Some historians⁠—those biographical and specialist historians already referred to⁠—in their simplicity failing to understand the question of the meaning of power, seem to consider that the collective will of the people is unconditionally transferred to historical persons, and therefore when describing some single state they assume that particular power to be the one absolute and real power, and that any other force opposing this is not a power but a violation of power⁠—mere violence.

Their theory, suitable for primitive and peaceful periods of history, has the inconvenience⁠—in application to complex and stormy periods in the life of nations during which various powers arise simultaneously and struggle with one another⁠—that a Legitimist historian will prove that the National Convention, the Directory, and Bonaparte were mere infringers of the true power, while a Republican and a Bonapartist will prove: the one that the Convention and the other that the Empire was the real power, and that all the others were violations of power. Evidently the explanations furnished by these historians being mutually contradictory can only satisfy young children.