Let not France, whatever be her peril, reckon on absolute power to save her. It would not justify her confidence. In her ancient society, absolute power reposed on a principle of moderation and of permanence; while, under the Emperor Napoleon, it contained a principle of strength, either of which it would vainly seek for now. Popular tyranny or military dictatorship may be the expedient of a day, but can never be a form of government. Free institutions are now as necessary to social peace as they are to individual dignity; and power, whatever be its nature or origin, whether republican or monarchical, has no wiser course to pursue than to learn to use them, for they are now its only instruments and its only stay. If some are tempted to seek repose in other sources, let them abandon all such hopes. Whatever be the future destiny of France, we shall not escape from the necessity of a constitutional government; we are condemned, for our own salvation, to surmount all the difficulties, and to fulfil all the conditions, with which it may be encumbered. There is but one means of rendering ourselves equal to this mighty task, and of complying with this imperious necessity. All the elements of stability, all the conservative forces in the country must unite closely and act constantly together. It is no more possible to extinguish democracy in the nation than liberty in the government. That immense movement which has been communicated to every country and agitates all their deepest recesses; which is incessantly inciting every class and every individual to think, to desire, to claim, to act, to employ his activity in every direction,--this movement will not be stopped. It is a fact in which we must acquiesce, whether it pleases or displeases us, whether it awakens our fears or excites our hopes. But though we cannot extinguish this movement, we can guide and govern it; and if it is not guided and governed, it will throw back the whole current of civilization, and will be the opprobrium as well as the curse of humanity. Democracy, to be guided and governed, must form a considerable ingredient in the state, but it must not be the sole one: it must be strong enough to climb itself, but never to pull down others: it must find issues, and encounter barriers on every side. Democracy is a fertilizing, but muddy stream, whose waters are never beneficent till the turbid and impetuous current has spread itself abroad and subsided into calmness and purity. The Dutch, a great people, though in a small country, whose republican glory shone brightly even amidst the full blaze of the monarchical glory of Louis XIV., conquered their country from the ocean, and maintained their conquest, by cutting canals and raising dikes on every side. It is the ceaseless care of the whole community that the canals be never obstructed and the dikes never broken; for on this depend the prosperity and the existence of Holland.