The elected
National Assembly stands in a metaphysical, but the elected President in
a personal, relation to the nation. True enough, the National Assembly
presents in its several Representatives the various sides of the
national spirit, but, in the President, this spirit is incarnated. As
against the National Assembly, the President possesses a sort of divine
right, he is by the grace of the people.
Thetis, the sea-goddess, had prophesied to Achilles that he would die
in the bloom of youth. The Constitution, which had its weak spot, like
Achilles, had also, like Achilles, the presentiment that it would depart
by premature death. It was enough for the pure republicans, engaged
at the work of framing a constitution, to cast a glance from the misty
heights of their ideal republic down upon the profane world in order to
realize how the arrogance of the royalists, of the Bonapartists, of
the democrats, of the Communists, rose daily, together with their own
discredit, and in the same measure as they approached the completion of
their legislative work of art, without Thetis having for this purpose to
leave the sea and impart the secret to them.
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