deviations and apostasies from a revolution of liberty and equality, we have finished by seeing Europe during some years inundated with two complete assortments of dynasties,—nobility and privileged classes.... “I come now, gentlemen, to the second part of our expenses, the contingent part of the budget; but before remarking upon its items separately, I would ask how we can conscientiously support, by voting the ways and means, a government so scandalously expensive, and of which the system is hostile to the rights and to the wishes of almost all those who contribute to its support; and who, doubtless, only pay these contributions with a view to be honestly served, and by those who will study the national interest. It is to be hoped that this year the special application of every sum to the object for which it was voted will be closely scrutinized, as is the case in other countries.... “My unwillingness to vote for the expenses of foreign affairs arises from the conviction that our diplomacy at present is an absurdity. In truth, gentlemen, the system, the agents, the language, all appear to me foreign to regenerated France; she is again subjected to doctrines that she had branded, to powers she had so often conquered, to habits contracted among her enemies, to obligations for which, on her own account at least, she has no cause to blush. In the meanwhile, Europe, aroused by us thirty years ago to liberty, checked indeed since, as it must be confessed, by the view of our excesses and the abuse of our victories, has resumed, and will preserve, notwithstanding recent misfortunes, that great march of civilization, at the head of which our French place is marked, a place in which the eyes of all people who are free, or aspiring to become so, should not seek us in vain. “Well, gentlemen, in this division of Europe between two banners,—on the one side, despotism and aristocracy; on the other, liberty and equality,—that liberty and equality which we first proclaimed there,—where do we find the _soi-disant_ organs of France? exempt, it is true, and I am happy to acknowledge it, from a hostile co-operation, in the aggression of the satellites of Troppau and Laybach, whom a success of little duration, as I hope, will only render more odious; they are also entitled to our thanks for not having insulted France by any positive participation in those recent declarations of the three powers, which, in order not to offend the majority in this house, I will only characterize by repeating my ardent wishes, the wishes of my life, for the emancipation of the people, the independence of nations, and the morality and dignity of the true social order. We have, nevertheless, seen the agents of the French government, in their subaltern participation in the first deliberation of these congresses, not even to raise themselves to the level, so easily attained, of liberality evinced by the British diplomatists....