nature, these utopiaa are necessanly exclusive of each other,
and are incapable of any real or lasting compromise; — the
temporary combinations among them dissolving and re-
combining on the most trivial pretexts ; — and thus all govern-
ment is rendered as unstable and inconstant as the winds. I do
not mean by this that France in actual fact has been rendered
unprosperous in a material sense by this instability, I mean
only that her position, owing to the complexity of her Foreign
relations, is at critical periods rendered dangerous, while her
action at all times is made unreliable by reason of it. It is
largely owing to her prosperity, indeed, that these Utopias can
continue to exist at all. The country, in point of fact, has few
really great material or social grievances to complain of ; these
having been removed by the Revolution, by the Code Napoleon,
and by the constructive statesmanship of the First Empire.
