Nevertheless, I have need of consolation,
and I expected it from you: so far from receiving it, you have
endeavored to depreciate me; but I am one of those whom you may
kill, but cannot dishonor. Is it by such reproaches that you expect
to restore the lustre of the throne? What is the throne? Four pieces
of gilded wood, covered with a piece of velvet. The real throne has
its seat in the heart of the nation. You cannot separate the two
without mutual injury; for it has more need of me than I have of it.
What could the nation do without a chief? When the question was, how
we could repel the enemy, you demand institutions as if we had them
not! Are you not content with the constitution? If you are not, you
should have told me so four years ago, or postponed your demand to
two years after a general peace. Is this the moment to insist on
such a demand? You wish to imitate the Constituent Assembly, and
commence a revolution? Be it so. You will find I will not imitate
Louis XVI.: I would rather abandon the throne, I would prefer making
part of the sovereign people, to being an enslaved king. I am sprung
from the people; I know the obligations I contracted when I ascended
the throne. You have done much mischief; you would have done me
still more, if I had allowed your report to be printed.--You speak
of abuses, of vexations. I know, as well as you, that such have
existed; they arose from circumstances, and the misfortunes of the
times.
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