herefore,
would be a dangerous blindness: war surrounds us on all sides, and it
is on the field of battle alone, that peace can be regained by France.
The English, the Prussians, the Austrians, are in line of battle; the
Russians are in full march. It becomes a duty, to hasten the day of
engagement, when too long hesitation might endanger the welfare of the
state."

These two reports were presented to the chamber of deputies by
ministers of state, at the same time when the ministers were making
them known to the chamber of peers. Instead of impressing upon the
representatives the necessity of frankly joining the Emperor, and, as
one of them observed, of not entering into a contest with the
government, at a moment when the blood of Frenchmen was about to be
shed, they suggested to them only steril discussions of the
impropriety of the connexion of ministers of state with the chamber,
and of the urgency of appointing a committee, to remould the
additional act. An immoderate desire of speechifying, and of making
laws, had seized the greater number of the deputies: but a state is
not to be saved by empty words, and schemes of a constitution. The
Romans, when their country was in danger, instead of deliberating,
suspended the sway of the laws, and gave themselves a dictator.

The next day, the 17th, a new report, made to the Emperor by the
minister of police, on the moral state of France, was communicated to
the two chambers.

"Sire," said this minister, "it is my duty, to tell you the whole
truth. Our enemies are emboldened by instruments without, and
supporters within. They wait only for a favourable moment, to realize
the plan they conceived twenty years ago, and which during these
twenty years has been continually frustrated, of uniting the camp of
Jales to Vendee, and seducing a part of the multitude into that
confederacy which extends from the Mediterranean to the Channel.

"In this system, the plains on the left bank of the Loire, the
population of which it is most easy to mislead, are the principal
focus of the insurrection; which, by the help of the wandering bands
of Britanny, is to spread into Normandy, where the vicinity of the
islands, and the disposition of the coasts, will render communication
more easy. On the other side it rests on the Cevennes, to extend
thence to the banks of the Rhone by the revolts, that may be excited
in some parts of Languedoc and Provence. Bordeaux has been the centre
of the dir