freedom! - In the very terms of the Declaration, "the law is the
expression of the universal will." Listen to these clamors in the
open streets, to these petitions flowing in from the towns on all
sides; behold the universal will, the living law which abolishes the
written law! On the strength of this the leader of a few clubs in
Paris are to depose the King, to violate the Legislative Assembly
and decimate the National Convention. - In other terms, the
turbulent, factious minority is to supplant the sovereign nation,
and henceforth there is nothing to hinder it from doing what it
pleases just when it pleases. The operation of the Constitution has
given to it the reality of power, while the preamble of the
Constitution clothes it with the semblance of right.



VI. Summary of the work of the Constituent Assembly.

Such is the work of the Constituent Assembly. In several of its
laws, especially those which relate to private interests, in the
institution of civil regulations, in the penal and rural codes,[41]
in the first attempts at, and the promise of, a uniform civil code,
in the enunciation of a few simple regulations regarding taxation,
procedure, and administration, it planted good seed. But in all
that relates to political institutions and social organization its
proceedings are those of an academy of Utopians, and not those of
practical legislators. - On the sick body entrusted to it, it
performed amputations which were as useless as they were excessive,
and applied bandages as inadequate as they were injurious. With the
exception of two or three restrictions admitted inadvertently, and
the maintenance of the show of royalty, also the obligation of a