LOUIS NAPOLEON, president of the republic. In the name of the French People.
Frenchmen! When, in my proclamation of the 2d of December, I stated to you in all sincerity what were, according to my ideas, the vital conditions of government in France, I had not the pretension, so common in our days, of substituting a personal theory for the experience of ages. On the contrary, I sought in the past what were the best examples to follow, what men had given them, and what benefit had resulted therefrom.
Having done so, I considered it only logical to prefer the precepts of genius to the specious doctrines of men of abstract ideas. I took as model the political institutions which already, at the beginning of the present century, in analogous circumstances, strengthened society when tottering, and raised France to a high degree of prosperity and grandeur.
I selected as model those institutions which, in place of disappearing at the first breath of popular agitations, were overturned only by all Europe being coalesced against us.
In a word, I said to myself, since France has existed for the last fifty years only in virtue of the administration, military, judicial, religious, and financial organization of the consulate and the empire, why should we not adopt likewise the political institutions of that period? As they were created by the same mind, they ought to bear in themselves the same character of nationality and practical utility.
In fact, as I stated in my proclamation, our present society, it is essential to declare, is nothing else than France regenerated by the revolution of ‘89 and organized by the emperor. Nothing remains of the old régime but great reminiscences and great benefits. But all that was then organized was destroyed by the revolution, and all that has been organized since the revolution, and which still exists, was done by Napoleon.
We have no longer either provinces, or pays d'état, or parliaments, or intendants, or farmers general, or feudal rights, or privileged classes in exclusive possession of civil and military employments, or different religious jurisdiction.
In so many things incompatible with itself had the revolution effected a radical reform, but without founding anything definitive. The first consul alone re-established the unity, the various ranks, and the veritable principles of government. They are still in vigor.
Thus, the administration of France was intrusted to prefects, sub-prefects, and mayors, who substituted unity for the commissions of the directory; and, on the contrary, the decision of business given to councils from the commune to the department. Thus, the magistracy was strengthened by the immovability of the judges, by the various ranks of the tribunals; justice was rendered more easy by the delimitation of attributions, from the justice of peace to the court of cassation. All that is still existing.
In the same way our admirable financial system, the bank of France, the establishment of budgets, the court of accounts, the organization of police, and our military regulations, date from the same period.
For fifty years it is the code Napoléon which had regulated the interests of citizens amongst themselves; and it is still the concordat which regulates the relations between the state and the church.
In fine, the greatest part of the measures which concern the progress of manufactures, commerce, letters, sciences, and the arts, from the regulations of the Théâtre Française to those of the Institute—from the institution of the prud’hommes to the creation of the legion of honor—were fixed by decrees of that time.
It may then be affirmed that the framework of our social edifice is the work of the emperor, and that it has resisted his fall and three revolutions.
Why, with the same origin, should not the political institutions have the same chances of success?
My conviction was long formed on the point, and it is on that account that I submit to your judgment the principal bases of a constitution, borrowed from that of the year 8. When approved by you, they will become the foundation of our political constitution.
Let us examine what the spirit of them is.