The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-22 00:00:00

eat
\it
4.411,
.--- ,
• . ,1
-. 4 4 ;
.., #,,,,t ~,,,
3.;11 'N'

ith parties it is the most sacred portion of
:itage.
hhich of us would consider himself as owing
irtelfthing to the family of a benefactor, and would not
look upon the son as unworthy of existence, who
should not regard the gratitude of his father as pert
of his inheritance ? This sentiment prevails no less
its our pubic than in our pi ivate manners: Have not
we all applauded the recent inscription in the hook
of the Peerage, of the youthful heir of that illus-
trious orator who defended with so much ability
and talent the cause of our liberties, and which we
for public order reconstitute a support not less elo-
quent. France, would net she have feliciteted herself
with us, if, by the side of this illustrious contem-
porary, and the other illustrations which the King
has lively given to us, she could have returned to us
some of those names that a Freneh lip can never
pronounce but with respect, and whom we should
all have risen to receive, but that unhappily history
has alone preserved to us ? L'Hopital, Ca-
tinat, Daguesseau---and those great names of our
modern glory, who have eo many empty places
amongst us. What French 'voice will dare to say
that these names had not titles, titles whteh die not
in the tomb, and which the opinions of their
temporaries honoured in the name of theie country ?
Yes, the country which has honmetd them in the
statues which she has erected to their memory, arid
honours them not less in their families—living hnorm-
ments of their services and their glorys
The dearest ambition of a public man—the re-
compense the most precious to which he can aspire
—the greatest fortune he seeks after—is the happis
ness of surviving in his descendants, in transmitting
to them a part to the honour which he hae acquired
nd the rank to which he has been elevated. There
is not a sentiment more noble, there is not one more
useful for society, or more worthy of encouragement
and of respect. The hereditary character of certain
political bodies has been introduced into the institu-
tions of people the most enlightened, and this prin-
ciple has become, for these institutions, a guarantee
of stability—a security for duration. But political
bodies, we know, do much more by themselves then
by the laws. Feeble at their birth—often the ob-
ject of jealousy and dislike—they are not really
placed at the head of their country until they have
laboriously obtained the rank which belongs to them
by a long suite of services which command the con-
fidence of nations,. Until then, they are condemned
to rivalry and prejudices, over which their prudence
and patriotism can alone enable them to triumph.
It he thus that new institutions rarely acquire in
their origin those developments which they need to
fulfil their mission and their object ; and the legi-
slator, forced to study opinion, and sound and con-
sult the manners of the country, is often constrained
to adjourn the completion of the social edifice, to
which he cannot give the necessary solidity before
the soil itself shall become durable.
By a happy exception to this rule, it was other-
wise with this Chamber at its birth. The prin-
ciple of its perpetuity was not, in the first place,
placed in the Charter of 1814, but as an alternative.
The fixed character of this principle was soon de-
manded by the friends of liberty, and solemnly con-
secrated by an act revocable, indeed, in its nature,
but to which the unanimous sanction of public opi-
nion soon gave an irrevocable character. This
sanction also was not refused to your services.
Never was justice more decided rendered to a
public body than that with which all France recom-
pensed the wise and persevering energy with which
the Peerage has struggled for these two years against
a fatal system, and defended the interests and liber-
ties of the country. This justice was not contested
with you at the time, when rejecting the sigh's of
primogeniture, your reporter himself told you,
more than six years since, are you not yourselves,
gentlemen, a proof and an example of that popular
requisite, to be grateful and just, and of the admi-
rable discernment with which the people appreciate
difficulties, judge of positions, and point out tasks?
Far from imitating the exigency of parties whom
nothing but a blind passion of serving them can
satisfy—see how they receive the measures which
you adopt for the public good, when they perceive
the necessity to which you were obliged to sacri-
fee the hope of something better, but doubtful.
See how they honour this independence of cha-
racter, which, whilst it enters into the examination
of the acts of the ministry with the indulgence
which it deserves, never allows you to sacrifice the
paramount interests which are known to you, to
this feeling, and to the fear even of displeasure.
See with what confidence and by whose hands they
Address to you the numerous reclamations which the
Bill has created in all parts of France. What has
happened since? What can have changed almost
in an instant a disposition of minds founded upon
justice and truth ? What has occurred ? The
world, which is still shaking by the shock, knows
it. An entire revolution, imposing calm even in
the first cruelties of victory, which has given to
the minds and to interests a generous impulse, no
doubt, but which it has not been in its power to
regulate. It is the same with great political com-
motions as with the contest of elements. The agi-
tation following it cannot be stopped easily. The
most honourable passions, once raised, cannot be
checked in one day. And God alone can, with one
word, calm the tempest. Is it not natural that
when laws have been insufficient for their own de-
fence, the people who have fought and conquered
for them, thinking to find in the bad organization
of the conservative bodies of these laws, the cause
of their weakness, should seek in the changes of
this organization a guarantee against violations, the
renewal of which they wish to prevent ? It may
no doubt happen that in the pre-occupation of a re-
cent and strong impression, persons may be led
astray, and think they shall find the security they
seek even in the destruction of the guarantee
which might most contribute to maintain it.
It is thus that, at the last and solemn
trial of elections, made in the presence of
the grand question upon which you are called
to pronounce, that opinion was strongly opposed in
the greatest part of France to an hereditary Peer-
age. With whatever feelings the movements of the
mind are judged, its symptoms cannot be denied,
or its principle misunderstood. The Ministry and
the other Chamber have drawn thence the convic-
tion of an imperious necessity, which they have
obeyed. An imposing majority has adopted the
suppression en an hereditary Peerage, a suppression
which the Ministry had only proposed as a painful
necessity, called forth by the public wish, and which
imposed upon it the sacrifice of its personal convic-
tion, however deep it might be. Yours, gentlemen,
should it even be still deeper, would undoubtedly
not hesitate to sacrifice it, and your Committee
would have been unanimous in the conviction of this
duty, if you had in the same degree the conscious-
ness of its necessity, if you were fully satisfied that
this sacrifice was demanded by the maintenance of
social order, and the happiness of the country. But
the whole Committee has not been unanimous upon
this point. Seven of its members have thought
that wisdom commanded them, for the tranquillity
of the country, to relinquish their opinion and to
adopt the Royal propositions. Seven others have
thought, on the contrary, that no consideration ought
to determine you to give up a vital principle, the
destruction of which would be the annihilation of
the Peerage itself. Your wisdom will decide. le
order that you may do it with more facility, we
deem it our duty
to expose to you rapidly the facts
and principles which have influenced the two opinions
that have divided us. An hereditary Peerage,
said those of us who thought it their duty to re-
ject this provision of the law, an hereditary Peerage
is an essential requisite; it can alone replace tilt
action of the elective principle from whence the
Chamber of Deputies derives its origin. If an he-
reditary Peerage is to disappear, you might as well
suppress the Peerage, and not preserve a second
Chamber, mutilated and deprived of the principle
which renews and vivifies it. It is vain for us to
consult the wish of public opinion, the action of
circumstances: nothing proves this opinion to be
general, and serious,—nothing proves these circum-

stances to be really insurmountable. Every day may
disclose, under the influence of the Press, an artifi-
cial erroneous opinion, demanding the sacrifice of an
institution. Far from giving way to the first shock
of this opinion, it is precisely in order to resist such
influences, and to prevent these transitory attacks,
that the Peerage has been constitutionally established
upon a durable basis-. It should not, therefore, be
sacrificed to the errors against which it is instituted.
The dike is not rensoved, because the sea rises to
throw it down.. Whatever may be the real and ap-
parent tendency of public opinion, the Chamber
ought to maintain this Cutebtry principle, more for
state than for ittstlf. It depends not on its own
prerogatives, but political order, the system of go-
vernment of which these prerogatives form an inte-
gral and essential part. Thee tht; Chamber of Peers
will efficaciotasb; Cerve the constitutional royalty
which re quires the presence and concurrence of an
element hereditary like itself. Thus it will serve
the public liberties in keeping up a restraint which
is useful to them, and in leaving to opinion to be-
come enlightened by time.
T'ne members of the Chamber ought without he-
sitation, to sacrifice their own interests) if that sacri-
fice be useful to the State 't but they should not alter
the institution or which they are now the represen-
tati..-0, and which to be useful requires to be inde-
pendent, and which cannot be so without the Peer-
age being hereditary. Even in the most liberal mo-
narchy, every thing cannot be given up, carried away
at every instant by the sole influence of a popular
election: On the other side, every thing that does
hot belong to this influence cannot exclusively de-
pend upon the Crown alone. The principle of he-
reditary representation, admitted with due propor-
tion, establishes is neutral independent power, which
prevents collision, supports the throne without ser-
vi!ity,and draws its rights from the constitution itself.
A similar element necessary to the reality of the
constitutional system should have been created by
the new monarchy, if it had not preceded it, and if
it had not already, by its very nature, struggled
more than once against the arbitrary acts of the ab
solute power that has lost the restoration. Is it to
be destroyed while it exists ? Is it not, above all,
I now that we have entered upon a completely Parlia-
mentary Government, that each of the powers
composing it should have all its means of ac-
tion,—all its forms of independence ? Hence, if
the Chamber of Deputies cannot maintain its place,
exercise its functions in the constitutional order, ex-
cept by this recruiting of birth, which is never but
partial, which is not exclusive of personal illustra-
tions, but which augment the eclat of their admis-
sion, and places into the recompence, even of ser-
vices, the pledge of independence. An hereditary
Peerage should be maintained ; and the Chamber,
without regard to circumstances,—without thinking
of itself,—should reject the law, upon higher views
of Parliamentary liberty and public interest. The
other members of the Committee answered these ar-
guments, these principles, by strong motives ofpublic
interest, and by serious consideration.
Sensible as they are of the service which heredi-
tary transmission communicates to the Peerage, and
to the common stability of the power of the State ;
yet they cannot but admit that the application of
this principle may be sometimes retarded, or sus-
pended, or even supplied by another combination.
They disapprove especially the threatening alterna-
tive of to be, or riot to be, presented as the only
solution of the problem ; convinced that the force
of opinion, the necessity of circumstances may re-
quire and sanction modification, which are nor the
ruin of the State, which alter some parts without
compromising the whole. Nothing in political affairs,
especially after a great revolution, should be decided
in so absolute and inflexible a manner. Points of
view change, the same acts have not always the same
scope. New public opinion demands the suppres-
sion of an hereditary Peerage as a liberal guarantee :
in 1814, it was reserved by the Crown as a means of
influence and power. The Charter, the first homo-
logation of the new public right called for by
France, left to the King the right of creating Peers
for life or hereditary; and this unequal division,
which was supposed to have been dictated by mo-
tives little creditable perhaps to the principal illustra-
tions of new France, led, as we have already stated,
public opinion to a better conception of the ad-
vantages of an hereditary Peerage. Cannot the
same attempt be renewed now in an uniform manner,
and under different inspiration, without putting
the State into danger ? If the ruin of the Con-
stitution was attached to this measure, no doubt

the Chamber of Peers should inflexibly resist,
and, scorning the apparent objection of being
actuated by interested motives, it would venture all
for the defence of social order, as it did on a recent
occasion, to insure the independence of justice.—
This is not the case, and the duty is not the same.
This time the question is not a question of judiciary
conscience and personal danger, but a government
and political question. We have to consider how,
under the influence of the late events, in the present
disposition of public opinion, the Chamber of Peers
can in the best way fulfil its mission of maintaining
order, serving the throne and the public liberties
within the limits of the law. The relinquishment
of a right may in a given circumstance be the means
of force against anarchical pretensions. On nearly
every social question, the immense majority in France
is moderate and friendly to order. The question is
not to give to this majority any occasion to com-
plain, or let it join grievances with those violent
opinions horn which it generally keeps aloof; were
it even necessary, in order to obtain this end, to give
way to some susceptible minds, to modify certain
guarantees until they are better understood and re-
, gretted. Without admitting the lawfulness of the
imperative mandates, and taking them only for
symptoms of the domineering spirit, must we not
acknowledge that the electoral opinion reproduced
by the votes of the other Chamber was to a great
majority contrary to the maintenance of an here-
ditary Peerage, and that an immediate trial at
tempted upon this opinion would excite it still
more ? The Peers, in uniting against the im-
posing majority of the other Chamber, will un-
doubtedly make a painful sacrifice ; but can they
hesitate, if, at this price, they insure the actual
harmony of the powers, in saving them from
a struggle which would weaken them more than a
concession itself ? Permanent members of an as-
sembly, the ascendancy of which it is the interest of
the Crown to strengthen by choices worthy of them,
they will have on their side the popularity of a noble
disinterestedness, the ulterior influence of public dis-
cussion, and that authority of principles and experi-
ence which is necessarily attached to the immova-
bility of a political body. With the suppression of
an hereditary Peerage, the legislative vote of the
Chamber of Peers will not be less powerful to
modify, suspend, or reject every resolution, which
might be contrary to the interests of the State.
Secure from the reproach of personal interest, having
satisfied the exaggerations of anti-aristocratical sus-
picion, the Chamber of Peers will possess more
moral strength to repel new pretensions. It will no
longer be accused of seeking and defending its own
privileges in all social questions. It will be ac-
knowledged that it has no other interest and aim in
its efforts than the maintenance of the constitutional
throne, public liberties, private property, and the
common right of civilized men, which is at present
threatened by a spirit of anarchy ? Thus the
Chamber of Peers, a necessary part of the State,
would preserve its conservative mission ; it would
be more closely connected with the throne; and it is
a public guarantee after a change of dynasty. It
would have nothing offensive to the spirit of equality
so prevailing in these times; and it is also a happy con-
dition for a power charged by its nature to check and to
maintain. In this new situation the Chamber would
perhaps gain political credit with the people, and
affinity with the public mind, that it would have
lost by the relinquishment of a contested privilege ?
But will not this relinquishment be the beginning of
a greater sacrifice ? Will not the Chamber of
Peers, stripped of its hereditary right, be hereafter,
attacked in its existence ? We have shared this
fear, assured as we are' by the good sense of the

public which has sprung up in France, and learned
so much for the last forty years. It is not !un-
doubtedly sheltered against prejudices and against
being attacked ; but it is invariably fixed upon cer- '
tain political maxims, which have been unfortuna.ely
too long understood, The existence of a second
legislative irremovable Chamber—the necessity that
it should be independent of the popular vote, and
that, faithful to the best interests of the nation, it
should not comply with the capricious opinions of
the times,—such are the Government maxims which
henceforward enter into the domain of public rea-
son. Some minds may still, and will always attack
them ; but all shades of enlightened opinions com-
bine in defending them, and they have the sanction
of principle and of experience. Thus, with the
strengthening of order and public liberty, the legal
rights of the Chamber of Peers, seconded by its
services, far from ever being in danger, will expect
every thing from the progre,s of public opinion,
which cannot always misunderstand the advantages
of the salutary principle now rejected, and not keep
an account of the duty which will be imposed on
your patriotism.
Such are, gentlemen, the principal considerations
which have determined one-half of your commission
to give their suffrages to the royal project.
We have not re-produced in this summary all the
motives of anxious foresight and political necessity
presented elsewhere in support of this opinion ; the
Chamber is not unacquainted with them, and in its
wisdom will know how to appreciate them. Atten-
tive alone to the well-being of the State, it will ad-
mit no other moral influence than that of its con-
science and its enlightenment.
Among the motives of prudence, we will not
place a consideration so frequently re-produced, but
too improbable to determine your decision, if the
Chamber had not otherwise much graver motives.
The constituent power had been spoken of as a
supreme solution, held in reserve, and which may at
any time be produced, if you do not accept the pro-
ject of law which has been submitted to your con-
sideration.

Such a supposition, such a fear, would be equally
unworthy of both Chambers. They would not be
less offensive to the royal power, the adherence or
powerlessness of which is pre-supposed.
In fact, the Chamber of Deputies, and the royal
power, have recognised that the Chamber, in sub-
mitting its 23d article to the revision of the session
of 1831, had thereby intended to place this revision
in the domain of the Legislature. It is a law pro-
posed by the Crown to the other Chamber, it is a
law which the latter has adopted and amended, and
which is now laid before you for your examination
and adoption.
_ _

By law, how could it have been otherwise? How
could the Charter, the first of all laws, but doubtless
a law, since the three powers voted and proclaimed
it, have been revised by any authority other than
that of the Legislature ? And what could this au-
thority be, which, superior to the three powers,
should impose on them immutable laws at its will,
and should enchain them even to futurity,
Thus, like the popular sovereignty, the consti-
tuent power exercises itself a day, a moment, in the
absence of the law and of the regular powers, to
found or organize those powers, and to give life to
the social body ; the powers once constituted, and
the law proclaimed, there exists no longer any au-
thority than that of these powers—any other cove•
reignty than that of the law.
How shall we comprehend, especially in one of
the branches of the legislature, an authority superior
to the whole legislature—the right of suppressing
the action of the two others, and of attributing to
itself a power, unique, sovereign, and above the
Constitution—above the law ? Who does not see
that it is the 14th Article, borrowed of another
power ?
But, except in Article 14, effaced from the
Charter, not on the Bth of August, but the 25th of
July, for every power which usurps abdicates by the
very act of usurpation, where shall we find the right
of this exorbitant power? To exercise it, a man-
date is doubtless requisite. Who has conferred this
mandate ? The electoral colleges? But in the
electoral colleges all electors and elected have taken
the oath of fidelity to the King and the Charter.
This oath is the only mandate given and received—
the only one which could be, the only one which
can be, fulfilled. Thus your Committee have given
no attention to such fears. It has gone to a higher
source for the considerations which have determined
it, and which it has, by the medium of myself, sub-
mitted to your judgment.
In the system of hereditary right, the nomination
of Peers being exercised as it were but accessorily,
and in order to complete the Chamber, or act
against its resistance when this the resistance
appears to the Crown contrary to the wishes
of the country, the mode of nomination is much
less important than if the Peerage, no longer
recompensed by order of succession, were destined
to become totally the work of choice. Your Com-
mittee has, however, hesitated in its opinion, that in
every hypothesis the nomination of Peers could be
intrusted only to the Crown.
If your Committee has not dissembled the incon-
veniences which the suppression of the hereditary
right would attaxli to this attribution, it has per-
ceived sill greater ones in any other mode of nomi-
nation. That of popular election, direct or indirect,
is so contrary to the principle of the division of the
powers, to the object and to the spirit of the Peer-
age, that it would be destructive of the institution
itself. It would not be less so of the elective
Chamber, which would cease to be, as soon as a per-
manent Chamber could be produced by the electoral
urn, and could represent the nation with the same
rights, with the same power, increased by the inde-
pendence it would acquire by its being irremovable.
This mode of election could then be applied to the
composition of the Chamber of Peers, without
altering in its basis the system of constitutional Go-
vernment.
But if the project reserves to the King the direct
nomination of the Peers, it is in restraining it
within the circle of a certain number of categories,
in which the selection must be exclusively made. The
categories, all of them taken in honourable classes or
functions, are not unknown to you, it is useless to
, recapitulate them. Your Committee proposes but
one alteration.

It is not, however, without a division, that it has
arrived at this determination. Many of its members

strongly insisted on the entire suppression of the
categories—too numerous in their opinion to be
useful, if any guarantee against a bad choice were
derivable ; too restricted, if they are considered a
limitation of the rights of the Crown, or the exclu-
sion of numerous classes of citizens. They have
seen in them a distrust justified by no circumstance ;
a distrust more manifest by the minute and vain
precaution so unworthy of being recorded in a
Charter which prescribes that the ordinances of
nomination shall be motived and individual.
The Royal authority needs the confidence of the
people; and how shall it attain this confidence if
it has not that of the law ? Undoubtedly the choice
may be abused, but is not the responsibility of the
choice a better guarantee than the narrow and elec-
tive circle of the project ? Who does not see how
easily the warranties of the categories may be eluded ?
May it not be feared that certain public functionaries
will degenerate into a mere candidature for the
Peerage, and that by wishing to avoid a bad nomi-
nation, the country may be exposed to see useful
offices converted into titles of expectation ? Is it
besides, answering the object of this institution to
make it the almost necessary retirement of all the
functionaries of the State ? Is it the public offices
which the Charter called us to represent ? Opinion
is invoked. Is it for the administration that its soli-
citude is awakened ? Is it in its ranks, however
honourable they may be, that its defenders and its
guarantees are generally sought ? On the other
hand, restraining the choice 'of the Crown, is it not
restraining the rights of all ? The Charter calls
Frenchmen without distinction to different employ-
ments in the State. Why should the most elevated
one of all be inaccessible to any one ? Why, then,