. . . To prevent the country from
becoming the prey of foreigners, it is indispensable to nationalize
the war; and this cannot be done unless the nation and its monarch
bo united by closer bonds. It has become indispensable to give a
satisfactory answer to our enemies' acensations of aggrandizement:
there would be real magnanimity in a formal declaration that the
independence of the French people and the integrity of its territory
are all that we contend for. It is for the government to propose
measures which may promptly repel the euemy, and secure peace on a
durable basis. Those measures would be at once efficacious, if the
French people were persuaded that the government in good faith
aspired only to the glory of peace, and that their blood would no
longer be shed but to defend our country, and secure the protection
of the laws. But these words of 'peace' and 'country' will resound
in vain, if the institutions are not guaranteed which secure those
blessings. It appears, therefore, to the commission, to be
indispensable that, at the same time that the government proposes
the most prompt and efficacious measures for the security of the
country, his majesty should be supplicated to maintain entire the
execution of the laws which guarantee to the French the rights of
liberty and security, and to the nation the free exercise of its
political rights.
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