Washington has no resemblance to Napoleon. He was not a despot. He founded the political liberty, at the same time as the national independence, of his country. He used war only as a means to peace. Raised to the supreme power without ambition, he descended from it without regret, as soon as the safety of his country permitted. He is the model for all democratic chiefs. Now you have only to examine his life, his soul, his acts, his thoughts, his words; you will not find a single mark of condescension, a single moment of indulgence, for the favourite ideas of Democracy. He constantly struggled--struggled even to weariness and to sadness--against its exactions. No man was ever more profoundly imbued with the spirit of government, or with respect for authority. He never exceeded the rights of power, according to the laws of his country; but he confirmed and maintained them, in principle as well as in practice, as firmly, as loftily, as he could have done in an old monarchical or aristocratical state. He was one of those who knew that it is no more possible to govern from below in a republic than in a monarchy--in a democratic than in an aristocratic society. Democratic societies enjoy no privilege which renders the spirit of government less necessary in them than in others; no privilege which renders their vital conditions different or inferior to those required elsewhere. By an infallible consequence of the struggle which infallibly arises in such societies, the possessor of power is continually called on to decide between the contrary impulses by which he is solicited to make himself the artisan of good or the accomplice of evil, the champion of order or the slave of disorder. The mythic story of the choice of Hercules is the daily and hourly history of his life. Every government, whatever be its form or its name, which, by the vice of its organization or situation, or by the corruption or feebleness of its will, cannot fulfil this inevitable task, will speedily pass away like an evil phantom, or will ruin the democracy it affects to establish. CHAPTER III. OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. I shall not speak of the republican form of government otherwise than with respect. Considered in itself, it is a noble form of government. It has called forth great virtues; it has presided over the destiny and the glory of great nations. But a republican government has the same vocation, the same duties, as any other government. Its name gives it no claim to dispensation or privilege. It must satisfy both the general and permanent wants of human society, and the particular wants of the particular community which it is called to govern. The permanent want of every community,--the first and most imperious want of France at the present day,--is, peace in the bosom of society itself.