Nevertheless, I admit that my politics were applicable only to the Restoration. When a transformation takes place in principles, societies and men, what was good yesterday becomes antiquated and lapsed to-day. With regard to Spain, the relations between the Royal Families having ceased, owing to the abolition of the Salic Law, there is no longer a question of creating impenetrable frontiers beyond the Pyrenees; we must accept the field of battle which Austria and England may one day open up to us there; we must take things at the point to which they have come and abandon, not without regret, a firm but reasonable line of conduct, the certain benefits of which were, it is true, long-dated. I feel conscious of having served the Legitimacy as it should be served. I saw the future as clearly as I see it now; only I wished to reach it by a less dangerous road, so that the Legitimacy, which was essential to our constitutional instruction, might not stumble in a precipitous course. To-day, my plans are no longer realizable: Russia is going to turn elsewhere. If, as things now are, I were to enter the Peninsula, whose spirit has had time to change, it would be with other thoughts: I should occupy myself only with the alliance of the nations, suspicious, jealous, passionate, uncertain and variable though it be, and should not dream of relations between the kings. I should say to France: "You have left the beaten track for the path of precipices: very well, explore its wonders and its perils. Come to us, innovations, enterprises, discoveries! Come, and let arms, if necessary, favour you! Where is there anything new? In the East? Let us march there! Where can we direct our courage and our intelligence? Let us hasten thither! Let us place ourselves at the head of the great rising of the human race; let us not allow ourselves to be outstripped; let the French name go before the others on this crusade, as of old it did to the Tomb of Christ!" Yes, if I were admitted to my country's councils, I would try to be of use to it in the dangerous principles which it has adopted: to restrain it at present, would mean to condemn it to a base death. I should not be satisfied with speeches: adding works to faith, I should prepare soldiers and millions, I should build ships, like Noe, to make prevision for the deluge, and, if I were asked why, I should answer: "Because such is France's good pleasure." My dispatches would warn the Cabinets of Europe that nothing shall stir on the globe without our intervention; that, if the world's shreds are to be distributed, the lion's share shall fall to us. We should cease humbly to ask our neighbours for leave to exist; the heart of France would beat freely, no hand would dare to lay itself upon that heart to count its throbbings; and, since we are seeking new suns, I should dart towards their splendour and no longer await the natural rise of dawn.