“Nature concedes to every man the right of going out of his country; the constitution guarantees it to every French citizen, and we cannot strike a blow at it. The Frenchman who wishes to leave his country, for his business, for his health, even for the sake of his peace and well-being, ought to have the fullest liberty to do so: he ought to be able to use this liberty, without his absence depriving him of the least of his rights. In a great empire, the variety of professions, and inequality of fortunes, do not admit of residence and personal service being regarded as a common obligation which the law may impose upon all citizens. This rigorous obligation can only exist in the case of absolute necessity; to extend it to the habitual state of society, and even to all periods when the public safety or tranquillity may seem to be menaced, would be to disturb the order of useful labours, and to attack the sources of general prosperity.” “Every man, moreover, has the right to change his country; he may renounce that in which he was born, to choose another. From that moment, as a citizen of his new country, he is only a foreigner in the first; but if some day he returns to it, if he has left any property in it, he ought to enjoy there to the full the rights of man; he has only deserved to lose those of a citizen.” “But here a first question presents itself. Is this citizen by his sole renunciation released from every obligation towards the body politic which he abandons? Does the society from which he separates himself lose immediately all its rights over him? Doubtless, not; and I do not speak only of those sentiments which a noble and grateful soul preserves for its country, even though it be unjust; I speak of rigorous obligations, of those which a man cannot fail to fulfil without becoming guilty of an offence: and I say that there exists a time during which a man placed between his ancient and his new country can only permit himself to express hopes as to the differences which arise between them: a time when that one of the two nations against which he might bear arms would have the right to punish him as an assassin; and when the man who might employ his riches or talents against his former countrymen, would really be a traitor.” “I will add that each nation has also the right to fix the time after which the citizen who abandons it is to be considered as free from all obligation, and to determine what are his duties until the expiration of that period, and what actions it still preserves the power to forbid him. To deny this principle, would be to break all the social bonds which can bind men together. This period, doubtless, is not an arbitrary one; it is that during which the citizen who abdicates can employ against his country the means which he has received from it, and during which he can do it more injury than could a foreigner.”