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128 done you justice. We should wash our dirty linen in private, and not drag it out before the world. You call yourselves representatives of the nation. It is not true; you are only deputies of the departments; a small portion of the State, inferior to the Senate, inferior even to the Council of State. The representatives of the people! I am alone the representative of the people. Twice have twenty-four millions of French called me to the throne—which of you durst undertake such a burden? It had already overwhelmed (écrasé) your Assemblies, and your Conventions, your Vergniands and your Guadets, your Jacobins and your Girondins. They are all dead! What, who are you? nothing—all authority is in the throne; and what is the throne? This wooden frame covered with velvet? No, I am the throne. You have added wrong to reproaches. You have talked of concessions—concessions that even my enemies dared not ask. I suppose if they asked Champagne, you would have given them La Brie besides; but in four months I will conquer peace, or I shall be dead. You advise! how dare you debate on such high matters (de si graves interêts)! You have put me in the front of the battle as the cause of war. It is infamous (c'est une atrocité). In all