age and patriotism, which
M. Lanjuinais had displayed on some trying occasions.]

The sitting of the day following gave Napoleon another subject of
dissatisfaction. The assembly had expressed its wish the day before,
to be acquainted with the list of the members of the Chamber of Peers.
The Emperor, from the motive I have mentioned, made answer, that this
list would not be fixed, till after the opening of the session. This
answer excited violent murmurs: one member proposed, to declare, that
the chamber would not proceed to constitute itself definitively, till
it was furnished with the list, which it had required. Thus from its
entrance on its career, and even before it was installed, the chamber
announced its design, of establishing itself in a state of
insurrection against the head of the government.

The third sitting witnessed an opprobrium, hitherto unheard of in our
national assemblies. The same member, M. Dupin[29], advanced, that
the oath to be taken to the sovereign by the nation, in order to be
valid and legitimate, should not be administered by virtue of a
decree, that emanated from the will of the prince alone, but by virtue
of a law, which is the will of the nation constitutionally expressed.
In consequence he proposed, to resolve, that no oath could be required
of it, but in execution of a law; and that this oath should no way
prejudice its right, subsequently to improve the constitution.

[Footnote 29: A celebrated counsel, who defended Marshal
Ney, and the three generous liberators of M.
Delavalette, Wilson, Bruce, and Hutchinson.]

This proposal, seconded by M. Roi[30], tended to declare null in law
and fact the oath, which the nation and army, represented by their
electors and deputies, had just taken to the Emperor and the
constitution in the solemnity of the _Champ de Mai_: and as it was
this oath, that hitherto formed the only tie binding the nation to the
Emperor, and Napoleon to the nation, it followed that the annulling it
deprived the Emperor of that character of sovereignty and legitimacy,
with which he had been invested, and rendered his rights a subject of
deliberation.

[Footnote 30: Since minister of finance to the king.]

The motion of M. Dupin was rejected unanimously: but the chamber, in
complaisantly permitting a man, to dare within its walls, to call in
question the legitimacy of the Emperor and his authority,