as well from a study of the history, the origin, and the nature of the sovereign power (acte constituant), as from an examination into the relations between the powers constituted by this sovereign authority. I have touched on this point more than once in the course of this work. But the thesis is of so much importance that doubtless there will be some interest in taking it up as a conclusion, and in putting it before my readers in a clearer form, with more unity and connection of ideas.
Section ii
In France, when the Revolution broke out, all the old authorities — except the highest — which exercised any kind of public power — e.g., the nobility, clergy, parliament, the provincial estates, officers, magistrates in towns, and had been, by the very action of the ancien régime, humbled and discredited, dispossessed, or made powerless. They were like branches of a tree nourished only by the bark; and there was no object in sparing this half-dead wood which the sap would never nourish again. The Revolution rather overthrew these authorities by its shock than cut them down. Royalty, deprived of its chief branches, which had withered under the shadow of its own mighty foliage, was like a bare trunk standing alone defying the wind, but
