qualified for re-election by universal suffrage, who constitute an
uncontrollable, indissoluble, indivisible National Assembly, a National
Assembly that enjoys legislative omnipotence, that decides in the last
instance over war, peace and commercial treaties, that alone has the
power to grant amnesties, and that, through its perpetuity, continually
maintains the foreground on the stage; on the other, a President, clad
with all the attributes of royalty, with the right to appoint and remove
his ministers independently from the national assembly, holding in his
hands all the means of executive power, the dispenser of all posts, and
thereby the arbiter of at least one and a half million existences in
France, so many being dependent upon the 500,000 civil employees and
upon the officers of all grades. He has the whole armed power behind
him. He enjoys the privilege of granting pardons to individual
criminals; suspending the National Guards; of removing with the consent
of the Council of State the general, cantonal and municipal Councilmen,
elected by the citizens themselves. The initiative and direction of
all negotiations with foreign countries are reserved to him. While the
Assembly itself is constantly acting upon the stage, and is exposed
to the critically vulgar light of day, he leads a hidden life in the
Elysian fields, only with Article 45 of the Constitution before his eyes
and in his heart daily calling out to him, "Frere, il faut mourir!" [#1
Brother, you must die!] Your power expires on the second Sunday of the
beautiful month of May, in the fourth year after your election! The
glory is then at an end; the play is not performed twice; and, if you
have any debts, see to it betimes that you pay them off with the 600,000
francs that the Constitution has set aside for you, unless, perchance,
you should prefer traveling to Clichy [#2 The debtors' prison.] on the
second Monday of the beautiful month of May.

While the Constitution thus clothes the President with actual power, it