What do our labours and our troubles and our exiles matter if they have been for the general good; if the human race be indeed passing from December to its April; if the winter of tyrannies and of wars indeed be finished; if superstitions and prejudices no longer fall on our heads like snow; and if, after so many clouds of empire and of carnage have rolled away, we at last descry upon the horizon the rosy dawn of universal peace?

O my brothers, let us be reconciled!  Let us set out on the immense highway of peace.  Surely there has been enough of hatred.  When will you understand that we are all together on the same ship, and that the immense menace of the sea is for all of us together?  Our solidarity is terrible, but brotherhood is sweet.

IV.—­Republican Principles

The sovereignty of the people, universal suffrage, and the liberty of the Press are all the same thing under three different names.  The three together constitute the whole of our public right; the first is its principle, the second its manner, and the third its expression.  The three principles are indissoluble from one another.  The sovereignty of the people is the life-giving soul of the nation, universal suffrage its government, the Press its illumination; but they are all really one, and that unity is the republic.  It is curious to notice how these principles appear again in the watchword of the republic; for the sovereignty of the people creates liberty, universal suffrage creates equality, and the Press, which enlightens the general mind, creates fraternity.

Wherever these three great principles exist in their powers and plenitude there is the republic, even though it be known as monarchy.  Wherever, on the other hand, they are betrayed, hindered, or oppressed, the actual state is a monarchy or an oligarchy, even though it goes under the name of a republic.  In the latter case we see the monstrous phenomenon of a government betrayed by its proper guardians, and it is this phenomenon that makes the stoutest hearts begin to be doubtful of revolutions.  For revolutions are vast, ill-guided movements, which bring forth out of the darkness at one and the same time the greatest of ideas and the smallest of men; they are movements which we welcome as salutary when we look at their principles, but which we can only call catastrophes when he consider the character of their leaders.

Let us never forget that our three first principles live with a common life, and mutually defend one another.  If the Liberty of the Press is in danger, the suffrages of the people arise and protect it; and, again, if the franchise is threatened, it is safeguarded by the freedom of the Press.  Any attempt against either of them is a treachery to the sovereignty of the people.

The movement of this great nineteenth century is the movement not of one people only, but of all.  France leads, and the nations follow.  We are passing from the old world to the new, and our governors attempt in vain to arrest ideas by laws.  There is in France and in Europe a party inspired by fear, which is not to be accounted the party of order; and its incessant question is:  Who is to blame?