"The senate, which had been instituted solely to maintain the constitution of the empire, acknowledged itself, that it had no power to alter it. It decreed, that the scheme of a constitution, which it had prepared, should be submitted to the people for their acceptance, and that Louis Stanislas Xavier should be proclaimed King of the French, as soon as he had accepted the constitution, and sworn to observe it, and cause it to be observed.
"The abdication of the Emperor Napoleon was solely the result of the unfortunate situation, to which France and the Emperor had been reduced by the events of the war, by treason, and by the occupation of the capital. The only object of the abdication was, to avoid a civil war, and the shedding of French blood. Unsanctioned by the will of the people, this act could not annul the solemn contract, that was established between them and the Emperor. And if Napoleon possessed the power of abdicating the throne in his own person, he had none to sacrifice the rights of his son, appointed to reign after him.
"The Emperor, therefore, by re-ascending the throne, to which the people had elevated him, restored the people to their most sacred rights: he only called into execution the decrees of the Representative Assemblies, sanctioned by the nation: he returns to reign on the only legitimate principle, that France acknowledges and has acknowledged for five and twenty years, and to which all the authorities bound themselves by oaths, that they can be released from by the will of the people alone.
"The Emperor is called upon, to guaranty anew, by institutions, as he has engaged to do in his proclamations to the nation and the army, all the principles of liberty: personal freedom, and equality of rights; the freedom of the press, and abolition of the censorship; freedom of religious worship; the voting of laws and contributions by the representatives of the nation lawfully chosen; national property, from whatever source arising; the independence and stability of our tribunals; the responsibility of ministers, and of all the agents of authority.
"The more perfectly to sanction the rights and obligations of the people and the monarch, the national institutions should be revised in a grand assembly of the representatives already announced by the Emperor.
"Previous to the meeting of this grand representative assembly, the Emperor ought to exercise, and cause to be exercised, conformably to the existing laws and constitution, the authority they have delegated to him, which could not be taken from him, which he could not abdicate without the consent of the nation, and which the wishes and general interest of the French people render it his duty to resume."
The Emperor answered:
"Princes are the first citizens of the state: their authority is more or less extensive according to the interests of the nations they govern: the sovereignty itself is hereditary only because the interest of the people requires it. I know nothing of a legitimacy extraneous to these principles.
"I have renounced the idea of that grand empire, of which in the course of fifteen years I had merely laid the foundations: henceforward the happiness and consolidation of the French empire will be the object of all my thoughts."
The court of cassation expressed the same principles and the same sentiments as the council of state.