has
become manifest in the general mind a feeling of inquietude which
disturbs the security France had begun to enjoy, affects the sources of
her prosperity, and might, if prolonged, become fatal to her repose. Our
conscience, our honour, the fidelity we have pledged and which we shall
ever maintain, impose on us the duty of unveiling to you the cause."

"Sire, the Charter which we owe to the wisdom of your august
predecessor, and the benefits of which your Majesty has declared a firm
determination to consolidate, consecrate as a right the intervention of
the country in the deliberation of public interests. This intervention
ought to be, and is in fact, indirect, wisely regulated, circumscribed
within limits minutely defined, and which, we shall never suffer any one
to exceed; but it is also positive in its result; for it establishes a
permanent concurrence between the political views of your government,
and the wishes of your people, as an indispensable condition of the
regular progress of public affairs. Sire, our loyalty and devotion
compel us to declare that this concurrence does not exist."

"An unjust suspicion of the sentiments and ideas of France forms the
fundamental conviction of the present Ministry; your people look on this
with sorrow, as injurious to the Government itself, and with uneasiness,
as it appears to menace