did not, as far as we know, descend from the crusaders. But they had received what M. Vacherot very rightly terms education, as had also those ancient and illustrious families of the Noailles, the Choiseuls and the Polignacs, who, though of aristocratic lineage, remained in an obscure position.
The Constituents of 1789 were also men of education; and they formed the grandest debating Assembly, the grandest Parliamentary Assembly, perhaps, which the world has ever seen. It has left deep and ineffaceable traces on the soil of France; and if the work it brought into existence has some defects of detail which experience and time have already rectified or can hereafter remedy, it will ever stand forth as the inauguration of the political and social transformation of the whole of Europe.
How had these Constituents been elected? Was it by universal suffrage as practised in these days? No. The body of voters at that time could offer pledges of wisdom and sense, in a word, the pledge of education, and this it can do no longer. In admitting that the evil does He in the institutions,—a matter we do not here wish to examine into or discuss,—in admitting that it belongs entirely to individuals, how shall we remedy it, how can we impart to them the education they require? Is not a large proportion of the electoral body itself deprived of education?
When all is said, universal suffrage does not always furnish an enlightened, laborious, patriotic, and disinterested Parliament, holding right opinions as to the general conduct of public business, and more especially as to the Foreign policy best adapted to the times and interests of the country. We have the proof of this to hand.
It is evident that there is a category of electors who in ordinary circumstances are incapable of making an enlightened choice, incapable of distinguishing clearly between men of worth and men totally unfit and unprepared for their representative post. Then there are certain local influences which are not always characterized by prudence, and whose capacity is far below the level of their ambition. Lastly, when M. Vacherot will not admit that the institutions are not answerable for the inferiority of a Republican Parliament, how can he explain that those under the Monarchy were so much superior to these latter?
