While the allied powers were thus desirous that the King of France should obtain possession of a throne which he had never forfeited, they, and England in particular, saw at once the justice and the policy of securing to France every accession of well-regulated freedom, which she had obtained by and through the Revolution, as well as such additional improvements upon her constitution as experience had shown to be desirable. These were pointed out and stipulated for by the celebrated Fouché, who, on this occasion, did much service to his country. Yet he struggled hard, that while the King acknowledged, which he was ready to do, the several benefits, both in point of public feeling and public advantage, which France had derived from the Revolution, the sovereign should make some steps to acknowledge the Revolution itself.[175] He contended for the three-coloured banners being adopted, as a matter of the last importance;--in that, somewhat resembling the archfiend in the legends of necromancy, who, when the unhappy persons with whom he deals decline to make over their souls and bodies according to his first request, is humble enough to ask and accept the most petty sacrifices--the paring of the nails, or a single lock of hair, providing it is offered in symbol of homage and devotion. But Louis XVIII. was not thus to be drawn into an incidental and equivocal homologation, as civilians term it, of all the wild work of a period so horrible, which must have been by implication a species of ratification even of the death of his innocent and murdered brother. To preserve and cherish the good which had flowed from the Revolution, was a very different thing from a ratification of the Revolution itself. A tempest may cast rich treasures upon the beach, a tornado may clear the air; but while these benefits are suitably prized and enjoyed, it is surely not requisite that, like ignorant Indians, we should worship the wild surge, and erect altars to the howling of the wind. The King of France having steadily refused all proposals which went to assign to the government an authority founded on the Revolution, the constitution of France is to be recognised as that of a hereditary monarchy, limited by the Royal Charter, and by the principles of freedom. It thus affords to the other existing monarchies of Europe a guarantee against sudden and dangerous commotion; while in favour of the subject, it extends all the necessary checks against arbitrary sway, and all the suitable provisions for ameliorating and extending the advantages of liberal institutions, as opportunity shall offer, and the expanding light of information shall recommend.