This hypothetical view of changes which might have taken place in the Conventional government, may be applied to the existing condition of affairs. It is the policy best adapted for the republican government which is now arising in all the security of a settled peace, and yet amidst the most entire anarchy of opinion. The successors of the Convention, men unworthy of their task, degraded the progressive dictatorship entrusted to them by the circumstances of the time into a retrograde tyranny. During the reign of Charles X, which was the last phase of the reaction, the central power was thoroughly undermined by the legal opposition of the parliamentary or local power. The central government still refused to recognize any limits to its authority; but the growth of free thought made its claims to spiritual jurisdiction more and more untenable, leaving it merely the temporal authority requisite for public order. During the neutral period which followed the counter-revolution, the dictatorship was not merely restricted to its proper functions, but was legally destroyed; that is the local power as represented by parliament took the place of the central power. All pretentions to spiritual influence were abandoned by both; their thoughts being sufficiently occupied with the maintenance of material order. The intellectual anarchy of the time made this task difficult enough; but they aggravated the difficulty by unprincipled attempts to establish their government on the basis of pure self-interest, irrespectively of all moral considerations. The restoration of the republic and the progressive spirit aroused by it has no doubt given to both legislative and executive a large increase of power: to an extent indeed which a few years back would have caused violent antipathy. But it would be a grievous error for either of them to attempt to imitate the dictatorial style of the Conventional government. Unsuccessful in any true sense as the attempt would be, it might occasion very serious disturbances, which like the obsolete metaphysical principles in which they originate, would be equally dangerous to Order and to Progress.