If, twenty years ago, on the morrow after our disasters, just as we once more set about a new organization, putting aside literature, art, and philosophy, noble contemplation and pure speculation, abandoning works already projected, he gave himself up to the technical study of law, political economy and administrative history; if, for twenty years, he secluded himself and devoted himself to his task--at what a cost of prolonged effort, with what a strain his mental faculties, with what weariness and often with what dissatisfaction!--if he shortened his life, it was to discharge what he deemed a duty to that suffering France which he loved with tender and silent passion, the duty of aiding in her cure by establishing the general diagnosis which a philosopher-historian was warranted in presenting after a profound study of its vital constitution.

The examination finished, he felt that he had a right to offer the diagnosis.

Not that his modesty permitted him to foretell the future or to dictate reforms.

When his opinion was asked in relation to any reform he generally declined giving it.

"I am merely a consulting physician," he would reply; "I do not possess sufficient details on that particular question--I am not sufficiently familiar with circumstances which vary from day to day." In effect, according to him, there is no general principle from which one can deduce a series of reforms.