"Bring in a bill for septennial elections, without aiming at retaining a portion of the present Chamber, which would be suspicious, or keeping the whole, which would be dangerous. "Give up the laws of exception, a source of arbitrariness, an eternal subject of quarrels and calumnies. "Free the communes from ministerial despotism." In my despatch of the 3rd of March, No. 18, I reverted to Spain; I said: "It may be possible that Spain will soon change her monarchy into a republic: her Constitution must bear its fruit. The King[140] will either fly or be killed or dethroned; he is not strong enough to master the revolution. It is possible again that this same Spain might exist for some time in a popular state, if she were to form herself into federal republics, an aggregation for which she is better suited than any other country by the variety of her kingdoms, her manners, her laws and even her language." The Naples affair returns three or four times more. On the 6th of March, No. 19, I observe: "That the Legitimacy has not been able to take deep root in a State which has so often changed masters and whose habits have been upset by so many revolutions. Affections have not had time to be born, manners to receive the uniform imprint of centuries and institutions. In the Neapolitan nation are many corrupt or wild men who have no mutual connection, and who are attached to the Crown only by feeble bonds: royalty is too near the _lazzarone_ and too far removed from the Calabrian to be respected. The French had too many military virtues to establish democratic liberty; the Neapolitans will not have sufficient" [Sidenote: Official dispatches.] Lastly, I said a few words about Portugal and again about Spain. The rumour was being spread that John VI.[141] had embarked at Rio de Janeiro for Lisbon. It was a frolic of fortune worthy of our time that a king of Portugal should fly to an European revolution to seek shelter against an American revolution, and pass at the foot of the rock on which was confined the conqueror who had formerly compelled him to take refuge in the New World. "All is to be feared from Spain," I said, on the 17th of March, No. 21; "the revolution in the Peninsula will go through its periods, unless an arm arises capable of stopping it; but where is that arm? That is always the question." That arm I had the good fortune to find in 1823: it was the arm of France. I am pleased, in this passage from my dispatch of the 10th of April, No. 26, to find again my jealous antipathy to the Allies and my preoccupation for the dignity of France; I said, writing of Piedmont: