He was but a majestic inutility in the constitution.

The functions destroyed, they left the functionary.

He had but one attribute, the _suspensive veto_, which consisted of his right to suspend, for three years, the execution of the Assembly's decrees.

He was an obstacle; legal, but impotent for the wishes of the nation.

It was evident that the Constituent Assembly, perfectly convinced of the superfluity of the throne in a national government, had only placed a king at the summit of its institutions to check ambition, and that the kingdom should not be called a republic.
The only part of such a king was to prevent the truth from appearing, and to make a show in the eyes of a people accustomed to a sceptre.