This principle being laid down, it is nevertheless certain that royalty, in whatever system it is contemplated, protrudes itself as the personification of the sovereign right. Here is the theocratic system; it tells us that kings are the image of God on earth, which means nothing else than that they are the personification of sovereign justice, truth, and goodness. Here are the jurisconsults; they tell us that the king is the living law; which again means that the king is the personification of sovereign right and of the just law which has a prerogative to govern society. Here is royalty itself in a system of pure monarchy; it asserts itself the personification of the state, of the general interest. In whatever conjunction or situation it is beheld, it is always found gathering itself into an allegation of its representing and giving embodiment to that sovereign right which is alone entitled legitimately to govern society. In this there is no occasion for astonishment. What are the characteristics of supreme right, such as it derives from its very nature? First, it is by itself alone; for as there is but one truth, and one justice, there can be but one supreme right. Furthermore, it is permanent, always the same: truth changes not. It is placed in a situation superior and unknown to all the vicissitudes, all the hazards, of this world: in some degree it is of this world only as a judge and spectator--such is its part. Now, it is royalty which substantively brings out these rational and natural characteristics of right under the most sensible outward form, and seems their most faithful representative. M. Benjamin Constant has ingeniously likened royalty to a neutral moderating power, raised above the accidents and contests of society, and interfering only in great crises. This is, as it were, the very attitude of supreme right in the government of human affairs. This idea must have had something calculated to convince the judgment, for it passed with surprising rapidity from books to facts. One sovereign made it the very base of his throne, in the constitution of Brazil, in which royalty appears as a moderator, raised above the active powers as spectator and judge. {158}