M. Thiers rose after M. 011ivier, and delivered a scathing
attack on the address, declaring that the last speech from the Throne denounced liberty as an ingenious but Utopian theory. He held that political liberty must precede all other, and that the things really ingenious in the Napoleonic system were the devices for securing a censorship without seeming to do so, for nullifying universal suffrage, and for creating ministers who spoke but were not responsible. As for the Chambers, Government consulted them when it wished its decrees registered,—announcing war for Italy after a French army had entered Chambdry, for Mexico after a repulse at Puebla, the Italian Convention after it had appeared in the Moniteur. He trusted the edifice would be completed, as' it was not wise for the Government to -withdraw hope from the people. The Government Commissioner replied by a violent de- nunciation of a system under which, as he said, Ministers were masters of the country while they displeased their King.
