“Why is it, gentlemen, that in utter contempt of the most solemn pledges, we have preserved for fourteen years the whole imperial structure of the internal administration in France? those factitious municipalities, those unsettled councils, those despotic and turbulent prefectures and sub-prefectures, which have never been amended except for successively adding to their inconveniences, attributions, and appointments? When shall we see every section manage its own concerns, provide for all its own exigencies, and retain within its territory that portion of the taxes that we are afterwards compelled to send back to it? Is this idea unknown in France? But the constituent assembly, whatever has been said to the contrary at this tribune, had not only proclaimed useful and true doctrines; it had also organized a system of administration elected by the citizens, and was abolished only by the consulate and by the empire. Is it replete with such great difficulties? But when in 1815, Napoleon, in a fit of liberalism, restored the municipalities in accordance with the law of ’91, elections were made with remarkable celerity and moderation. The only embarrassment that could arise would be in the government, if instead of abiding by the dictates of eternal truth and of contemporary reason, it found it necessary to combine principle with exception, right with privilege, thereby perplexing and deluding the purest intentions. “I will follow the report of the committee in the examination of the war department, merely with the view to support the proposition of placing in the civil list the payment of the king’s military household. You have also heard on this subject the excellent discourse, to which my honorable friend, General Gerard, has given all the weight of his experience and of his glory. The minister of war, in offering observations that will be made the subject of future deliberations, has just expressed his desire of completing our system of defence. Here, gentlemen, we naturally bring back to our memory the urgent call recently made by the ministry upon our patriotism to obtain the means necessary to a preserving policy, a respectable military strength, a guarantee of public tranquillity, a national dignity; and to an union of the people with the government. The minister had before represented the nation rising in a body at the voice of their king. I will not attempt, gentlemen, the solution of the problem; the knot has been untied by a celebrated writer whose authority is daily referred to. “The stationary National Guard, says an ordinance of the king, dated March, 1815, comprising a mass of three millions of landed and industrious proprietors, constitutes a local force extended on every point.... “From this formidable mass, whose dearest interests attach them to the soil, may be formed voluntary corps constituting movable columns....