rder of things from top to bottom.

[Footnote 7: Notwithstanding the charter, and the laws
daily passed, it is found necessary, to recur every day
to rules established by the ancient legislation of the
senate.]

Besides, the fear of Napoleon's putting them in vigour was founded
only on vague suppositions. The oppressive arrangements of the decrees
of the senate were annulled, both in fact and in law, by the
principles, which the additional act sanctioned: and Napoleon had
rendered it impossible for him to augment his authority, or to abuse
it, by the immense power, with which he had invested the chambers, the
responsibility he had thrown on his agents and ministers, and the
inviolable guarantees he had conferred on freedom of opinion and
personal liberty. The slightest attempt would have betrayed his secret
intentions; and a thousand voices would have been raised, to say to
him: "We, who are as good as you, have made you our King, on
condition, that you keep our laws: if not, not[8]."

[Footnote 8: The well-known words, in which the cortes
of Arragon address the kings of Spain at their
coronation.]

The re-establishment of the chamber of peers, imported from England by
the Bourbons, excited no less vividly the public discontent.

It was clear, in fact, that the privileges, and peculiar jurisdiction,
which the peers exclusively enjoyed, constituted a manifest violation
of the laws of equality; and that the hereditary state of the peerage
was a formal infraction of the right of all Frenchmen, to be equally
admissible to the offices of the state.

Accordingly the friends of liberty and equality with reason reproached
Napoleon for having falsified his promises; and given them, instead of
a constitution bottomed on the principles of equality and liberty,
which he had solemnly professed, a shapeless act, more favourable than
the charter, or any of the preceding constitutions, to the nobility
and their institutions.

But Napoleon, when he promised the French a constitution, that might
be termed _republican_, had rather followed the political suggestions
of the moment, than consulted the welfare of France. Restored to
himself, ought he to have adhered strictly to the letter of his
promises, or interpreted them merely as an engagement, to give France
a liberal constitution, as perfect as possible?

The answer cannot be dou