The English revolution has differed from the French in one important particular. The English have no written constitutions, and therefore they do not violate them, there being nothing, in fact, to violate. Although the change of dynasty was made openly, and the Protestant succession established, it has been possible for another revolution to take place in complete obscurity, a revolution far more radical than any change of dynasty, and of far greater political importance than the religion of the king. The reader knows that I am alluding to the establishment of cabinet government. This, the greatest of all revolutions, has accomplished itself so insidiously that nobody can tell the date of it. French revolutionary dates are all perfectly well known, but this momentous English date is a mystery even to the English. [Sidenote: Copied by France.] [Sidenote: Precarious Existence of French Cabinets.] [Sidenote: Delusive Effect of Words.] [Sidenote: New Way of enforcing a President’s Retirement.] What gives especial importance to the English system of cabinet government is that it has been exactly copied by France. The United States of America have a system of their own, presidential government, that the French entirely overlooked when they made their present constitution, though some of the more thoughtful amongst them now regret that it was not adopted in preference to the English.[24] In France, as in England, the Lower House elects the cabinet by overthrowing every cabinet that does not happen to please it, and a French cabinet, like an English one, lives a precarious life, dependent either upon its representation of the ideas most prevalent in the Chamber, or else on servile submission to its will. Such is the delusive effect of words, that the use of the words “Republic,” “President,” “Senate,” makes unthinking people believe that the French have adopted the American system rather than the English. There is only one essential difference between England and France, and that has been quite recently discovered. The French deputies have found out a way of making the president retire by declining to accept cabinet offices under him, and in case of real or seeming necessity this method will certainly be resorted to again. On the other hand, no human being can foresee by what method an English House of Commons would compel an unpopular Sovereign to abdicate.[25] [Sidenote: Peaceful Changes of Persons.] The compulsory retirement of President Grévy and the peaceful election of his successor have completed the modern French system of _making all changes of persons possible without violence_. This is perhaps the best guarantee for internal tranquillity, especially in a country like France, where political reputations are soon used up and services almost immediately forgotten. It is also, in its far-reaching consequences, the most important ultimate result of the French Revolution. CHAPTER II LIBERTY