of this blessing. If a pure republic had been possible in France, we cannot doubt that you would have wished to have had the honour of establishing it; and if it were possible, we should never be exonerated from the guilt of not having proposed it to a man having power sufficient to realise the idea of it; personally great enough not to need a sceptre, and generous enough to sacrifice his own interests to the interests of his country., Though, like Lycurgus, you should have to banish yourself from that country, which you would have organised, you would not have hesitated. Your profound meditations have been more than once directed to this great problem; but this problem was not to be solved even by your genius. Superficial minds, struck with the ascendancy which so much success and glory so happily acquired for you over the spirit of the nation, have fancied that you had it in your power to give it at discretion a popular government or a monarchical regime. There was no medium: not a soul wished for aristocracy in France but the legislature ought to take men such as they are, and to give them, not the most perfect laws that could be devised, but, like Solon, the best they can bear. Though the chisel of a great artist forms at pleasure out of a block of marble either a tripod or a god, the body of a nation cannot be modelled on the same principle. It is true, sire, that your life is a tissue of prodigies: but though you might have bent the nature of things and the character of men to such a pitch, as to cast the masses of France once into the mould of democracy, this wonder would have been but a transient illusion: should we have con

curred in it, we should only have forged chains for posterity.-When our representatives, placed on the ruins of the throne, believed they could establish a republic, their intentions were pure: before sad experience released them from the enchantment, they sincerely worshipped that delusive phantom which they took for equality. We can speak of an error by which we had been dazzled for a moment. Alas! who could avoid it? The popular torrent hurried along the most indiffe rent in spite of themselves. It is said, that the ancient Persians, in order to convince the people of the terrible danger of an abuse of liberty, used to employ a very extraor dinary custom: they used to inoculate themselves for a short time with the plague of political bodies. When any of their kings died, five days were spent in anarchy without authority or laws. Licentiousness was neither restrained then nor punished afterwards; they were five days given up to the spirit of vengeance, to excess, to violence, in a word, they were five days of revolution. This proof, it is said, used to make the people return with much joy to submission to their prince. After fluctuations more terrible than those of a troubled sea, it was thought that an infallible remedy had been discovered for popular convulsions in a polygarchy. The depositing of authority in the hands of many,

was better than the absence or the

dispersion of this authority: but differing spirits, and opposite wills could not be included in the same body, as the Manicheans used to place two contrary principles at the head of the universe. The struggle between these two principles would have annihilated France, if

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the course that has been taken had not been adopted, to return to a more concentrated power.

This it is that has consecrated to eternity the epoch of the 9th of November. It is this, sire, that brings back and attaches to you such of the republicans whose patriotism was most fervent and zealous. They were confirmed in their hatred against the throne by their attachments to the interests of the people, and the ardent desire of the public good. Their ideas have been realised only by your government; out of conceit with their chimera, and brought back by you to the reality, they are well convinced that it was impossible to think seriously to establish a republic, properly so called, amongst a people attached to monarchy by their wants, by instinct, and by the force of a habit, which nothing can overcome. Yes, sire, on this point there is but one sentimentyet the government of a single person is to so vast a country, what the statue of Pallas was formerly to the Trojans-by being deprived of it, their ruin was accelerated-but still this is not enough. The unity of the empire, is, like the bundle of twigs, the aggregate of its power: but like the twigs of the united bundle, the parts would soon be disunited and broken, if the hereditary succession to the aggregate did not secure the tie. An order of succession, previously determined, is the firmest support of a monarchical government. So, by the election even which made you emperor, the senate and the people have deprived themselves of the right of electing in future, as long as those glorious lives shall subsist, to which they transfer the exclusive right to

the empire. It is a great deposit of trust, consecrated by the law of nations, the necessity of which has been felt by the nation in order to relieve itself from guarding against any omission or the apprehension of troubles in this delegation of its supreme power. Amongst the happy results of the law of succession, such as the French have last adopted, the sagacity of the great people has distinguished two principal advantages; first, that a dynasty raised by liberty, will be faithful to its principle; there is no instance of a river flowing back to its source. Besides, a new source of stability for public credit, both internally and externally, is to be expected from a continued tradition in this paternal and perpetual government. Amongst foreign nations also, upon how much more solid a base will our alliances be supported? It is a community of interests, that constitutes all the bonds of this world: the friends of France being able to rely on her, she can rely on them; and this proud country, reinstated in Europe in the rank, from which weakness had suffered her to fall, will henceforth have it in its power to exercise a permanent influence on the repose of the nations, and on the peace of the continent. As to our enemies, if they persist in being so, their despair must redouble in contemplating the service they have done us in spite of them. We have been put upon our guard by their atrocious plots. As a last resource they have meditated crimes; it was our duty to render them useless. Thus, then, in whatever view our happiness is their work. But, sire, until their eyes shall be opened, or our indignant army shall go to punish their perfidy, our happi

ness

ness constitutes their punishment. What a spectacle for them to behold, France, that same France, which they wished to lacerate, and which they must now know to be united round its august chief, possessing the same spirit, forming the same wishes, and tranquilly, celebrating the festivals which announce the union of liberty, that first of all moving principles with this grand conservative system of nations, hereditary monarchy. It was desired previous to the revolution, that the chief of a great state like France, should promise at his accession, not to be the king of nobles, nor of any other class, but the chief of the nation, not to maintain usurped privileges, which, in an agricultural country, and amongst an industrious people, would, nevertheless, destroy agriculture and industry, to enrich with their spoils the accomplices of despotism; but that he should swear to the people these fundamental articles, these aternal bases of well regulated societies. Liberty of worship, this first right of all men, since authority can never force conscience. Equality of rights of all the citizens, the only rational and possible equality. Respect for political and civil liberty, without which nations are but herds of slaves, equally indifferent to the fortune of their masters, and to their own destiny. The inviolable security of property, which forbids above all the levy of arbitrary imposts, and permits not any subsidy, direct or indirect, under what name soever, but according to law. Lastly, the general tendency of his government, to the sole and primitive end of every government, the interest, the happiness, and the glory of the people. This is the

form of the oath which your imperial majesty is about to take to the French people; these are the terms which you have chosen to be a law to yourself and your successors. According to circumstances, your majesty annexes to them an engagement to maintain-the integrity of the territory of the French republic, which should continue indivisible; the acquisition of the national property, which have been the pay of our independence; the sublime institution of your legion of honour, worthy reward of services rendered to the country. With these additions, this remarkable oath would appear to have been dictated by the whole nation. It is in consideration of this also, that the whole nation swears fidelity to you. These two oaths correspond; they guarantee each other; they are the reciprocal pledges of an indissoluble alliance; and amidst so many important views, which will for ever distinguish the senatus consultum of the 19th May (28th Floreal), that which cements the whole work; that which imprints upon it the seal of immortality, sire, is the thought of the title of the oaths. To close the chasms of the revolution, more than Curtius was necessary: according to the profound idea of a political author, it was necessary that a great man should chuse for the theatre of his government and the materials of his glory, the ruins of that state, which he might propose to newmodel and re-invigorate. It was necessary that this man should be worthy to give his name, and to communicate his impulse to a new dynasty. It was necessary that he should be elevated above his contemporaries, of their choice, and by their sutirages, without opposi

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tion either from his own country men, or from foreigners. In the existing state of societies, the want of being governed is felt, as formerly, but the means of governing are become more difficult, because their object is more extended and complicated. The conservative senate and the French people assure you, sire, through my voice, that they are proud of their emperor. If they have offered you the crown, if they have made it hereditary in your descendants, and in those of your two brothers, it is because there exists not on earth a man more worthy to bear the sceptre of France, nor a family more beloved by the French. Governed by Napoleon, or by his sons or his nephews, animated by his spirit, formed by his example, in a word, bound by his oath, we, sire, and our childrens' children, shall defend with our lives, this tutelary government, object of our pride as of our love, because in it we shall defend our chief, our properties, our families, and our honour. You have chosen, sire, as the inscription on our coins, those words, which you justify God protects France."Oh! yes; God does protect France, since he has created you for her. Father of thy country, in the name of that protecting God, bestow a blessing on thy children, and relying on their fidelity, be assured that nothing can either efface from their minds, or root out of their hearts, the engagements resulting from the mutual contract that has just been entered into between the French nation and the imperial family. In the absence of the throne, all the great characters give themselves up to faction. A people is so much the more to be pitied the greater the

number of its distinguished children; all that might constitute the pride of nations, becomes then the scourge of one. From the moment that the throne is worthily filled, eminent virtues have a reward; viz. to approach nearer to it; and the distinction is so much the more flattering, as more real dignities bear more imposing names.

The title of emperor has ever conveyed the law, not of that royalty before which subjects humble and prostrate themselves, but the great and liberal idea of a first magistrate, governing in the name of the law which citizens feel honour in obeying.

The title of senate indicates also an assembly of chosen magistrates, proved by long labour and venerable for age. The greater the empe

ror is, the more august ought the senate to be.

His majesty replied in the following terms:

I ascend the throne to which the unanimous wishes of the senate, the people and the army have called me, with a heart penetrated with the great destinies of that people, whom, from the midst of camps, I first saluted with the name of GREAT. From my youth, my thoughts have been solely fixed upon them, and I. must add here, that my pleasures and my pains are derived entirely from the happiness or misery of my people. My descendants shall long preserve this throne; in the camps they will be the first soldiers of the army, sacrificing their lives in the defence of their country. As magistrates, they will never forget that contempt of the laws and the confusion of social order are only the result of the imbecility and unsteadiness of princes. You, senators,

whose

whose counsels and support have never failed me in the most difficult 'circumstances; your spirit will be handed down to your successors. Be ever the props and first counsel. lors of that throne so necessary to the welfare of this vast empire.

Allocution delivered by his Holiness the Pope, to a Secret Consistory addressed on the 29th of October 1804, previously to his Departure from Rome on his Journey to France, in Order to assist in the Coronation of the Emperor Napolcon.

Venerable Brethren;

It was from this place that the concordat was begun by us, his majesty the emperor of the French then first consul; and it is from this place that we have communicated to you that joy with which the God of all comfort has caused our hearts to overflow for the happy change, or conversion to the interest of the catholic religion, which has been produced by that concordat in those vast and populous regions. From that time the holy temples have been again opened and purified from the profanations they had endured: altars were again built, the standard of the health-bearing cross was again raised, the true worship of God restored, the august mysterics of religion freely and publicly celebrated, lawful pastors given to the people who could labour in feeding the flock. The catholic religion it. self most happily emerged from that obscurity in which it had been buried, and placed in noon-day splendor in the midst of that renowned nation, so many souls recalled from the paths of error into the bosom of

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eternity, and reconciled to themselves and to their God: these considerations united, justly filled our hearts with joy and exultation, which we poured out to the Lord.

That great and wonderful task not only then excited in our minds the most lively gratitude to that powerful prince, who in establishing the concordat, put forth all his power and authority to accomplish it; but the recollection must always incline our mind whenever the opportunity shall offer, to prove that we are still strongly impressed with those feelings towards him.And now the same most powerful prince, our dearest son in Christ, Napoleon, emperor of the French, who has deserved so well of the catholic religion for what he has done, has signified to us his strong desire to be anointed with the holy unction, and to receive the imperial crown from us, to the end that the solemn rights which are to place him in the highest rank, shall be strongly impressed with the character of religion, and call down more powerfully the benediction of heaven.-A request of this nature not only in itself affords the clearest proof of his religion and filial reverence to his holy see, but it has also been accompanied with the express declarations, by which the emperor has informed us of his constant desire to promote the holy faith, to repair the injuries, for the preventing of which, he has laboured with so much zeal in these flourishing regions. You therefore see, most venerable brothers, what just and momentous causes we have for undertaking this journey: we are moved not only by the interests of our holy religion, but by gratitude to that powerful emperor, who has put forth all his authority