Chapter 23

I always preserved a preponderance of opinion in France which obliged me to look at home affairs. I ventured to submit the following plan to my minister: "Frankly adopt constitutional government. "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 min…