“Gentlemen,” said La Fayette, “though I have voted against approving the budget of expenses, in the hope that its refusal would prove a prompt and efficacious means of obtaining those institutions and economies which France has for so long a time expected, yet I feel disposed to vote in favor of the credits demanded, provided the chamber receives those explanations which it stands so much in need of. I do not see in the great quarrel of the east, as regards ourselves, anything beyond our importance as an intermediate power in what is called the balance of Europe; only two classes, the oppressors and the oppressed; in the demarkation of states, nothing but their natural limits; in the well-being of a people, nothing but the advantage of all; and in the policy of France, nothing but a liberal and independent part to act. You know, gentlemen, that great and powerful alliance which would enslave and brutalize the human family. It covers the peninsula with blood, oppresses Italy, and throws other states into disorder. Vienna is its metropolis, and in spite of other pretensions, Don Miguel is its ideal type. “England has pretended to favor the world with another beacon, whose light is sometimes extinguished, and at other times shines but to decoy; upon this point inquire of Italy, of Spain, and of Portugal. It is for France then, gentlemen, which finds herself more in accord with our ideas of the new civilization, to place herself at the head of that civilization; in that consists her glory and her interest; there, too, in case of need, will be found her ambition; and there, also, the dignity and the safety of her government. But to perform that noble task it is necessary that the government resolve no longer to fear either a representative or an armed nation, and that abandoning its former relations, it may be able to say to foreign powers, ‘Next to God, it is to the people of France that I am indebted for being elevated above your influence and beyond your pretensions.’ “I will confine myself, gentlemen, to a few remarks on the grounds to which our attention has been invited by the application made for the credits now under consideration.