becomes legitimate under the imperious law of neceffity. Thefe powerful confiderations were unable to determine your refolutions; you have declined the honour of being yourselves the regenerators of your country.

It were cruel, however, that the people fhould become the victim of your fcruples; but this furely is not your intention, and I willingly do you the juftice to think fo. Your uncertainties, your hefitations, may, notwithstanding, prove fatal to the people. Well! the French republic ftands forward, and is ready to hold out an auxiliary hand to her friend. It is the who, in my perfon, takes upon herself to rescue her from the dif afters with which he is threatened, and to prepare and forward her profperity. When the Cifalpine people behold the re-eftablishment of order-when they fee economy substituted to a fyftem of financial diffipation, and the cause of liberty strengthened and confirmed, they, will doubtlefs do juftice to the purity of the motives that actuate her ally, and will one day gratefully acknowledge this new mark of friendship and attachment.

In confequence of this determination which you, Citizens Legiflators, have compelled me to adopt, I openly declare, that I am now about to produce changes both in your conftitution and in your government, in your internal legiflation and adminiftration; for there are to be found the primary caufes of all the diforders which you yourselves fo bitterly lament: nor let it be imagined that this step in the leaft infringes on your independence; on the contrary, is it not doing it homage, to prevent its being committed and expofed? And what means have you of preferving it, if the diforders that furround you deprive you of all vi gour-fhall you be independent when you thall be no more?

I will now repeat the reasons that render thefe reforms indifpenfably urgent.

The legislative body of the Cifalpine republic has feen the number of its members increafe to two hundred and forty; this degree of reprefentation bore no proportion whatever to the extent and population of the republic. The Cifalpine people were reprefented in a twofold proportion more than the French people-the freeft of the globe; that political fuperfluity was fupported at the expenfe and detriment of the other departments of government-two hundred and forty crowded together to no purpofe in the legislative affemblies, while the adminiftrations, the tribunals of justice, were deprived of the light of their talents: moreover, fuch an excefs in the reprefentation was a very heavy burden upon the people, whereas it is from the contributions of the people that the legislators and all the public officers derive their falaries. It is our duty to cafe the people by diminishing the expenses of the ftate. The national reprefentation fhould be reestablished on its true foundations; the number of one hundred

and

and ten deputies is the nearest proportion to the population of the republic.

I therefore, Citizens Reprefentatives, deem it my duty to reduce to eighty the number of members that are to conftitute the Great Council, and to forty the number of thofe who are to conftitute the Council of Ancients.

I have already observed, that the diforders, the dangers, the evils that attend your republic, originate in the incoherence of the focial organization, in the quarrels that had previously arisen between the two fupreme powers refpecting the extent of their authority, and in the civil difcord that fprung out of thofe contentions. It is therefore upon the focial organization that a reforming hand is now to be fet to work; it must be recompounded, and receive more folid foundations and jufter proportions: the different authorities in their mutual relations to each other, call for more confiftency, and each in particular for more energy. In the crifis in which you are now placed, it is impoffible to wait for the period fixed for revifing them. Such a delay, during which the reign of anarchy must be prolonged, would prove fatal to liberty.

It is therefore indifpenfably neceffary to make several changes in the conftitutional act: the French government pays as much refpect as you can to the fundamental laws of free nations; but the conftitution by which you are directed, is nothing more than a kind of military ordonnance, which the nation has not yet fanctioned, neither by its immediate acceptation nor by its fuffrage for nominating to the different public employments. It therefore cannot be regarded as a definitive plan of government, but as a preliminary effay, which experience has demonftrated to be vicious in many particulars. It is but candour to confefs itthe French conftitution, when fquared on the rule of the Cifalpine, is difproportioned to the extent of that republic; but, while it proves excellent for the great nation, it would overburden and opprefs you-it would be the armour of a man on the body of a child; it crufhes, inftead of protecting it. The Cifalpine conftitution has created two fupreme powers, which, without fixed rules, or fufficient means, have permitted the public authority to become vilified and degraded in their hands.

The great number of your territorial divifions had multiplied your adminiftrations, your tribunals, and the agents of every kind. All these public officers were to be paid, as if they had to act in a much more extenfive circle: it was by these means that the expenfes of the internal adminiftration had fwollen to immense fums, evidently beyond the means of the people. The amount of the money in fpecie which it was neceffary fhould be paid every year in falaries for fo many employments, was loft both

Q92

with

with refpect to the other branches of the public fervice, and for agriculture, for manufactures, and for commerce; in a word, for every thing that is connected with the national profperity.

The tree of liberty must have decayed, fince, in order to nourish with due abundance one of its branches, its fap was to be exhausted, and every other branch was to wither and dry up. It is now neceffary to return to the genuine principles of political

economy.

You are witneffes, Citizens Reprefentatives, of the diforders to which these defects every day gave rife. You cannot but recollect the lamentable divifions that have but too frequently broken out between the Councils and the Directory. If their powers had been more diftinctly feparated-if their respective tafks had been better regulated, we thould not have witneffed thefe fcandalous proceedings, and the public administration would not have fo laboured throughout all its departments.

While the Councils were thus engaged in thefe contentions, they could give no falutary effect to the laws which the people called upon them to enact, and the Directory neglected executing those that were enacted. Already the internal authorities threw off all fubordination; the fuperintendance of the public finances was delivered over to ignorance or to fraud; the body of citizens fplit into parties, in imitation of their magiftrates; the laws remained without vigour; the republic was nothing more than a mere name; and anarchy, the most horrible anarchy, already ftretched wide its deftructive arms over your country. This deplorable fituation ftill continues at the moment I am writing.

It is of the most urgent neceffity to devise a speedy remedy for the evils, the picture of which I have juft been drawing out. The French government imagines it has difcovered this remedy in propofing to you a conftitution bottomed upon the fame principles, and which admits nearly the fame diftribution of power, but which at the fame time must prove far more vigorous and du

rable.

Men of enlightened understandings had pointed out with fuch minute precision both the defects and the advantages of those free conftitutions that of late years have been established, that it was a matter of no difficulty to exclude from this laft political code the imperfections of thofe which ferved as a model to its framers.

You will doubtless be fenfible, Citizens Legislators, of the wisdom and the difpofition which obliges every individual, if he would afpire to be a citizen, to pay a certain contribution; for he maintains a part of the expenfes of the ftate before he reaps his fhare of its enjoyments; nor can the maintenance of public order be effected but by thofe who have fome intereft in preserving it,

The

The right of citizen, the most precious and the most honourable of all rights, had been lavished upon foreigners with a perilous prodigality; but that facility is now checked, and you alfo wil! undoubtedly be of opinion, that previous to obtaining so fignal an advantage in a ftate that is not one's natal fpot, certain pledges ought to be given to the country that adopts; nor can that country acquire thefe pledges and that fecurity but by a series of actions, and not by a fingle individual act. The enemies of the republic might too eafily make an ill ufe of that inconfideratenels, by cherishing within its bofom, under the pretext of former perfecutions, both traitors and fpies; in fine, foreigners that are really perfecuted in their refpective homes, ought to be well fatisfied to meet with an afylum and protection in another country.

Lefs frequent elections will be productive of a double advantage-that of giving more connexion and confiftency to legislative plans, and fettling a fyftem of adminiftration that will lefs frequently call away an agricultural people from their useful

labours.

By beftowing upon the Executive Directory a greater degree of power and confiftency, you will eafily perceive that the motions of the political machine will henceforward be lefs complicated, and confequently more eafy, and productive of more immediate advantages. You will not have to apprehend that they give rife to serious inconveniencies or real dangers to the country; for you know that the legislature is vigilant, and will always check the ufurpations and correct the abufes of power.

Nor fhould I find the leaft difficulty in juftifying every article of this conftitution: it is in fome measure the fruit of experience; it is the moft perfect and complete condition of your prefent conftitution; it is even the perfection of the Roman conftitution, which might already be confiderably amended in its reprefentative system.

By giving, in fine, more energy and confiftency to the different departments of government, it guarantees in a furer manner equality, liberty, fecurity, thofe rights fo juftly dear to man, and which are at the fame time the bafis and the effential conditions of the focial contract.

Swayed by motives thus powerful, I feel, Citizens Legiflators, that I confer the most precious favour on your country by giving it, in the name of the French republic, and by order of the French government, the new conftitution, which I annex to the prefent. This conftitution I offer you, in order that it be immediately substituted in the room of the former one : I entreat you to acknowledge it as the fundamental law of the ftate, and to prefent an addrefs to the Cifalpine people, announcing to them that you are fully fenfible of its advantages-that this is the confti

tution that must henceforward be their rule-and that it must be executed and refpected by all the existing authorities and by every

citizen.

I also transmit to you, Citizens Legislators, the new territorial divifion of the Cifalpine republic. This reduction of the number of departments, the neceffity of which was fo long felt, was made without the leaft regard to local interefts, and the fuggeftions or prejudices of individuals.

It is neceffary that it be adopted and executed in like manner, in order to prevent the numberless remonftrances and endlefs difcuffions of thofe interefts and thofe prejudices which are always hoftile to the general good.

Three other laws have been prepared-one for the organization of the legislative Councils, for their internal regulation, and for the form of their deliberations. You will more especially obferve, that it fixes the number of deputies that each department fhall fend to each of the two Councils at the next elections, and the mode in which the two Councils are to be renewed by the admiffion of a new third.

The fecond law refpects the organization of the adminiftrative bodies.-It-determines, in a fummary manner, the functions of the departmental adminiftrators, and likewife thofe of the municipal administrators. It establishes the power of the Directory, for the first time to nominate to the places of the adminiftrations, until, in the eighth year, the electoral aflemblies hall renew them by the admiffion of a third.

Lastly, the third law has for its object the organization of the tribunals, nor are the circumftances that attend it lefs interefting than the former. You have to organize the juftice of the peace, the civil and the corrective tribunals; the criminal tribunals, and thofe of caffation and of executive juftice. You have to determine which is the authority that fhall choofe your public judges and accufers, functions which they are to discharge ill the election of the eighth year. The law which you are to adopt prefcribes the mode of thefe nominations in a clear and precife manner; and through the provifions of this law, and of the two preceding ones, your Executive Directory will be enabled to put into immediate activity all the departments of your government, and to make the Cifalpine people experience the happiness of an organization purely republican and conftitu.

tional.

It is to give you a complete fyftem of legislation that may make every citizen fenfible of the advantages of this new organization, that I call upon you to choose from among your own body eight commiffioners, upon whom you will impofe the task of preparing this great work within the prefent month. Such is the intention of the French Executive Directory. It does not even for

a moment